The Fall of Troy

There were no flashy over-paid actors, no Hollywood magic, not that it would have mattered anyway. The Marshall Men's Basketball team racked up it's fifth straight against the Troy Trojans at the Cam Henderson Center with a 99-70 victory.

The Herd had five players in double figures as they quite frankly mopped the floor with the Trojans from start to finish. Marshall has continued to look better and better as they year goes on and with ten days until a showdown with the Defending National Champions, the Herd is going to need to be at peak form.

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And just another couple of quick story lines.

• The Marshall Athletic Department is trying to sell the Little Caesar's Pizza Bowl for all it's worth, and I don't blame them.



• The American Football Coaches Association seems to be impressed with Marshall's Football graduation rate.



• When the name Butch Jones came up in conversation Athletic Director Mike Hamrick didn't have an exactly reassuring reaction. Then again, he has been known to have a pretty good poker face at times.



• During the Men's Basketball Game, Football Tight End Cody Slate was honored with an award for I believe Outstanding Football Player. Not exactly certain the Henderson Center was too loud for me to make out the PA announcer at that point.



• Also, in another attempt to get tickets sold the Athletic Dept. brought out Cody Slate, Ashton Hall, Albert McClellan and another player to try and encourage fans to buy tickets. Of course they also suggested if a fan couldn't make it, so buy a ticket and donate them to local programs/charities.

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Finally, in a new addition to this blog will be my weekly "Stadium Watch" tentatively titled of course. The aim of this is to track the progress, or rather lack of progress in getting Marshall University a home baseball field. Something that has been rumored and promised for multiple decades now.

The latest promise came last year when a baseball field was included in the plans for the new freshman dorms and campus recreational facility. In the end that too was scrapped in favor of a different plan when some things fell through.

In 2003, a plan was suggested that I think is actually quite smart, ironically it is now hosted on the Marshall University website. This particular plan suggests closing down the civic center near Pullman Square and replacing it will a ball park.

While I like the idea, and some of the factors at that time have changed, I still feel that the park should be within a couple of blocks of campus. Then again that plan is much closer than the idea to put the ballpark at Kinetic Park, either one of those are much closer than the current ways of doing things. Appalachian Power Park and the Kennedy Center are not cutting.

So, it's 11PM EST, on Saturday December 12, 2009, and Marshall University's Baseball team has no home field.