| Welcome back to the Flyer Connection. This newsletter will come out every Friday from now until March as the Dayton Flyers navigate the 2023-24 season — and I try to keep up with them on my sore Achilles tendon (more on that later). Before I get to the basketball, I have to first write about the experience of attending “The Spotlight, To Shine A Light On Mental Health” at UD Arena on Thursday. As I mentioned in my story, UD Arena had never played host to an event quite like this, and the arena has seen everything over the years — from a “Star Trek” screening to a Bob Barker “Price is Right” event to 133 NCAA tournament games. I also had the thought that if good things happen to good people, then UD fans are in for a treat this season because coach Anthony Grant showed again he is the best of people. He and his wife Chris have made the courageous decision to use their platform to raise awareness of mental health issues after the death of their daughter, Jay, by suicide in 2022. Time will tell where they go from here, but they have already done more than anyone could have expected. As Dayton AD Neil Sullivan said Thursday after the event, if the event saves just one person, the effort will have been worth it. My guess is they helped many people Thursday. This was just step one of the weekend, too. A charity basketball game against Ohio State on Sunday will also focus on erasing the stigma of talking about mental illness. Sullivan sent an email to season-ticket holders earlier in the week asking them to “welcome and support” Ohio State on Sunday. In other words, this game is about more than basketball, so please don’t heckle or boo the Buckeyes, whose coach, Chris Holtmann, jumped at the chance to play this game and raise money for suicide prevention. More than a couple of fans jumped in my mentions on X (aka Twitter) after reading the headline about Sullivan’s message to complain that he was being soft. Either, they didn’t understand his message or didn’t care — and it’s probably the latter. I don’t try to argue or fight those trolls. The only option is to ignore and then mute or block them. Fans will have plenty of opportunity to root for Dayton. It’s just probably the wrong time to throw a Fly Light Lager at the Buckeye bench. Playing the favorite role again Credit: David Jablonski Earlier in the week, I traveled to Brooklyn, N.Y., for Atlantic 10 Conference Media Day, one of my favorite events of the year. This was my eighth trip to Brooklyn (six tournaments and two media days). I try to see something new every time, so this time after arriving on Monday evening, I took an Uber from LaGuardia Airport to the Williamsburg section of Brooklyn, and took a long walk along the East River, stopping at Brooklyn Brewery and Fini Pizza, where I ate two slices of New York pizza on a green lawn chair out front. On Tuesday morning, Dayton was voted the A-10 favorite for the second straight year. I could have copied and pasted my question and Grant’s answer from 2022. “What’s my opinion of everybody’s opinion? I don’t put a lot of stock in it,” Grant said. There’s no trophy for being the preseason champion, though the postseason championship trophy did make an appearance at Media Day. The highlights of the day for me were: 1. Receiving an A-10 backpack, which was given to all the media members in attendance. I put it to good use the next day when I spent about nine hours filling up a moving van three times and unloading it three times at our new house in Bexley. My wife Barbara, who works for the Columbus Dispatch, and I moved from Springfield to Columbus 10 years ago, about a month before I started covering the Flyers. Now we’re moving a whopping 500 feet, or 180 steps, across Livingston Avenue and into one of the best school districts in Ohio for our son, Chase, who starts kindergarten in 2024. I’m typing this just after midnight, early Friday, because I have to get up early for the arrival of Two Men and a Truck, who will help us complete our move. Most of our “junk,” including two tons of Chase’s toys and my smaller collection of UD media guides, has already taken up residence across the street. The moving has tested my sore left Achilles tendon, which I wore out by playing basketball three times a week most of the summer. I’m happy to provide this injury update in place of little injury news on the Flyers. I know all fans hope I have little to report on that front this season. 2. Talking to former UD coach Archie Miller, who sat down with me 1-on-1 after his press conference to talk about returning to UD Arena in January for the first time since his last game in 2017. “Going back, it will look different and feel different,” Miller said, “but the minute you pull up to the place and you see it, you’re going to think about all the guys that played in there and the games and the good experiences.” 3. Going on Adam Jardy’s podcast, where we talked about the Dayton-Ohio State game. Jardy covers Ohio State basketball for the Columbus Dispatch. Our paths rarely cross, but we’ll see each other Sunday. We covered everything about this game in 20 minutes. I have not listened to it yet, but I hope the audio was good. I tried to find a quiet part of New York City on the way to the airport for a 7 p.m. flight home but failed to do so, probably because it doesn’t exist. Two-year project nears the finish line As I left Archie Miller on Tuesday, I told him I’d bring him a copy of my new book — “The Epicenter of College Basketball: A History of UD Arena” — when he visits UD Arena in January. He’s got a starring role in one of the chapters, and I told him I made sure there was a Steve McElvene photo in it. There’s a Chris Daniels photo, too. I wanted to help keep the memory of those two late Flyers alive. The book I’ve been working on for just over two years now exists — in print. Two proof copies from Amazon arrived in my mailbox on Tuesday while I was in Brooklyn. These copies gave me one last chance to look over the book before printing it for the masses. Until that moment, the book had only been a Google doc and then a PDF. Thanks to Peter Bronson, of Chilidog Press, and Craig Ramsdell, who designed the book, it is now a real thing and so close to being something I can share with the Flyer Faithful. Post Printing in Minster will print 1,500 copies for me sometime in the next couple of weeks. Once the books arrive at my house, I hope to deliver them to the UD Bookstore and UD Arena and anywhere else that might take them in Dayton. They will also be available for purchase on a website I created, UDArenaBook.com (don’t click yet; I won’t launch it until I have the books), and also at Amazon.com. I make more money per book if I sell them myself and not through Amazon, and I’m going to have to sell a lot just to break even, but it was never about the money. I just thought this was a book that needed to exist in the world — and now it does, at least the two that are sitting on my windowsill. My wife shared a video on Instagram of Chase getting the book out of the mailbox and opening the package and wrote a thoughtful message: “Two years ago, @davidpjablonski and I decided to each embark on personal projects. I started a Master’s degree, he started writing a book. The topic? The history of University of Dayton Arena, where he has spent *a little bit* of time. It seems fitting that David was not home when the final proof arrived. He was, of course, covering the Flyers at A-10 basketball media day. I am immensely proud of Dave’s accomplishment. He simply loves covering Dayton. Never question this, friends. Wear red this season, Flyer fans. Be lowd. And if you’re a reader, please consider spending some time with Dave’s book. There was nobody better to write this.” Fast Break Here’s other news that might interest Flyer fans: 🏀 Ohio State coach Chris Holtmann told reporters this week he was open to starting a series with Dayton. “For seven years now I’ve gotten grief from Dayton fans about never playing them, and trust me, it’s been pretty consistent,” Holtmann said. “We have talked about playing in the past, and I’d be open to doing a home-and-home with them at some point, for sure. We almost did it a couple years ago.” 🏀 Dayton ranks fifth in The Athletic’s Mid-Major Top 10. “With VCU going through a coaching transition, the Flyers are the clear A-10 favorites,” Brian Bennett wrote. “Is this the year they get a little luck?” What do you want to know about the Flyers? I want to hear from you. Reach out to me directly at [email protected] with your questions and feedback on the team or this newsletter. Also be sure to follow our Flyer Nation Facebook page for the latest news on the team. I’ll have updates, photos and videos on Twitter, as well. | 