Building Toward the Future 06-06

I got a call a few months ago from the Atlantic 10 conference, asking if I’d like to write a few articles this summer for the league’s web site. The A-10 said it’d pay me in money, so, naturally, I said yes. Here’s the first one, a study on why the conference’s schools have been building and revamping their basketball arenas and how much the new construction is helping the A-10.

I figured that if I can talk to St. Joseph’s coach Phil Martelli – who is my favorite coach in the A-10 (at least from a media perspective), followed by Dayton’s Brian Gregory – and CBSSports.com basketball writer Gary Parrish, then, yeah, I said, I can write the story. So, that’s what I did. And Martelli and Parrish made it infinitely better.

And a key fact: for the first time since I started my freelance career in Jan. 2008 after the Cincinnati Post’s demise, this is the first time I’ve been paid before I wrote a story. So, yeah, the motivation wasn’t so high after I deposited the money in my bank account. Actually, that’s not true. But still, I’m happy that I know the money is safe in hand. This is not true for three stories I wrote last August (still haven’t been paid for those).

I watched five seconds of the Michael Jackson tribute this afternoon. That’s all I could stand. Luckily, my cable was out most of the day, so I didn’t have a choice.

Best news of the day, though, comes from C. Trent Rosecrans: after a week of vacation, Thinking Out Loud is back.