When I arrived at Corteva Coliseum before the Horizon League men’s semifinal started, I located Kyle Rossi on Press Row, then proceeded to find our other writers still at the arena, Chris Schumerth and Isaac Wendal and got myself situated.
After getting everything I needed to prepare for the evening’s activities, I noticed that one person was missing that I had hoped would be there: David Glasier of the News-Herald.
Glasier, of course, has been a stalwart in Cleveland-area sports media when it came to CSU coverage. I’m old enough to remember when I was writing sports for Cleveland State’s student newspaper, The Cauldron, back in the 1990s and was regularly greeted by him and Joe Maxse, who covered the CSU beat for the Plain Dealer.
When I asked about him, Kyle informed me that he wasn’t there to witness the Viking women’s semifinal tilt, which naturally led me to the conclusion that he would be there for the men’s contest against Youngstown State, either. I was sad, primarily because Glasier is one of the best guys to talk to in the media area, especially if you’re someone like me who remembers how Cleveland State used to be covered in the area.
It’s that part of it that also made me equal parts sad and, quite frankly angry. From my understanding, Glasier’s treks to Indy were similar to my own in recent years: Self-funded, but still focused on the work at hand. His absence was understandable, of course. If anyone deserved some time off, it’s him. But it also left a massive void, as I knew all too well that if he wasn’t there, the News-Herald certainly wouldn’t be sending a fill-in.
And as the night wore on and the Vikings prepared for battle against Youngstown State, it became more and more apparent to me of one thing, when it came to who was covering Cleveland State:
I was it, basically.
So, when the game ended, with the Vikings getting eliminated from the tournament in a narrow loss at the hands of the Penguins, media gathered in the Horizon Leagues post-game press conference set-up. As expected, Youngstown State’s media was pretty well-represented. They included our own YSU writer Mac Wissel, Neel Madhavan from the Tribune Chronicle, and staff for Youngstown State’s student newspaper, The Jambar.
As the YSU presser concluded, what I had dreaded all evening became a reality. The Youngstown State media filed out, all that was left, before CSU head coach Daniyal Robinson and Vikings Dylan Arnett and Tahj Staveskie arrived, the only media people left were me, Mac, and Tristan Freeman from the Fansided site Busting Brackets, who had been covering both semifinals. That was it.
Given that Kyle was also the only media covering the Cleveland State women, I guess I should have expected that we would be one of the only ones in that lonely space. But nothing prepares you for sitting there and being one of only two people asking questions of Robinson and his team.
At the end of the presser, I naturally got everything I needed and headed towards the exits, a game story awaiting me to write. But more than that, I came away with a conclusion that, in all honesty, has been galling at me for years.
Cleveland State’s basketball teams deserve better.
I’ve seen the desperation CSU has in trying to get what’s left of the Plain Dealer, which is now essentially Cleveland.com, to pay attention to even one of its teams. And their thanks for their pleas is the outlet sending Terry Pluto out a couple of times or a guy who, to my knowledge, doesn’t even post Cleveland State stories on his own social media accounts. And despite running stories for both teams after the semifinals, they weren’t actually there.
But, by all means, please give us six people to analyze the Browns trading for Kenny Pickett.
And the calls are coming from inside the house, too. I don’t know what’s going on with CSU’s student media, but whoever’s advising might want to think about telling them to perhaps pay attention to what’s happening in their own backyard.
Nothing annoyed me more than reading a story in the Cleveland Stater about the annual shooting competition between Cleveland State’s deans…and oh yeah, there was another thing going on before and after that.
It was the game against Robert Morris, which was only briefly mentioned at the end and had zero quotes from Robinson or anyone else!
And I’d ask what’s going on at my old stomping grounds, The Cauldron, but I’m still waiting for them to respond to the two messages I already sent them…in December.
By the way, if anyone knows how to get a hold of their photo editor, Matthew Keyerleber, I still want him to shoot CSU’s women’s basketball games for us. He’d provide the perfect visuals to Kyle’s writing.
This dynamic is part of the reason why we actively sought and secured a partnership with Scene, Cleveland local alternative newspaper. With Kyle and Greg Kula providing outstanding coverage on our site, which I have long maintained was not local to any of the teams we cover, we essentially inserted ourselves into the local landscape.
I know the chorus of “Why’s he being mean to us?” is coming, but after what I saw on Monday night, juxtaposed to three other teams with local and student media that actually showed up, your hurt feelings or whatever excuses you’re about to hurl my way mean nothing to me.
Get your act together. This is embarrassing.
