Hi everyone,

Gazette-Mail sports editor Derek Redd here, with a little bit of news about this chunk of cyberspace real estate. The WVU sports blog will be back up and running quite soon. And by quite soon, I mean today.

You’ll see a couple of names in this space providing WVU sports goodies throughout the season. One will be a familiar one to you all. Another will be a new face in the place.

Let’s start with the familiar. Mitch Vingle has taken over the WVU beat for the Gazette-Mail. Readers have been soaking in his stuff since the 2017 preseason began and Mitch will keep rolling along. He’s been the WVPA’s Best Sports Column winner in Division I the past two years, has been a part of the West Virginia sports writing community since 1980 and has been a part of Charleston newspapers since 1994. He has a wealth of knowledge on WVU sports, which you already know and will continue to see.

Now, the new face. Everyone welcome Ryan Decker, who will be our intern for the sports season. Ryan is a broadcast journalism major at WVU, the sports director at the university’s radio station, U-92, and a contributor to West Virginia Illustrated. He also spent this past summer as the director of sports media for the Charlotte Crushers of the Carolina Virginia Collegiate League, a wood-bat summer league with teams in North Carolina and Virginia. Ryan comes highly recommended and is raring to go. You’ll see his first contributions later today.

So there you go. Don’t think we’ve boarded up the windows here. We just needed a little time off for some renovations. The WVU sports blog is back open for business.