Looking Back, It’s Time To Move Forward…

Short version: we’re putting the brakes on CAA: LAMM. I don’t know exactly how or when, but we’ve run our course here. At some point in the very near future, thishere form of early web 2.0 dish is moving into the history books. Cue Carol Burnett.

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Long version (with self-serving content and inside jokes) that hopefully gives a legitimate reason for moving away from blogging the CAA, because I’m not even sure it is the right decision:

It became very clear to me in February that CAA: LAMM suffered from a significant and deadly lack of vision. I probably knew this in November, but it became obvious as the 2007-08 basketball season wore on. I also knew then that this day was a matter of time. We didn’t have the rush of college basketball’s most historic tournament run as a backbone; we didn’t have the research and information generated by the book; and we didn’t have the euphoria and intrigue of what “the season after” held.

I admittedly faked my way through much of last season, and I apologize for that. You deserved better.

I desperately wanted to bring you all the wonderful tidbits–both news and features–of this league and mid majordom. The approach I sought was very much a blend of straight reporting, commentary, analysis, and fun. It’s the very bedrock of what made this space great in 2005 and 2006.

However as we rolled into 2007 and the responsibilities to the book waned, so did the priority of CAA: LAMM. You see, given the choice of paying work or calling Blaine Taylor to chat about his brutal early season schedule, there really was no choice. I like Blaine and I like you, but I like paying the electric bill more. I could no longer devote the time it took to make this blog great and sleep at night. Don’t let anybody fool you–time is our greatest and most important asset. I didn’t have it, the quality of this space fell, and I can’t produce crap but for so long.

Oh, we tried on a bunch of stuff for size. We dabbled with video and a new linking strategy. We offered up non-college hoops content. We did the “guesties” thing. None fit. It was like putting a Band Aid on a wound that required a tourniquet.

We even begrudgingly dipped our toes into offcolor humor, but I could never bring myself to go that route. Too cheap, too available, and too amateurish for my not-even-thinly veiled ultimate goal: somebody in management hearing about some mid major basketball blog, stopping by to read, and deciding that the author had a wonderful blend of information and humor. Management loved the loose yet direct writing style. And they would pay me to write on a national scale.

Making pithy comments about an unattractive female sports personality–deemed sexy for no other reason than she is a woman who works in sports–wasn’t going to get it done. That’s not me. Heck, I remain shocked the Radfords and Mulls of the world still talk to me. I crossed the line more times than I wished I had.

(Side note, because the signoff post needs a side note: at this moment, I’m watching my dog bark furiously at our vaccum cleaner. Mind you, the vaccum is sitting in the corner, unplugged, as it always is when not in use. He naps beside it most days while I work. However at this very moment the Magic Blue has become a menace to his world. Not exactly Ivy League material, my dog.)

The combination of not being able to do the public-serving portion of this blog right (the lack of vision) and the self-serving portion of this blog not materializing made the decision easy. It hit me while we were on vacation last week–again, sometime between the sixth Stella and sunset–the CAA blog is neither feasible nor scalable for where I want to be, so as painful as it will be, we’re going to have to move on.

I’m not going to fake it any longer.

In the end, my hope is that you watch college basketball a little differently thanks to what we talked about here. Think a little differently. Think a little more.

But we had some fun, no? I appreciate the way you responded to some of the chicanery, nicknames, and general prediction looseness. Heck, if anything remains in the future it may be those nicknames and predictions. From Vladie Kools to Senor Crankypants, we enjoyed the indirect but important tie between pastrami and rye bread and the chances of Drexel beating Hofstra.

But for the same reason I opined George Mason may have been better served had Jim Larranaga gone to Providence, and I quote Emerson, perhaps it is best we stop now, evaluate, and come back with a new project that is better.

So what is next? Honestly, I don’t know. There are ideas and conversations but nothing of substance yet.

But here’s a guarantee: there will be something. I’m not giving in. I’ll be around, and you’d better stop and say hello.

I thank you.

~ by mglitos on June 4, 2008.