Happy Holidays to all you Pirate-heads out there. Time to count your blessings over the next few weeks, spend time with loved ones, and make resolutions about the future. It's also a time to look back at 2005.

Jimmy Buffett once sang about changes and how nothing remains quite the same... but if we couldn't laugh then we'd all go insane. That should be the theme for ECU this last year. It will go down as one of the most tumultuous in ECU history. Looking back, you can't help but chuckle in amazement at all the changes that happened. January saw the start of the Skip Holtz football era; February saw the end of the Bill Herrion basketball era; the baseball team made another deep post season run, but Randy Mazey was suspended this fall and replaced by Billy Godwin. The men's soccer program was dropped; the football program seems to have new life; the women's basketball program got off to its best start in almost 20 years.

The new year will bring hopes of better men's basketball, a trip to Omaha, a winning football season and a bowl game around the holidays a year from now.

So enjoy the holiday season, don't get too stressed out, watch lots of sports, relax, eat tasty foods, and get a little exercise (good to balance things out). And get ready for another fun calendar year of ECU athletics, and hopefully less turmoil and more good memories. And don't forget to laugh, so you don't go insane. Happy Holidays!!!!