“You shouldn’t have!” I exclaimed to the thousands of Missouri Valley College Vikings fans, coaches and student-athletes who had turned out to greet me. It was a veritable media circus what with all the television stations covering my plane landing and my ride to the MVC campus. Sports-talk radio stations were discussing one subject and one subject only: me.
After Head Football Coach Paul Troth made his welcoming speech it was my turn to speak. I choked back tears of emotion and started out by thanking everyone for bearing with me as I agonized over whether or not I would make a blog post about the preseason activities for MVC Vikings fall sports. After the usual opening blandishments I got more to the point with my comments:
“I know some people could say ‘This guy must be incredibly insecure and have a very fragile ego to want to have it stroked so frequently.’ They could say ‘He long ago robbed moments like this of even the pretext of sincerity by shedding crocodile tears at some of his previous public remarks.’ They could ask ‘How hopelessy misguided are the so-called sports media to actually think people want non-stop coverage of one egomaniac’s Hamletesque posturing’…Yes they could say all of these things and there would certainly be some truth in all of those comments.”
After making a mental note to myself to rent a pickup truck for the next public appearance I made like this (preferably one with no muffler) I got down to actually covering the story I had come to Marshall, MO to cover. 360 Missouri Valley College student-athletes had reported to campus to begin preparing for the upcoming academic and sports seasons. Every single one of them told me they were big fans of my blog, proving to me that they were even less sincere than I was.
Football, volleyball, cheerleading and both the men’s and women’s soccer teams were all on-hand and getting ready to compete. The ladies on the volleyball team start their season August 27th in the Grand View Tournament in Des Moines, IA (Tourism slogan: “Des Moines: C’mon, what’s the worst that could happen?”). The men’s and women’s soccer teams both host their home-openers on August 31st and the football team takes it on the road against the Baker Wildcats on the Saturday of Labor Day weekend, Sept 4th.
The sun was beginning to set, so it was with a renewed sense of urgency that I hit up all the head coaches for a few quotes to justify this whole trip as a business expense on my tax returns. Unfortunately on the return flight I accidentally spilled bourbon all over most of my notes. Luckily a few quotes from Head Volleyball Coach Derick White survived intact. “I am very excited to get the 2010 season started,” he said, “We have some great freshmen and transfers to add to our mix of talented returners. We are hitting the ground running learning our system and we are looking forward to implementing it in our first weekend of play.”
Here I am with some of the MVC Vikings whom I talked into posing as high school students so I could condescendingly make a big deal about tossing them a few footballs.
To find out how much the cleanup following the big welcome I got will cost the taxpayers of Marshall, MO click here: http://www.moval.edu/athletics/
Balladeer’s Blog is not affiliated with or operated by the NAIA or the NCAA or any of their member institutions.
© Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog, 2010. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express and written permission from this blog’s author and/or owner is strictly prohibited. Excerpts and links may be used, provided that full and clear credit is given to Edward Wozniak and Balladeer’s Blog with appropriate and specific direction to the original content.
The Missouri Valley College Vikings volleyball team had their ups and downs this year, but four of the ladies made the All-Conference Team because of their on-court achievements. Ali Schrader made the first team in the Heart of America Athletic Conference honors and Miranda Groth made the second team while Paula Tieman and Dustina Bitten got All-Conference Honorable Mention. The time seemed right to get to know these ladies a little better and find out their opinion of the Roger Corman B-movie called Viking Women vs The Sea Serpent. (I’m kidding!) 
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