I sent the email the way you shoot a free throw in an empty gym: perfect form, nobody watching, no idea whether it went in.
The subject line said "Credential request: Niagara at Bowling Green." The body said I was Hardwood Bricks, that I cover every game in the MAC, and that I would like a folding chair, a power outlet and a stat sheet handed to me at halftime. Modest asks. I did not request a parking pass. I did not request the popcorn. I know my place, and my place, apparently, is the outbox.
Hours passed. Nothing. The inbox sat there like a backup center in a blowout, upright and unused. By midafternoon I had refreshed Gmail more times than Niagara will inbound the ball tonight. Bowling Green State University had become, for one Thursday at least, Bowling Ghosted State University.
I am not wounded. I am a MAC man. I went to Ohio University, Class of 2001, which means I have been ignored by bigger and colder institutions than this one. The MAC raised me on weeknight tips, lake-effect snow and long bus rides to Mount Pleasant. Rejection is our love language. Silence is just another weeknight.
And there is history here. In 1994 I came to Bowling Green as a teenager for a journalism workshop, which makes this less a cold call than a homecoming with nobody at the door. I learned the inverted pyramid in this town. Tonight the pyramid is inverted on me.
So I will watch from the couch on ESPN+, like the rest of the Falcon diaspora, notebook open, remote in hand, taking notes no one asked for. I will chart the Falcons' threes. I will note who guards whom. I will write it up as if someone had given me a lanyard, because the work does not wait for the lanyard.
But hear this, Stroh Center: I am coming. Maybe not tonight. But some winter night, with a laminated pass around my neck and a seat on press row between the radio crew and the official scorer, I will take my place. I will be gracious. I will cheer for no one. I will eat the popcorn.
Until then, Bowling Green, the light is on. The inbox is open. I'm not hard to find.
