Slate: We’re Still All Figuring This Out

Sports

The NFL free agency period opened yesterday. And while the big news may have been centered on the high-profile QB’s racing around the league, there was some K-State-centered news yesterday. After spending his first five years in the NFL on one year deals with the Pittsburgh Steelers, B.J. Finney is signing a two-year $8 million deal with the Seattle Seahawks, a deal that also includes a $2.5 million guarantee. The move re-unites him with former K-State teammate Tyler Lockett. (Side note: It kills me, a 49ers fan, that two K-State greats are playing for the Seahawks. But I’m so happy for both, especially B.J. as I know him personally, that they’re getting PAID, because both guys deserve it)

Last night we held our first retro-game thread, and a lot of fun was had reliving the 2003 Big 12 Championship game. We’re coming up with more games to watch, and we’ve already gotten lost of suggestions from you all (and keep ‘em coming, especially if you know you can find the full game on YouTube or similar service).

Miscellany

I guess we’re doing a “meet the staff” thing this week, and it’s now my turn.

I’m not really good at talking about myself. I tend to be a fairly private person, even among family, and while I am capable of being outgoing, it’s not my normal thing. And as such, writing every week for the Slate and game threads, and doing the special writing like my story on How Michael Bishop Broke Bill Snyder, are a bit of a challenge for me.

Not that I don’t like writing. I do enjoy getting to write about things I love. I survived being a history major by writing well, and writing about history definitely is something I enjoy. I even wrote a research paper as an undergrad that has been published as part of the larger Lost Kansas Communities collection at the Chapman Center for Rural Studies at K-State. I also wrote my senior research paper on the history of the K-State band program, something near and dear to my heart.

I got my start at BotC writing about baseball, doing game recaps during the insane 2013 Big 12 title run. I started in 2014 as well, but as the wheels began to fall off it became harder and harder to want to recap, and I moved into other avenues like covering the Slate once or twice a week, and creating the open game threads for football, men’s basketball, and occasionally women’s basketball and baseball.

Speaking of the game threads, I wonder just how many of you noticed that for the last year and a half, I’ve almost solely used Bruce Weber pictures for the MBB game threads? It started early last year, any time I used the picture of a player the Cats would lose. But if I used a picture of Bruce they won. So, of course, once I noticed the pattern I made sure to do my part to help the Cats win. Seemed to work, right? So this year I kept it going. Except that it didn’t have the same magic. So, finally frustrated, for Senior Day I used a picture of Pierson McAtee because the dude deserved it. And the Cats won. So i used Pierson again for the Big 12 tournament game thread. And the Cats won. I’m sorry, everyone, that I didn’t start using Pierson sooner. Really, this is all my fault, not the guys who couldn’t put the orange ball through the red cylinder with any sort of consistency.

So now that sports are gone, for a while anyway, I’m probably going to do what I’ve been doing, sans taking time out to watch K-State blow halftime leads. I’ve still got work, which has been insane (who knew that the IT guy would be so critical during a pandemic??), I’ve still got TV shows to watch (c’mon NCIS, don’t let me down), and I’ve still got my two boys, who will miss their “K-State Cats”, but still have many many seasons of Power Rangers to watch. I’ve also been re-playing Red Dead Redemption 2, going for 100% this time and trying to prolong Arthur Morgan’s inevitable death as long as possible while I ride my Missouri Fox Trotter I named “Mo” all over the Wild West. So now I guess I have to finally let him die and start working on the epilogue. Or mabye I’ll start a new game and not be a “good guy” this time. We’ll see.

Question of the day: If you could bring back one video game from your childhood and have it re-done (like with modern graphics or updates), which one would it be? I mean, that’s happened a lot already, but there’s got to be something you’re missing. Of course, NCAA football and basketball are some obvious choices. I know I’d like to see Oregon Trail re-done in a way that honors the Apple IIe version I played when I was young and not the most recent Facebook game garbage (at least that’s the latest version I’m aware of).