Hoopscribe To Branch Out For Column Writing Work

Here's a preview of coming attractions, mostly for sports fans in upstate New York but also for any of you who read about sports on the internet.

Your Hoopscribe is taking on additional writing duties, this time as a sports columnist at The Troy Record Newspaper. I'll be writing two columns a week, and those will appear on Wednesday and Sunday, beginning this Sunday.

So, go out and buy The Record on those days (or, every day for that matter for terrific coverage of local sports in its area). Or, check in on line at www.troyrecord.com

The columns will draw on my "expertise," such as it is. Basketball, obviously, will be a major topic and there will be much about our favorite conference (the MAAC, of course). We'll also touch on UAlbany hoops, as well as much, much more.

This new opportunity will have no affect on the MAAC blog, which will continue to present expertise/opinion/news/perspective, etc., and, hopefully, will continue to draw the close to 10,000 hits per month.

In fact, the new gig is certain to be an aid to the MAAC blog. It will ensure that I'm even more involved with college basketball beyond the MAAC, and that should mean finding more issues and news that will pertain to our conference and be worthy of posts on "Keepin' Track of the MAAC."

And, I'll still be doing radio color commentary for the Siena women's team, still get to just about every Siena men' home game and still get on the road for some MAAC games elsewhere. So,the MAAC will have as much of my attention as ever ... maybe even more.

How did this new gig come about?

I have good, long-time friends in place at the administration level at The Record. They know me well ... and, somehow, they still wanted to hire me.

I guess they think I can add something to their sports section, and I'll be giving that my best shot.

I am honored to know that I'll be upstate New York's most-featured columnist. No other local paper has a columnist who writes more than once weekly.

I'll try to bring The Record the same philosophy that I bring to "Keepin' Track of the MAAC." I've been working in upstate New York for 32 of my professional years, and grew up in the region as a sports fan. So, there's a considerable connection to area history.

It helps to be old, I guess. I'm not old enough to have seen baseball Hall of Famers Johnny Evers of Troy, or George Davis of Cohoes, play their games. But, I'm old enough to know who they are and to have written about them extensively. And, I will again.

I'm not old enough to have seen Billy Harrell play basketball at Siena in the 1950's, but I am old enough to have been around when Siena moved to Division I, when it moved to the MAAC and when it went to its first NIT and NCAA tournaments, and those experiences will be fodder for future columns.

I've been there, and done that ... a lot. And, now, comes an opportunity to do more.

I'm looking forward to it, just like I always look forward to writing about the MAAC in this space.

Hopefully you'll keep checking in here ... and, then, add The Troy Record (or, it's website) to your reading list, too.