Five Years And Counting As A Blogger
By Cheval John
Photo courtesy of Forbes via BigStock.com
I still remembered the day I first started blogging five years ago.
I was about to start graduate school and was at an on-campus job fair at my alma mater, Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas.
There were many university departments ranging from the career services to the athletic department looking for people who would fill their positions as an intern or part-time work.
I first approached the athletic department about the possibility of working with their marketing team.
I felt that I was qualified because in the previous semester, I interned at an on-campus public relations agency called Priority One.
The public relations agency is part of the class where students form a company and do real work for clients with the SHSU university departments and in the process gain class credit towards their Mass Communications degree.
In my case, I was auditing the class (which mean I got no class credit, but payed less money for the class)
I took that route because I knew that I would have the opportunity to gain actual public relations experience that would give me an opportunity to compete with other graduates for work at a marketing/public relations company.
So I applied for the marketing position at the athletic department’s booth and got rejected because I was overqualified.
A couple of minutes later, I saw the booth of the college’s newspaper of record, “The Houstonian”
I went up to the booth and the editor-of-chief of the newspaper had asked me if I had wanted to be their blogger.
Prior to her asking me about becoming their blogger, I had a vague idea of what a blog was.
That idea of a blog probably came about from an NCIS episode when the main character, Gibbs, asked the forensic scientist, Abby, what a blog was since the sister of special agent McGee, who was portrayed by Trioan Bellasario, had a blog.
And since I did not had any prior blogging experience, I could have told her, “No, I don’t want to work as a blogger.”
However, I said yes to the opportunity of becoming a blogger because I knew that it would allow me to become part of the college newspaper and gain experience as a journalist.
I was then connected with the person who was in charge of their social media to set up an account for the blog.
She had “recommended” using WordPress to set up the blog.
It was at that time, I came up with the name, “What’s The Word?” and created the blog with the free WordPress.com account.
After that, the social media editor linked the blog to the school’s newspaper account.
Then, I written my very first blog post on January 27th, 2011 entitled, “Hello Everyone,” which for some reason, the blog date is 6 hours ahead of central time.
It was awesome to realize that I was simultaneously blogging for the school newspaper and myself because I was the only one who had access to this blog.
I also knew that I had the platform to share my opinions of what is happening on my college’s campus, the sports world, etc.
It was also cool that blogging led me to become a sportswriter because of my curiousity to see what it would be like to cover a sporting event.
And the opportunity came about when the SHSU baseball and softball team was hosting a weekend series during spring break.
I decided to attend the softball double-header matchup on Saturday and then the baseball matchup on Sunday.
This blog post, “A Weekend Not To Remember” came about from covering both athletic teams that weekend.
Also, that spring break weekend of covering those sporting events got me hooked on being a sports writer.
As a sportwriter for the college newspaper, I was able to cover the SHSU Volleyball team and simultaneously covered the SHSU Football Team run toward the national championship for the blog.
Eventually, I “left” the school newspaper after I took a semester off from graduate school and converted this blog into my media company, “Vallano Media.”
At the same time, I became a freelance sportswriter for the Huntsville Item in addition to running this company and covered teams that won conference championships in their respective sports.
I have also written two books and hosted a podcast called, “What’s The Word?” on BlogTalkRadio (now recording the show on the live streaming platform called blab first).
The reason why I will continue to blog is because I still have the desire to make a positive impact in the world for the better.
Plus, I know that I am apart of a crowd who are setting themselves up for success for the better because of their blogs, podcasts, YouTube channel, etc.
The people above will thrive for the better despite the continued layoffs due to companies shutting down or merging to become a giant corporation.
No.4 Bearkats Knocks Off No.2 Eagles 49-33
Courtesy: Brandon K. Scott/SHSU Athletics
In a meeting between two of the top-ranked Football Championship Subdivision teams in the country Saturday, No. 4 Sam Houston State beat No. 2 Eastern Washington, 49-34.
SHSU running back Timothy Flanders ran for 280 yards, two touchdowns and became just the 22nd back in FCS history to record 5,000 career yards on the ground.
Brian Bell completed just four of eight pass attempts, but two of those went for touchdowns of 18 and 50 yards, respectively.
Both offenses jumped out to strong starts with each scoring a touchdown in the first three offensive plays.
Richard Sincere, lined up in the read option set, faked the handoff to running back Timothy Flanders and took a 51-yard run to the end zone.
Eastern Washington quarterback Vernon Adams responded with a pass in the middle of the field to Cory Mitchell, who went for a 48-yard reception down to the SHSU 2-yard line.
The Eagles took the lead with a 33-yard pass play to Ashton Clark.
But the Kats dominated the second quarter.
Bell kept the ball on a read option play to score from eight yards out.
De’Antrey Loche intercepted a pass by Adams and returned it 42 yards for a touchdown.
Bell and Williams connected for an 18-yard touchdown pass with just 21 seconds to play in the second quarter.
Cooper Kupp caught a 59-yard pass from Adams earlier in the quarter and the Kats took a 28-20 into halftime.
SHSU picked up where it left off after intermission.
Flanders scored on a 60-yard touchdown run early in the third quarter.
After Eastern Washington running back Demitrius Bronson rushed for a three-yard touchdown, Bell and Williams connected for another score, this time on a 50-yard pass.
Flanders ran for his second touchdown of the day in the fourth quarter, taking it from 12 yards out.
The win improves the Kats record to 4-1. For the Eagles (2-2), it’s the first loss of the season against a non-FBS opponent.
March Madness: America’s Unofficial Event
By Cheval John
I had the opportunity to cover collegiate athletics as a freelance journalist for the Huntsville Item for over two years in Huntsville, Texas.
As for those who might believe that they is nothing much to do in Huntsville, they will have to look deeper.
For starters, Huntsville is located just an hour north of the fourth largest city in the United States, Houston.
In reality, the small town is approximately 20 minutes from the Houston metropolitan area.
So for those who might want to see something different while living in Huntsville, they can just drive down to the Houston area.
Another thing that makes Huntsville unique is Sam Houston State University(SHSU) because a college campus is a “city” within a city.
And in any city or town, sports gives anyone the opportunity to be entertained for two hours or three hours if it is baseball, basketball or football.
The city of Huntsville can never be a home to a professional sports team because of the costs of having a stadium and a strong fan base.
The city of Houston has four professional sports teams because they have the infrastructure to provide the demands of what these organizations are looking for.
Case in point, the professional athlete making millions of dollars.
That is where collegiate athletics comes in for a small town.
The universities has to take care of their own departments.
And since collegiate athletics are under the umbrella of the universities, the places that these universities are based in don’t have to worry about the cost.
Which brings me back to Sam Houston State.
SHSU has 17 sports teams that competes at the NCAA Division I level.
And since the NCAA Division I level is as elite as professional athletes, Huntsville residents can see an elite level of competition that they would see at a major professional sports event.
I was fortunate to have covered the SHSU baseball team while they got three at-large bids to the NCAA tournament after winning three consecutive Southland Conference (SLC) regular season championships.
For any mid-major school, if you don’t win the respective conference post-season tournament, you will not get an at-large bid to any NCAA tournament.
I also had the opportunity to cover SHSU’s 2012-13 women basketball team that won their first ever SLC regular season title and finished as a runner-up in the SLC’s post-season tournament.
From the experience of covering SHSU’s sports teams, I will offer my answer to the question, “Are You Being Exploited By March Madness.”
I will have to say that I am conflicted to a large degree about the NCAA.
Beforehand, I would have disagree completely with the premise that college athletes are getting exploited by the NCAA because of the premise that they are going to school for free based on the scholarships that they are getting to play for their respective universities while the rest of the college student body have to pay a whole lot of money for classes and books in order to attend college.
However, I had a change of heart about the fact that the NCAA has taken advantage of the so-called “student-athlete” because they know that they don’t have to pay these same college students who are athletes due to the fact that they are college students.
I have always wondered why college athletics has been so huge in the United States like the major professional sports growing up.
I mean it is part of the student experience in college to participate in a sporting event.
The history of college sports in America is what makes the United States a unique country to live in.
At the same time, I feel a little disgusted by the fact that the NCAA and college coaches in the major universities are making millions of dollars while the same college athletes are not getting a single cent from the revenue that they are making.
Case in point, the NCAA are currently in their 14 year deal worth about 11 billion dollars with CBS.
The powers that be over the NCAA are being more profitable than ever.
The sad part is that the majority of college athletes come from low income families.
It is true that they get meals and “free tuition” due to scholarship.
But the fact that they can’t receive help from friends who can provide some funds while they are in college due to the fact that they might commit an NCAA violation.
This tells about the garbage rules that the NCAA has instituted and it feels to me at times that they want these college athletes to remain poor while they are attending college.
At the same time, these same college athletes should get a whole lot more compensation for the amount of money that the NCAA are making.
One thing that they can do is not make the scholarship a one year deal, but make it for the entire four years so that the college athlete will not have to feel the extreme pressure of succeeding on the field as well as in the classroom.
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