Farewell Inside & Outside Army and Forgotten 5
2,607 days. That’s how long I’ve been running Inside & Outside Army. It’s truly been a life-changing experience, but it is coming to an end.
After graduating from college, I accepted a job with UCF Athletics to work as a sports information director in the strategic communications department. With my start date being July 1st, I figured the perfect end to my run with IOA and Forgotten 5 would be the end of Army’s baseball season.
As I write this, Army is about to get underway against Southern Miss in the first game of the Hattiesburg regional, and it has me thinking about why I started this account in the first place. I started it after spending my spring break following Army baseball around Tampa as they played UMass and Harvard. About two weeks later, IOA (then under a different name) was born. Army baseball started it. It’s only fitting that Army baseball closes it.
Never in my wildest dreams would I have expected the Twitter account I made in the middle of my history class in 9th grade to lead to a future in writing about sports and culture, hosting a show, and then turning that into a chance to work within college athletics.
The truth is, I have zero idea what I’d be doing right now if it weren’t for that little Twitter account. IOA and Forgotten 5 have been such a massive part of my life. Pretty much every single Army football game since 2015 has seen me tweeting in all caps reactions to every little thing, including play-by-play of the entire fourth quarter and overtime of the Oklahoma game since they put it behind a paywall.
I have to mention Forgotten 5. My most personal work is housed on F5, and although I’ve not written anything on there in over a year because of school and internships, it’s tough to step away officially.
I’ve grown up in front of IOA and F5’s audience. I started IOA my freshman year of high school and joined F5 two years later. Now I’m a college graduate. It’s crazy to think it’s been this long.
I may have angered people along the way, and I may not have run this thing perfectly. Still, one thing I am proud of is I know how much people enjoyed coming onto Twitter and interacting with IOA because of the community we created.
To all my followers, readers, and viewers, I can only thank you for helping me become who I am today. This isn’t a goodbye to Army Athletics. However, it’s still tough knowing I won’t be interacting with the fantastic people I’ve built relationships with over the last seven years, one month, and 19 days every day. You can still follow me on every social media platform at @AlexFunderburke. I hope you all come with me on my journey through college athletics.
Thank you to all the athletes, coaches, and people within the Army Athletic Department. When I was 15, you all could’ve banned me from everything because I had no clue what I was doing, but you didn’t and, knowingly or unknowingly, took a chance on me to figure it out and grow from failure.
I’m not deleting the account because I want the tweets to live forever, but I will officially log out for good once Army’s baseball season ends. Let’s hope they make a Cinderella run to Omaha so that I can stick around a little longer. As always, Go Army Beat navy!