Hostylefax: I am Very Busy and Important
Here's a quick update from me. I've been on the road for awhile.
I spent half a day Wednesday in Orange County at media day for the conference the schools I cover will join next year. One-day trips carry a special resonance for me. Fritz used to take them all the time from Detroit to Washington, to do various things. So to catch the early flight down and still get to sleep in your own bed feels like a thin slice of heaven. The awkward part is that representatives of the two NorCal schools in the league were doing the same thing. So you're on a plane, but you're not really on duty yet. So my preference is to leave people alone. The format of media day resembles a speed date. The coaches and players sit a table, and you have 45 minutes to talk to any and all of them. The contrivance of the whole thing gets to you a while. I had two problems. I covered the women's basketball team last year, so during those sessions, I had an excellent idea of the continuing story lines. During the men's segment, I just sat quietly and tried to ask follow-ups. Mostly I was just embarassed by my own silence.
Then I spent the weekend in South Dakota. The trip went through Salt Lake City again, but Delta's subcontracter made up for the previous trip. I found that Sioux Falls is not nearly when you don't have a hard-drinking other newspaper guy to show you around. I watched the demise of the Detroit Tigers at a Buffalo Wild Wings, surrounded by a peewee football team that was celebrating something or other. It was a sad defeat, but certainly well deserved. I don't have a championship fetish, in that I still think Detroit's roster was much better top to bottom, but a competition is competition. The game was about 50 miles north, and there is basically nothing along the plains as you go north. The setting of the game was about 43 miles from the Laura Ingalls Wilder home, which is sort of interesting if you're into that sort of thing. I ate entirely too much at dinner at a place called Granite City, which I recommend to anyone. But mostly I spent my down time hiding out in my hotel room.
I spent half a day Wednesday in Orange County at media day for the conference the schools I cover will join next year. One-day trips carry a special resonance for me. Fritz used to take them all the time from Detroit to Washington, to do various things. So to catch the early flight down and still get to sleep in your own bed feels like a thin slice of heaven. The awkward part is that representatives of the two NorCal schools in the league were doing the same thing. So you're on a plane, but you're not really on duty yet. So my preference is to leave people alone. The format of media day resembles a speed date. The coaches and players sit a table, and you have 45 minutes to talk to any and all of them. The contrivance of the whole thing gets to you a while. I had two problems. I covered the women's basketball team last year, so during those sessions, I had an excellent idea of the continuing story lines. During the men's segment, I just sat quietly and tried to ask follow-ups. Mostly I was just embarassed by my own silence.
Then I spent the weekend in South Dakota. The trip went through Salt Lake City again, but Delta's subcontracter made up for the previous trip. I found that Sioux Falls is not nearly when you don't have a hard-drinking other newspaper guy to show you around. I watched the demise of the Detroit Tigers at a Buffalo Wild Wings, surrounded by a peewee football team that was celebrating something or other. It was a sad defeat, but certainly well deserved. I don't have a championship fetish, in that I still think Detroit's roster was much better top to bottom, but a competition is competition. The game was about 50 miles north, and there is basically nothing along the plains as you go north. The setting of the game was about 43 miles from the Laura Ingalls Wilder home, which is sort of interesting if you're into that sort of thing. I ate entirely too much at dinner at a place called Granite City, which I recommend to anyone. But mostly I spent my down time hiding out in my hotel room.
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