It's hard to think of the summer already. Mostly because I woke up Monday morning and saw SNOW ON THE GROUND. But hey. Summer will be here soon, and while spring sports are fun, in all honestly we're not going to cover them all that much unless something super-duper happens in them.
Or we could analyze UMass to the MAC and beat to death the concept of a 14-team conference, but how long can we go repeating that, with seven-team divisions, that means either fewer nonconference games or seeing interdivisional opponents once every three years? At some point we'll be blogging in circles.
The future of the MAC is not in our hands, save for the individual tickets we purchase. So let's take the summer to look at the past.
"MACwood Squares" will be a 13-week series highlighting the nine most important athletes in each school's history. Yes, this is a blatant ripoff of Hollywood Squares, or as we like to call it, a "creative homage." We'll have articles, user submissions, voting, maybe even podcasts, and for sure crudely constructed Photoshops.
Here's the schedule for this series, namely when we'll discuss each team:
May 2 - 6: Kent St. Golden Flashes (finished)
May 9 - 13: Eastern Michigan Eagles (finished)
May 16 - 20: Ball St. Cardinals
May 23 - 27: Bowling Green Falcons
May 30 - June 3: Akron Zips
June 6 - 10: Miami RedHawks
June 13 - 17: Central Michigan Chippewas
June 20 - 24: Northern Illinois Huskies
June 27 - July 1: Ohio Bobcats
July 5 - 8: Temple Owls (Football)
July 11 - 15: Buffalo Bulls
July 18 - 22: Western Michigan Broncos
July 25 - 29: Toledo Rockets
And that'll lead us right into August when we can start going heavy on the 2011 football season.
We'll be soliciting help to delve into each of these schools' Hall of Fames, but if you as a fan of any of these 13 schools would like to pitch in, drop me a line at @HustleBelt or e-mail me via the masthead below.