This will be my third year operating eCz, which has been sort of a hit-and-miss project for me. Sometimes, that's just how life operates.
Things will be different this time, for obvious reasons. For one, at this point, I pretty much know the same as everyone else about the inner workings of the team. I am not an "expert", by any means, not that I ever was in the first place. I won't be calling up coach Forrester to ask about the latest signing or pry into the non-conference schedule 6 months in advance. I have graduated college, effectively forcing me out of my job at the Alestle and have passed that torch on to individuals I can only hope do as much to cover this team as I once did. If you tweet me an SIUE basketball question, there is a strong chance I'll blatantly say "I don't know."
After graduating, I ended up washing dishes at a restaurant in Edwardsville for three months. There simply aren't many journalism jobs out there, let alone well paying ones in the area.While I would have preferred to take my usual seat on the baseline at the Vadalabene Center through the duration of the year and possibly make a few late season trips to EIU and SEMO my schedule simply didn't allow it. I had a hard enough time getting a shift covered to string the big ESPNU game against Murray State for the Edwardsville Intelligencer, but I made it work.
Due to this, the blog which was very strong in November and early December (contributing heavily to the more than 60,500 page views we have received in three years) suffered a dramatic drop off while the Cougars out-performed their dismal pre-season projections. (For the record, I had them winning 12 games.)
I have some more time on my hands right now. I am working my first out-of-school journalism job at the Troy Times Tribune covering board meetings and writing profiles on advertisers. It's not where I see myself in 10, 5, heck, maybe even one year, but it's a start and I'm grateful for that. It's not rare to have extended periods of free time I can use to post on here and I don't even have to be sneaky about it. They are pretty relaxed.
So, we will try again. When the season rolls around, I'm not sure if I'll be writing passionate, long-winded, back story laden previews and recaps of each game, but I'll at least get the stats and quick hits out there. Right now, we are in the off-season. I won't be covering soccer because that's just too much to get into from the outside, but I do hope to make it to the Ralph on a few occasions. I love it. I've had a habit of trolling the internet and Twitter searching SIUE and SIU Edwardsville (because those on the outside don't know that is an unacceptable way to refer to the university.) At least they dropped the hyphen. Most of my information will come from there. I am a twitter fanatic. As far as real basketball coverage goes I'm sure this blog can get me credentialed again. I know enough people at SIUE I miss seeing on a regular basis. Maybe I'll reach out to visiting newspapers and do some stringing for them. Who knows? I have felt the urge for a few weeks to get back to writing sports and doing it on my own where it all started is probably a good place to start.
See you soon.
