Sports Writer to Be

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Out in the West Texas Town of El Paso . . .

I Fell in Love With a School in the WAC

by John Doyle, sportswriter2b.com

The "conference musical chairs" that began with the ACC's pillage of the Big East continued today, and now it has affected a school that I consider family. The University of Texas at El Paso, in another attempt to bolster its once moribund athletic program, has accepted an offer to leave the Western Athletic Conference and join the Conference USA.

I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, I am happy for UTEP. With the (somewhat controversial) hiring of Mike Price to head their football program and their basketball team's unexpectedly hot season which resulted in an at-large berth to the NCAA Tournament, the school is making it clear that they intend to become a part of the national sports scene. This is a development that has taken way too long, in my opinion. Their natural rivalries with New Mexico and New Mexico State long since diminished and all but eliminated, it had been hard as a Lobo fan to watch the continuing decline of a once-proud athletic program. UTEP fans were among the most dedicated and loyal in the country, and they deserved better.

The most devastating blow came in 1998, when half of the ridiculous sixteen-team WAC decided to bolt and form the Mountain West, leaving the traditional (and somewhat reliable) WAC with only seven teams, including UTEP. This move made absolutely no sense. Actually, it made no sense to expand the old ten-team WAC to sixteen in 1995, but to not include El Paso in the MWC was completely cruel, seeing that is was UTEP that initiated the conversations to rein in the behemoth that the poor old WAC had become. El Paso is a huge city. Wouldn't the television ratings alone be improved if you could include the El Paso market in the new conference?

But instead, UTEP was left to wallow in a conference that had become more and more ridiculous, eventually stretching from Hawaii to Louisiana. The MWC did not do much better, eventually realizing they had to expand to become stable in the age of shuffling conferences and obscene revenues for the bigger-time athletic programs. But when it came time to do just that, the Mountain West went with Texas Christian. TCU? Why the Mountain West did not just add Fresno State and UTEP completely baffles me. That way, you would have the original ten-team WAC mostly restored, with UNLV instead of Hawaii as the only difference. Which makes sense, seeing that the burdens of traveling to Hawaii was one of the major reasons the sixteen-team WAC was dissolved.

I hope this move to the C-USA will be another feather in UTEP's cap. I wish the powers that were had done the right thing years ago, but it does not look like that is going to happen--ever. So good for UTEP, I guess.

*****One thing I loved about UTEP is their fight song--a rendition of Marty Robbin's 1959 classic tune "El Paso." To listen to the marching-band rendition, click here. (Or purchase NCAA Football 2004 for your PlayStation, and score a touchdown with the Miners.)

*****I am dreaming if I think anyone other than my small circle of friends reads this blog, but if you read Bob Ryan's column of April 26th, you will notice he used the term "Bizarro World" in the third graph to describe the Celtics' chances against the Pacers in the first round of the NBA playoffs. I used the same term to describe the same thing back on April 17. But Ryan at least spelled it right.

*****Another guy who might be following me around with a hidden microphone, Dan Wetzel wrote an excellent column on Yahoo! Sports (also on April 26th) about the state of the NHL, and the implications of a team in Canada possibly winning the whole thing this year. It echoes many of the same sentiments I wrote in my columns of April 20 and April 7.

*****I have had a lot of fun at the expense of those who were fooled into thinking the Boston Celtics had anything to celebrate by barely qualifying for the NBA Playoffs as the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference. I owe you all a big apology. Watching the highlights of the Minnesota Timberwolves win their first ever playoff series, you'd think the team just won the NBA Finals.

*****I have some nice friends:

D,

You did it! All the hard work paid off. Now get out there and dig into the nitty gritty of the Dover/Rochester/Nute/Gonic area.

Brennan Palmer

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Dude, that is awesome! Incredible! Man, how cool is that. You are living every man's dream. Imagine having a job where you are immersed in sports!!! Dude, you will get paid for doing what many would love to do. You can be the Ken Sickenger of NH! How freakin exciting. So now, you will not have to be like me, having to sneak peaks at the NMAA website and the sports sections of other towns to get caught up on sports and hope your boss does not catch you. That will be what you do for a living! You will be required to do all that.....this is all too cool. Dude, I implore you to make an effort to do an awesome high school football preview. You must! Get out there in August and get it done. We used to have an awesome one here but it fizzled out over the years. You should even see if you can get your employers to let you do a special feature. After you get your feet wet in this job, you have got to move back here to cover HS sports here so then you can get me in to all the games as your sidekick. Dude, this is awesome. I am pretty happy for you, yet a bit envious. Sports as a career. Awesome. Congrats......How completely cool. This is certainly a big step for your career.--John Valdez

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HOLY CRAP!!! JHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Not "to be" but Just THE SPORTS WRITER! THat's awesome amigo!!! You must be pumped. I definitely am. I've got to say you have perhaps the most dedication to a career over anybody I know - maybe [my friend] Blake at DLP [in Albuquerque, New Mexico] would compete with you. But he didn't do it for free. Seriously man, next to [Marisol] being pregnant, I couldn't be more proud of you!

Congrats, Johnny!

Rhooooms,
Wally Benson

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This is HUGE news! Congratulations!--Scott Lianos

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John, Congrats on the new job at Fosters!! That’s great news! Best of luck to you.--Jacqueline Lianos

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Congrats on the baby and the new job and the fact that everything is falling into place for you!--Nicole McMillan

John Doyle is a Sports Reporter for Foster's Daily Democrat in Dover, New Hampshire.

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SPORTSWRITER TO BE, NO MORE

No, I am not dead . . .

by John Doyle, sportswriter2b.com

My first post in one full week, and a lot has gone on in the life of the Sports Writer to Be.

I looked forward to this column for a number of reasons. I wanted to write about my first New Hampshire Fisher Cats game. I wanted to write about my experience at Pro Player Stadium, watching the Marlins and the Braves. And I will get to all of that, but first . . . the BIG news.

The "Sports Writer to Be" is no more. That's right. The dream has become a reality. The Sports Writer to Be is now, quite simply, the Sportswriter. I have been offered, and have accepted, a position as Sports Reporter for Foster's Daily Democrat in Dover, New Hampshire. I begin my new career on May 10.

I could not be more excited for this, and for all the obvious reasons. Now I can write about sports for a full-time job. Yes, I will be giving up my weekends. Yes, I will have to report to work at 5:30 most mornings. Yes, there will be lots of late night deadlines to meet. It will be hard work. Just like any job, there will be office politics to deal with. But I am back in sports, and I could not be happier.

I would never be so bold as to say that I have "paid my dues." There are a lot of people out there who have paid higher "dues" than I have and not gotten anywhere. But the days of dragging my ass out of bed at four a.m. to work at "The Sports Animal" for fast-food wages, giving up my Friday nights to freeze my ass off at high school football games and taking unpaid job after unpaid job have finally paid off in my first ever full-time gig as a sportswriter.

And no, I am not going to be covering the Super Bowl, the Final Four or the World Series any time soon. I will not be slurping down shrimp with Dan Shaughnessy and Bob Ryan in the Fenway Park press room for a while. I will not appear on "Around the Horn" or "Pardon the Interruption" for a few years, or until ESPN gets sick of Dan Le Batard and Jay Mariotti.

But I am back in sports. I will still freezing my ass off, mind you, but at least now it is my full-time job. I couldn't be happier.

They say good things come in threes. A new house, a new baby on the way for me and Marisol, and a new job as a sportswriter. I think I am through with "life changes" for a while.

*****So many people to thank. First of whom, of course, is my wife and best friend Marisol, who believed in me when I was getting fired from job after job, when I was taking abuse from the bastards at Citadel, and when I couldn't take her out for a night on the town because I had to cover a high school basketball game forty miles away. And she did a great job pretending to care about what I wrote on this blog.

My parents--I mean, enough said. Thank you for everything.

My Aunty Bobby, who would not settle for me to waste my life in retail and other worthless pursuits. She new I had the stuff to make a living as a writer. And she took pretty good care of me when I lived in New Mexico.

To all the readers of this blog, including its most enthusiastic ones: John Valdez, Brennan Palmer, Scott Lianos, Walt Benson and Brett Holmes.

To Michael Mutnansky, who took me under his wing as a correspondent for Friday Night Lights. That radio show, next to all the new house and new baby stuff, was by far the highlight of my year. And if not for FNL, my resume would not have looked nearly as good.

And to Foster's Daily Democrat, who is taking a chance on this guy. I promise I won't let you down.

*****Coming soon: I WILL write about the New Hampshire Fisher Cats and my impressions of the Gill Stadium experience. Plus, I have a lot to say about my experience at Pro Player Stadium in Miami, where I saw the Florida Marlins beat the Braves last Saturday night. (Coincidentally, I was just back from a trip to Florida in 2002 when I was offered the job at 610. If ever I pursue another job in sports, I'll be off to Florida immediately after the interview).

John Doyle is a sportswriter for Foster's Daily Democrat in Dover, New Hampshire.

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