You couldn’t see me, but before writing this sentence I spent five minutes pacing the floor with the entranced energy of an expectant father or a laboratory rat injected with the caffeine equivalent of a dozen cups of coffee.

Today’s assignment is the most daunting of my career, because like any self-respecting sports editor, I’m pushing myself to accomplish the impossible with limited resources.

My purposes, in no particular order, are:

Highlighting my 15-year anniversary at the Sun Journal in several hundred words.

Dropping a list of names that might not make a talk radio-crazed fan from Toledo blink but mean the world to me.

Saying goodbye.

Excuse me while I replenish this mug with black coffee and wander some more.

For my entire existence in the work force, sports has consumed my brain, put food in my belly and kept my feet moving all over God’s creation to cover the next game, profile or human-interest story.

As for the most important parts of my being, however, my heart and soul are now elsewhere. So I’m moving on. Next time you see this smiling face, it will greet you from a new photo on a different page.

I’ve been granted an opportunity too precious to pass up. In March, I’ll begin the process of re-inventing myself as this paper’s full-time news columnist.

Yeah, I know. For those of you who’ve followed my path in sports since I was a junior at Monmouth Academy, covering American Legion baseball and Oxford Plains Speedway, this is not unlike accepting Ron Howard as a director after two decades of knowing him as Opie and Richie.

All I can ask is please give it a try, because this decision is irreversible and truthfully is no decision at all. Personally and professionally, for more reasons than I’ll bore you with here, it’s a dream job.

And that’s saying something.

Sports have granted me access to sight, sound and seats that would have put me in permanent drool mode as a kid.

Paid to watch world championship fights, minor league baseball, NASCAR races, high school basketball tournaments, March Madness and thousands of boys and girls experiencing the thrill of winning a state championship? Are you kidding?

That list of privileges intentionally was written in ascending order. Tales of the little stuff are what I’ll relay to annoyed grandchildren, not infrequent flirtations with the big time.

What will I remember most?

Watching all four of Cindy Blodgett’s state championship game triumphs at Lawrence High School and all four trips to the NCAA Tournament with the University of Maine. Yes, she was that good.

John Wassenbergh of South Portland and Mark Reed of Bangor causing me to run out of ink and adjectives during their five-overtime Class A boys’ basketball final in 1992. The scoreboard said South Portland won, but as a spectator I’d say we all did.

Leavitt Area High School (1995) and Winthrop High School (2000) proving to me that you don’t need to draw from 1,300 students to have a great football team.

Ricky Craven turning the little race that could, the Oxford 250, into his personal playground in 1991, then essentially telling a roomful of reporters that his next stops were Charlotte and Daytona. Good call.

Andy Bedard of Mountain Valley making my perilous trip along snowswept Interstate 95 worthwhile by lighting up Camden-Rockport for 53 points in a state hoop final. He could have scored 80 if he wanted to.

Jeff Love nailing an off-balance, from-the-hip shot just before the horn to push Winthrop past Washington Academy for the 1992 Class C basketball title. The only time I ever applauded a play at the end of the game.

But I had to physically stop myself from breaking that cardinal rule of impartiality after watching Jason Brooks, Dave Wellington, Jeremy Shorey and the Lisbon Greyhounds march 98 yards in less than three minutes to capture the 1997 Class C football crown. Rick Foss, one of the best friends I’ve made as a result of this business and parent of a player on that team, graciously sent me a game tape that’s twice as grainy now that I’ve watched it 98 times.

Tough to sift through the memories and unearth precise details and specific names when the topic is high school athletics. That’s the joy and appeal of scholastic sports. The names in the program don’t really matter. The competition and emotion are the attraction.

Time for another break full of roaming and reminiscing. My poor carpet.

I’ve been blessed with six exceptional bosses, all of whom provided an invaluable building block in my professional development.

Charlie Pomerleau remains one of the nicest people I’ve ever met. Nate Dow had the faith to give me assignments that a teenager had no business covering. Doug Clawson encouraged me to shoot for Page 1, even though I was a “sports guy.”

Bob Aube took the risk of giving me this column. Ben Stackhouse provided a calming influence to my Type A-plus personality. And Rex Rhoades handles his seemingly impossible job with grace, compassion and a stern eye for detail.

I appreciate them. Most of all, I appreciate you, faithful readers. And I invite you to follow me as I make this move, which in terms of office space is about a dozen footsteps. In other, intangible ways, it’s a quantum leap.

See you on the other side.

Just as soon as I stop pacing.

Kalle Oakes joined the Sun Journal sports department on March 9, 1989 and was sports editor since January 2000.