Introducing a new (old) writer, for a New Era(tm)
Back when I used to write for OVC Ball, (as OVC Ball? It was confusing) I often started and ended each season with an essay, anything but X's and O's. Consider this an introduction.
Let’s start with a story.
11 years ago this November, I found myself sitting inside a Buffalo Wild Wings in Paducah, Kentucky around 5:30 a.m. It was closed of course, but my friend and colleague Jeff Bidwell somehow convinced them to let him tape his radio show inside at that time. For reasons still unbeknownst to me, he invited me to be a guest. (Probably because who else was accepting at that god-awful hour.)
I did two segments on-air, talking about Ohio Valley Conference basketball, which I had covered for several seasons behind the monicker “OVC Ball.” During the commercial break in between, Jeff and I talked about one of the biggest news events of the day: historic snowfall in Buffalo, New York. “Snowvember,” as it would become known as, was tragic -- 13 people died, some stuck in their cars on roads as the heaviest snow fell. There was one picture in particular that had been circulating, showing seven-foot high walls of snow surrounding roads.
“You couldn’t pay me enough to live there,” I said, showing Jeff the photo.
“And welcome back. Catlin’s just sharing with us his feelings on moving to Buffalo.”
Ah. I didn’t realize the commercial break was over.
Fate, being the cosmic comedian it often is, would soon prove my statement untrue. Just six months later, I applied for and soon accepted a job in Buffalo, packed my things, and moved to what felt like another world to the heat and humidity of the south where I spent my entire life.
I greatly enjoyed my time in New York’s only city with a professional football team (look it up) -- it’s a fantastic, rustic, midwestern city, and there’s not a pro-sports town like it that I’ve ever seen. When the Bills are good, heck when the Bills are *above* average that city comes alive in an incredible way. It transforms Buffalo, creating an excitement you can feel every time you’re shoveling your driveway or someone is helping you up because you slipped on ice in the Wegmans parking lot again.
But that doesn’t mean I’ve never seen anything like it.
”A new era.” It’s a phrase loved by sports departments. New coach or AD? New era. Stadium renovation? New era. New conference? You guessed it, new era.
Like coaches preach to their teams, it’s part of a relentless focus on the future. Next play, next man up, next game, next season.
We live in a time of incredible uncertainty, surrounding not only college sports as a whole but Murray State in specific. Racers men’s basketball have gone from a perennial frontrunner in the Ohio Valley to a crowded field of better financed mid-majors in the Missouri Valley, while the Racers’ women surge like they never have before. NIL has changed the landscape of recruiting, as players look not only for the best opportunity but the biggest paycheck.
Money has always mattered in college sports, to be sure, but it’s not always been this forward facing. We’re now aware just how much money is and isn’t flowing to programs and players, and sometimes even who that money is flowing from.
And when you’re a school like Murray State -- a school that has such a rich history -- it can feel like there’s a lot to lose.
Maybe more to lose than to gain.
I, like so many Murray State fans, had an unexpected trip to make this year. On one Tuesday morning early this summer, I ignored work and grabbed the first plane ticket I could to Omaha, Nebraska. I had just watched Murray State baseball celebrate not once, but twice winning their Super Regional over Duke. And I didn’t know what to expect, but I knew that being in Omaha was something I wanted to be a part of.
And sure, it ended with the Racers on the wrong end of an incredible, historical performance by an opposing pitcher. But just being there, baking in the sun, yelling and screaming with people I just met minutes before, watching former Racer (They’ll always be the Breds to me) pitchers in the stands trying to jinx a no hitter -- that’s one of those stories old friends and I will be telling each other for years. Just like all the basketball stories we told to each other over drinks at Let it Fly.
Sooner than many may have hoped, it was time to return to our normal, pre-College World Series life. At the airport, I had already draped my noise-cancelling headphones around my neck, typically a clear sign that I wasn’t looking for small talk. I paid the extra $15 to board the Southwest flight early, and as I’m secured in my seat, a couple from Murray, likely seeing my cap, ask to sit next to me.
Turns out, I didn’t need the headphones. We spent the whole flight talking about the Racers: we talked about the new basketball coach, the old basketball coach, the future of the baseball team, the fan turnout in Omaha, how incredibly hot and sweaty Dunker must have been in that suit in the sun. And we talked about how incredibly blessed we were to see all that we had seen over the years.
31-2. A Danero Thomas fadeaway. An assistant coach stumbling on a once-in-a-generation talent in an auxiliary gym. Aubrey Reese at the buzzer. Dickie V. NC State. Vanderbilt. Colorado State. Marquette. San Francisco.
In a lot of ways, no one really wants a new era. So many Racer fans would love nothing more than most of the last 15 years of men’s basketball to repeat itself, forever. But without the new era ushered in by Dan Skirka in 2019, not many people in Murray, Kentucky would have thought about making last-minute travel plans to Omaha, either.
‘New eras,’ like fate, are funny like that sometimes.
Uncertainty is such an incredible emotion. It can drive you crazy. It can make you say things you shouldn’t. It can enrage you. It can make you cry.
But that uncertainty often leads to moments of jubilation. Moments that make best friends of complete strangers in the seat next to you. Moments that make you cry, but differently.
Sometimes, a new era is ushered upon you. Sometimes, a new era is chosen because of frustration with the old era.
But it always brings with it the hope of new experiences. New stories to tell. New trips to take. New newsletters to write.
(...is that last one just me? That last one might just be me.)
I spent a lot of time with my grandparents growing up. As many grandfathers do, mine had a specific seat in the living room. That’s where he’d eat peanut butter and grape jelly on saltines, where he’d drink his instant decaf coffee. From that chair, we’d watch Looney Tunes cartoons together, him rooting in vain for Wile E. Coyote to win.
When I would stay with them, I found myself sleeping on a top bunk in what used to be my mom’s room. But like most kids, I hated bedtime. Tucked far in the back of the second floor, sneaking back downstairs to watch TV late at night meant navigating creaky floors and stairs, a feat eight-year old me did with the grace of...well, an eight-year old child. Often, I’d make my way downstairs only to see a flicking light coming from the den. Tiptoeing closer, I could make out my grandad, slumped in his chair. I walked back upstairs, dejected that I couldn’t scroll through late-night cable but knowing that I made the trip undetected, as usual.
Of course he slept in the chair. What good grandad doesn’t?
When my aunts and uncles would come to town, they’d always talk about that chair, especially after my grandfather’s passing. The story told most often had to do with my mom and dad.
As a teen, my mom did what many a teen tried, sneaking out of the house to meet her then boyfriend and my soon (enough) to be father. But unlike me, she didn’t have to worry about the creaks; just outside her window was a massive tree, full of thorns -- a point that has become emphasized more each time the story is told, which is starting to bring their legitimacy into question. Late at night, she’d climb down to meet my father, waiting nearby, to drive away with him in what I’m sure was the coolest car in town.
On one of these nights, she returned to climb back up the (thorny, sure) tree as she had done dozens of times before. But when she went to open the window, panic struck.
It was locked. Her sister, with whom she shared the room, had turned her in.
There was exactly one way back into the house: the door to the garage connected to the den. Where my grandad’s chair was. And sure enough, there he was. TV flickering. Awake. And waiting.
Stories have always been something that bring friends or families together. We argue over our incomplete memories; who said what, what happened first. We laugh at moments that still fill us with a little bit of embarrassment. We invoke names that haven’t been spoken in years, and try to figure out what happened to them since.
It’s not just people we’re close with. We tell stories when we meet new people who we want to befriend. We tell stories when we’re nervous, to break the tension. We tell stories to reconnect with people who we haven’t seen in years.
We tell stories of shared experiences. Some direct, the ‘do you remember,’ and “where were you’ types. And some more indirect, stories we didn’t experience but are universal, something most anyone can relate to.
One of the last things I wrote on that other site1 was a story about my grandmother. She wasn’t a sports fan, not in the general sense. But there were two exceptions I can remember:
The first was Tiger Woods. The second was that year the Racers went 31-2.
There are some events that just change communities even if just for a little while. The Racers run to a top-10 ranking was one of those: the city of Murray changed during that season. There was a buzz that hanged around the city -- you’d feel it just as much at Wal-Mart or Kroger as the arena. And, like the Bills in Buffalo during a playoff year, it swept up even the non-fans.
It’s the story everyone wants to be a part of, that everyone wants to experience.
I remember covering that year vividly. I was still new to writing at that point, and I cannot emphasize this next part enough, I did. not. know. what. I. was. doing. (Still don’t, but it’s different now.)
I grew up watching Murray State. I went to games at Racer Arena. I was a founding member of the Andi Hornig fan club.
I remember the hand-wringing when they moved to the ‘R-SEC’ (Okay, I’m bad at naming things, see OVC Ball, but “Regional Special Events Center” was next-level bad) that they’d never fill it, that they were losing the charm and the noise that made Racer Arena great.
They sure filled the then recently-renamed ‘Bank’ during that 31-2 season. Over and over again.
I spent a lot of that year what I would call being a ‘heel’ to Murray State men’s basketball. It was pretty well known among the fans of the other 11 schools I covered that I was from Murray, and so it was a bit of overcompensating, a bit of ‘this does numbers on twitter,’ a bit of just my general cynical demeanor that comes from being a lifelong journalist. I was the critic, the guy wondering if Murray was really that good as the ranking showed.
But, inside, I enjoyed every moment. I witnessed the literal shaking of stands during big games. I watched and read every minute of coverage. I annoyed the WPSD sports office as much as possible, using them for rides to road games and free hotel rooms that my producer salary was in no way going to cover.
And when I’d go to visit my grandmother, her first question was always what story could I tell her about Murray State basketball, so she could go tell her friends.
So, why am I back? Why have I agreed to make the drive up I-24 from Nashville, down 68-80, dodging deer in the winter in a car I finally have paid off, to follow this team again?
It’s simple really.
I enjoy a good story.
And despite the world of change in college sports, I’m hopeful in this new era of men’s basketball. Like I was in the last era that wasn’t so new.
I’m hopeful that the record-setting season leading to the women’s highest NCAA Tournament seed ever is just the beginning.
I want more stories to tell. And I want people, old and new, to tell them with.
I don’t do the social thing much these days, but feel free to send me an email at cbgametime@gmail.com.
Sadly, I nuked that site into oblivion so I’d stop trying to revive it