Switching gears

As I am sure you have read there has been a bit of a reconfiguring of things at the paper. The end result is I will no longer be covering the Yale football team and will add UConn football to my UConn women's basketball responsibilities.

It is a move that had been in the works for several months but did not become official until Mar. 22, which happened to be the date of the Yale pro day. When I headed over to Yale I knew it was close to being a done deal but thought there was a chance that the change in beats may not take place until the end of the spring practice. When I returned to the office to work on my story on the pro day I was informed that the Yale portion of the equation would take place immediately. It makes sense because I was in Chicago yesterday to cover the McDonald's All-American games instead of being at Yale for the first day of spring drills. Right now I am in a hotel room in Denver getting ready to cover the women's Division I Final Four. If UConn gets to the championship game I would not be returning until April 4 so I would have needed somebody to fill in for me regardless. This will give Chris Hunn, who has taken over the Yale beat, a chance to get his foot in the door and get to know the coaches and players.

I'd like to thank the readers of this blog for their passion and of course readership. The numbers of this blog have increased significantly in the last four years and I have you to thank for that. I've enjoyed the experience of covering Yale in both stints as I did this for a few years in the late 1990s before returning to the beat in 2008. I've been treated well by all the head coaches (Jack Siedlecki, Tom Williams and Tony Reno) and the players as well. While I am excited about a new challenge in covering the UConn football team, I will miss being involved with the day to day coverage of Yale football.

Obviously when there is a switch in beat writers the coverage will be different since no two people handle a beat the same way but Chris has done a great job covering the New Haven football program in recent years and I know he will do an outstanding job on the Yale beat as well.

thanks

Jim Fuller