… and, hey, there I am! Third row back above the V in West Virginia. You know what today is and I trust many of you are not at work, or are at work and so compromised by diverting your attention elsewhere that this isn’t a place you’re likely to visit too often today.

I haven’t been in this position since the spring of 2003 and I’m not going to lie to you — I never saw this coming. I’ll be out most of the day and I have to miss spring practice this afternoon, but I hope to check in here and I expect to get to watch some tournament basketball, too.

If you need your Mountaineers Methadone, take a look at how Brian Mitchell is using the past to shape the future for his cornerbacks. Or something like that.

And finally, yesterday was , uh, ‘very rare.’ I knew the radio contract story was going to cause reactions. I had people congratulating me, some for doing a good story and some, for some reason, for making the radio group look bad. I had people condoning me for similar motives in the other direction. Neither was my intent.

Truth is, I’m still unraveling things. But a story about what WVU’s current arrangement is with West Virginia Radio Corp. matters. It answers questions, it asks questions and it doesn’t touch other concerns. Those concerns are within reach. This isn’t done.

We’re in a weird place with this story because a lot of people think a lot of people have taken sides. I wasn’t trying to ether anyone, and now I’ve been accused of being on both sides. I know I don’t have to explain that, but I just did, and that’s odd. But not as odd as this:

Some bozo called me from a restricted phone number yesterday afternoon. I know who he is. His voice is unmistakable. He used to stop by my desk at the Dominion Post during fairly regular visits to the Greer Building. He has, in the past, called me from a restricted number to tip me off about things intended to make the athletic department and the university look bad.

Yesterday — and all while he acted as though I didn’t know who he was — he was yelling at me and vowing that the newspaper was going to write a story detailing the 35 facts I got wrong. Then I’d read the truth in a couple weeks, since I wasn’t capable of finding it on my own.

That’s where we’re at. But where are we? There’s so much of this left to cover — and a lot of it, whether you like it or not, has been told — but it takes time, care and effort. You don’t want to get 35 facts wrong.