College Hoop Soup: For Love of the Game

Once upon a time, not long before the internet age, I was a sports writer for my local hometown paper.  Pay was a whopping $15 an article to cover Mayville (WI) High School football and basketball games and I probably spent most of that money on gas money getting myself to and from the events.  I was smart enough to know that the time and effort I put into the gig wasn't anywhere near the pay, but I didn't really care.  I wasn't doing it for the money, I was doing it for the love of the game.

Now roughly a decade after having penned (literally penned!) my last sports article, I sat watching the awesomeness that is March Madness on TV last week thinking about what makes college hoops so damn great.  Many things spring to mind - rabid student sections, effective zone defenses, and hearing Bill Raftery holler "Onions!!!" after a ballsy play (to name a few) - but what really stands out is the passion with which the kids play the game.   And it's that passion, that love of the game that I can connect with.

So with that I was inspired and decided it's time for a comeback.  Time to hit the gym, shake off that rusty pen, and get back into game shape.  There's this thing called "blogging" now and apparently they let anybody with an internet connection write about whatever the hell they feel like writing about (suckers!).  And because I have impeccable timing with the college basketball season winding down in a couple weeks, I thought it ingenious to start up the "College Hoop Soup" blog right here, right now.  (oy......plenty of time until the start of the 2010 - 2011 season to rethink that name).

College Hoop Soup is gonna keep it MOSTLY on the light side, folks.  Future topics may include the epidemic of white scrubs cheering erratically and uncontrollably at end of every team's bench or perhaps an investigation as to why college coaches insist on bad haircuts.  We'll debate the pro prospects of college studs.  We'll talk about the most underrated and overrated venues to catch a game.  We'll attempt to unravel the mystery as to what compels a college student to dress up as an alligator, drunken leprechaun, or giant tree mascot (I'm looking at you Stanford Cardinal tree guy).  Anything goes so long as it's college hoops related.


Links, videos, story ideas you'd like for me to check out or write about are always welcome.  Feel free to contact me at gregwondra@yahoo.com.  Enjoy the blog, you're all invited.