One of the many benefits of my decision to disengage from the cumbersome world of prep sportswriting is that I now have a much greater ability to write for other outlets.  It’s nice to present my work for different audiences that might not otherwise see it here, not to mention the fact that I am fortunate enough to write for websites that might not have any reader overlap whatsoever.

A New Voice is a right-leaning commentary site with an emphasis on pop culture and youth-oriented issues.  Although I’m probably less of a “red meat” conservative ideologue (and most assuredly less of a “youth”) than the rest of the writers there, I like providing quick takes on political topics that pop up every two weeks.  With Leather is a broad pop-culture website that runs the gamut from sports to movies to music to television and beyond.  I got to pinch-hit over there earlier this week.  Finally, Cover 32 is a very cool new NFL-themed website that has a clean, professional site design that I love, and a topic that I love even more.  I’ll be writing about the Redskins on a weekly basis there.

With that in mind, here are three pieces I wrote during the past week that published elsewhere, each with very different subject matter:

Obama’s Tuition Fix (from A New Voice): This piece discusses the president’s speech last week in which he outlined some broad proposals to help keep tuition costs and student debt low.  Although I think some of the components are sound ideas, the overall mindset underlying the effort is problematic: Attending a four-year college isn’t a prerequisite for financial success (increasingly, the opposite is true), and we shouldn’t be promoting it as a universal necessity.  Additionally, the federal government withholding or allocating funds based on its own criteria of how much of a “value” a particular school has creates a new problem rather than solving an old one.

Total Divas Episode 5 Recap (from With Leather): Writing this proved to be much more fun than I had previously anticipated.  Without question, a reality show about WWE Divas is low-hanging fruit that’s scraping the ground, but I reveled in the absurdity of it.  I think the fact that I had never seen this show made recapping it even better.  Having less of an idea of what you’re in for usually helps with this kind of review.

Everyone Remain Calm (from Cover32.com): My first piece for the Washington Redskins site on Cover32.com explained why a great preseason should be met with a measured response.  The fact is that preseason football basically doesn’t matter a lick, except insofar as players remain healthy, and in terms of figuring out who the 51st, 52nd, and 53rd guys on the roster will be.

So, there you have it.  Take your pick, or enjoy all three.  Amazingly, the Total Divas recap is longer than the other two combined, which probably tells you a lot about my odd sensibilities.

Bon appetit!