You know what was a tricky and ultimately awesome part of the book-writing process? Getting the right person to do the foreword and the proper combination of people to do the blurbs. I got lucky on both. The blurbs were amazing and to this day I’m sort of moved by the foreword, the guy who wrote it and how it all came together. It’s one of my favorite things from my career.

Anyhow, the point is you need clout. I don’t even have the most sway in my house (the beagle and the wife can duke it out over who’s No. 1), so how was I going to sell books on a topic many people know and write about with my name alone, right?

Something funny has happened in the past week or so. I’m determined (and I can’t use that word lightly enough) to lead a charge to name Morgantown’s minor-league baseball team the Moonshiners. I’m not hung up on the stereotypes, and I hate to tell you this if you are, but naming the team the Rhodes Scholars wouldn’t make those disappear. I know most of the players won’t be 21, but most of the fans won’t be baseball players. I tend to think Gatorade will suffice as an in-game beverage, too.

I know people who had family members who ‘shined back in the day and the story is one of a pioneering spirit and survivalism and other positive attributes. It fits, not unlike all the redeemable qualities people draw from the coal business. I keep going back to the day I spoke to Bob Rich, and the guy who owns the team sighed when I suggested, hypothetically, the team could be named the Miners or Black Diamonds. Even he wants something different.

“That ‘Wild and Wonderful,’ I take that seriously being a sportsman, a hunter and a fisherman,” Rich said. “That’s one thing I love about this state, and I think West Virginia has a chance to explode when you realize what great resources you have for outdoor living.

“That, to me, strikes to the essence of the community. Clearly coal miners and mountain men, those things are part of a great past, but I think it’s going to be a fun experience to see what people have to say about the name of their team.”

My quest has been on Twitter, because it doesn’t belong here, and there have been some interesting exchanges with people for and against. It’s all been fun, which is the point I’m trying to make. Moonshiners is just a fun team name, and these minor league experiences are, by and large, based on being fun.

But now I have people actively working against me, which is kind of cool. But you have no idea how competitive I am. I’m the most competitive person you do or do not know. And yesterday, I sought out the heavy artillery and shook up the world.

Bob Huggins on naming Morgantown’s new minor league baseball team: “Why wouldn’t it be the Moonshiners? I think that’d be wonderful.”

— Mike Casazza (@mikecasazza) October 15, 2014

Look, I asked with a tinge of trepidation and knew it could backfire because he’s always talking about coal this and miners that, which is fine. But I went there and he went there with me and now I’ve got a face for my campaign.

Speaking of that face, here’s the much-more-mobile Huggins speaking yesterday at Big 12 media day.

Before I leave you, I’ll ask you this: Am I crazy or does he seem a little like the cat who swallowed the canary? (Aside: You cannot name a team of first-time pro baseball players Canaries because most of the time those canaries didn’t last. That’s a terrible title for a kid just getting started.) I think that’s the big takeaway from our first three interactions with Huggins this season. He’s selling a product, to be sure, but seems to have a different level of conviction to it, which I asked him to explain, because the other thing you can’t get past is how many first-year players he has this season.

That’s not ideal, but it’s not all bad, either.

“Sometimes it’s harder to coach guys who have been around — sometimes, not all the time, but sometimes — because the things you have to do are very boring to them because they’ve done them before,” Huggins said here Wednesday at Big 12 media day, giving you plenty of room to interpret that and recent defections however you choose.

“I think the challenge sometimes is to keep things as exciting as you can for those guys. When you have new guys like we have, everything is new and kind of exciting and they’re kind of trying to listen to make sure they understand what they’re doing so they don’t embarrass themselves. And honestly, they’ve just brought so much more enthusiasm.”

He’s very high on Jonathan Holton as an engine, on Tarik Phillip as a defender and on BillyDee Williams as a shooter, and he knows he can be punitive with playing time this season. So while it seems like a situation similar to ones in the past, it has options WVU couldn’t feature before.

That’s all for me today. Charles McGill has your WVU football covered. We’re not doing the chat today because I’ll be in the air, but if you want to ask some questions in the comments, I’ll get to them, as can.