Do you remember where you were on March 15, 1991? If you were old enough to be a college student back then, you might still not consider that date significant. But for a 22-year-old college student from Bowie, it was a magical moment that couldn't be duplicated - at least for another 2 1/2 months.
On a Friday night, Towson State (at the time) took on the mighty Ohio State Buckeyes in the first round of the NCAA men's basketball tournament in Dayton, Ohio. Led by Big Ten Player of the Year Jim Jackson, it was basically a home game for the Buckeyes. Ohio State was 25-3 and TSU was 19-10 after defeating Rider for the East Coast Conference championship for the automatic bid.
While the Tigers were 97-86 losers that night, they earned the respect of many who expected the typical first-round blowout. With 5:48 left, the Tigers pulled within five points on a Chuck Lightening jumper. But. that was as close as the Tigers would get down the stretch as many TSU fans wondered how close the game could have been if star guard Devin Boyd, who scored 17 points in 21 minutes, could have stayed out of foul trouble.
Personally, it was the highlight of a young career as a transfer student who dropped into the offices of The Towerlight in 1989. Before that night in March of 1991, a highlight might have been traveling with the Mighty Sound of Maryland Marching Band to Chapel Hill, N.C., to watch former Coach Bobby Ross run across the field, screaming at the officials. Or it might have been the two seasons in the mid-1980s mopping up sweat at the old Cap Centre as a ball boy for the Washington Bullets in Landover.
Like many transfer students in the late 1980s, I wasn't sure what to expect and didn't know much about the city of Towson or the school after leaving Maryland and Prince George's Community College. So, I started writing for The Towerlight by covering football in 1989 with cross country runner Brian Funk and also decided to join the radio station (WCVT). In early 1991, while finally getting the job of sports editor at The Towerlight, I also took the challenge of becoming assistant sports director at the campus station (now WTMD).
That experience in radio led to a stint as the color commentator on the basketball broadcasts alongside play-by-play man Andy Freed (now with the Tampa Bay Rays). In 1990, the Tigers grabbed their first berth to the NCAA Tournament and fell to top-seeded Oklahoma by just nine points. I remember watching the game at the student union as a fan, not exactly feeling the fervor or bleeding black and gold probably because I wasn't there or involved.
But the following season, several of us were given the opportunity to fly with the team to Dayton to broadcast the Ohio State game. After the loss and with very little sleep, we flew back to Baltimore in the early morning hours. Only a few hours later, on the Saturday after the game, the men's lacrosse team hosted Maryland at Minnegan Stadium and I felt I had to be there to see the team because I wanted to broadcast the games.
Flash forward to Memorial Day Weekend in 1991, and I'm back on the road at the Carrier Dome in Syracuse to broadcast the men's lacrosse team's game vs. Maryland in the semi-finals of the NCAA lacrosse tournament. The trip to Dayton may have been topped as the 11th-seeded Tigers made it to the Championship Game on Memorial Day before losing to North Carolina, 18-13.
No doubt, I was fortunate to be a sports communications student at Towson from 1989-1992. Athletically, the basketball team went to two straight NCAA Tournaments and won three straight ECC titles. I also covered gymnastics and the Tigers went to the NCAA Championships in 1990 for the first time (and only time). The baseball team went to the NCAA Tournament in 1991 and and the men's lacrosse team accomplished the feat again in 1992 after making the final in 1991.
That brings us to football, a sport I covered for three seasons for The Towerlight and WTMD. The sport was nearly dropped in 1990 and while most of the other sports were thriving in the ECC, the football program was an Independent in NCAA Division I-AA that was underfunded.
I could probably write a book about the changes this program has undertaken, but I only have so much space. You couldn't write a better roller-coaster experience for a young writer who literally went from going to NCAA Tournaments after covering a near-catastrophic decision to eliminate football.
After years of freelance writing and blogging for such publications and websites as Press Box, the Enquirer, Rivals and CAAZone, I've come full circle. Even after graduating in 1992, I've been covering Towson sports either as a writer or on radio in the last two decades.
In the late 90s, I broadcasted women's basketball for four seasons (all road games) during some very snowy and icy trips in the America East Conference. During that decade, I also produced and co-hosted for about 10 years on Stan "the Fan" Charles' old sports talk show - the Baltimore Sports Exchange (on several stations on the dial). One of my goals on radio was to promote local college sports, which the local newspaper and TV stations had begun to stop covering. Despite being 45 minutes away, the Baltimore media focused on the Maryland Terrapins and treated the rest of the local Division I schools as less important than high school sports.
In 2001, after my so-called radio career was fading, I was offered the opportunity to write for a new site called CAAZone.com. Since there was no money available and it was a free website, I could have just moderated the site and offered opinions on Towson sports. Instead, I decided to cover, review, preview, analyze and blog about football, basketball and lacrosse. We developed a little community of Towson fans after 10 years where people can come to gripe about tailgate, offer opinions on recruiting and talk about the games after they occur. If you know the phrase "SOT," you're one of the hardcore fans who have been on the site for nearly 10 years.
I don't take that site for granted and am glad that Towson's Athletics Media Relations Office has always treated me as a legit media member, which was probably shaky when the site started back in 2001. I guess the fact that there were many times throughout the years that I was the only media member at a post-game press conference (the dark days during mini-mester) helped. I wouldn't be writing at the new TowsonTigers.com site if it weren't for the hundreds of hours of blogging at CAAZone.
Now, I'll be blogging about football, basketball and men's lacrosse on TowsonTigers.com and I'll also preview each game and put together thoughts afterwards in a notebook fashion.
I'm also not here to sugarcoat things when they go wrong. I've seen what this program can achieve as a student and I think the changes that took place last season will be beneficial for the future. The only question is whether the future is now or three years away?
