Hello, and welcome to The Ypsilanti Eleven.
Or for those of you who have visited these pages before my year-long hiatus, welcome back.
More on that later. Until then, let’s stay focused on moving forward.
LET’S TALK ABOUT SOME CHANGES
GOODBYE, SUBSTACK. HELLO, BEEHIIV. — Maybe you noticed right away, but I’m no longer writing on Substack, and have already moved 100% of my cargo to Beehiiv. The emails should come in looking pretty, and I’ll deal with the website’s design once there’s enough new stuff for me to try and organize.
GOODBYE, OLD DOMAIN. HELLO, YPSILANTI11.COM. — While I took a break from writing here (again, more on that later), I was supposed to renew my registration to keep the domain for the newsletter that, at the time, I just didn’t think I was going back to writing. I maybe would’ve let the service auto-renew, except I had paid for that with a credit card that had now expired, and I wasn’t going to whip out my updated card to pay for it at the time. Well, joke’s on me for assuming it’d be available for me to buy later — I called customer support for the domain provider, and they said somebody else bought it. Uh, really? She said yeah. Uh, okay? So here we are, now on Ypsilanti11.com.
ME — I’m doing better now, thanks for asking. How bad was I doing before? Unwell enough to not be able to handle my bouts of burnout (and depression and anxiety, stuff like that) without eventually going to get some help. As a matter of transparency, I tried other therapists before and during the 2024 season, then had to try two more during 2025 before I found one that was best-suited to actually help me out. We’re making progress in there, and that’s a good reason why we’re back here on these Y11 pages.
WAIT, WHAT HAPPENED THE MAC? — I was only gone for a few months to a year and, uh, what happened to the conference I used to love? What happened to being able to jump in your car and go in any which direction before I drive to a regionally tethered school? I haven’t provided updates since before Northern Illinois announced that it was leaving for the Mountain West and Horizon League conferences. And that was a news update since before Sacramento State got high on its own overinflated projection numbers before announcing that it would be coming ot the MAC too. So, I’ve got a little bit of catching up to do.
TODAY IS THE OFFICIAL RE-LAUNCH DAY OF THE YPSILANTI ELEVEN
Here’s what you can expect out of me:
E-mailed newsletter posts!
I’m assuming your interest in actual-factual Eastern Michigan football coverage is what brought you here in the first place. Let’s talk ball, let’s talk some MACtion.
Blog posts!
College football, near and far!
More EMU sports!
MACtion!
The beautiful and always sunny Ypsilanti!
These don’t necessarily need to be emailed out each time I hit publish.
A sorta-to-kinda active YouTube account!
Click here to pull up the channel, and subscribe to see when the first video drops.
I’m not currently in a place where I can reliably do a podcast, but a few little videos here and there wouldn’t hurt.
My hope is that this account will help the newsletter’s overall growth in the short and long terms, and it’s a chance to engage with readers through video.
Note: I’m not going to prioritize videos nearly as much as I plan to prioritize writing.
A better and more balanced version of myself while doing all this!
Oh, the lies we tell ourselves!
But seriously.
I’m making some serious changes in my life and workflow to help this newsletter grow. I should actually stop phrasing that way. There’s something more grown-up and serious-sounding to say “my small business” versus “my newsletter”. I want The Ypsilanti Eleven to be way more successful than I ever dreamed of before. I’m demanding myself to be more consistent and dedicated to this page’s success. I’m not going to let the fear of failure dictate my decisions (or indecisions), and I’ll instead work incredibly hard to prove to myself that I was right all along. The Ypsilanti Eleven is important, good, and necessary work.
WHAT DO I WANT TO ACCOMPLISH?
Pretty simple: I want to feel good about myself and my work. I want to put my head down in the sand, get lost in my own work in ways and in a place where nobody else is doing it. There are no other Ypsi 11’s out there running around.
WHAT’S THE PAY STRUCTURE & WHY PAY?
Friends, I take this newsletter incredibly seriously. I have goals for growth, but I also have goals to be sustainable.
I want The Ypsilanti Eleven to stand the tests of time.
I launched this newsletter in 2020. I wasn’t living in Ypsilanti at the time, but I had my experience covering the team. I was also not expecting a little thing called Covid-19 to be a major, uh, decision maker for the world a couple of months into the newsletter’s existence. When I moved back to Ypsi a few years later, I decided to make this newsletter a bigger priority in my life, and maybe this fun little project of mine would matter to you, too. I kept things going, but I wasn’t as consistent throughout the year as I would’ve liked. Some months were taken off, but I made sure to drive myself to burnout-levels of stress through the football seasons.
The 2024 season, I thought, needed to be my last season. I need to find a job that matches my skillset and provides a level of happiness in my life that I can be satisfied with.
The 2025 season, I assumed, was supposed to be when I learned that not having any obligations or engagements with the greatest sport on Earth would be a fun and worthwhile change.
Now that 2026 is here and there’s still the rest of my life to look forward to, I have a clearer understanding of what my purpose in life is.
AT $0 PER MONTH, you’re telling me that you want to hang out with the newsletter without paying a dime. That’s great! Seriously, one of my most immediate goals for this newsletter is to find thousands and thousands of people like you. I’m serious about that. I want to find as many people who willing to, if nothing else, at least pledge the smallest amount of support to an independent media enterprise such as this.
There’s just one catch, but it’s really an ask. If you’re a free subscriber, would you please tell a friend or two know that you’re following this independent EMU & MAC football-sided page? A little word-of-mouth would go a long way here.
A MONTHLY SUBSCRIPTION ($6.50/MO.) could mean anything. Maybe you want to subscribe for the year but just can’t yet. Maybe this is a trial run for you, and an opportunity for me to earn your full 12-month support. Maybe it was an accident.
One thing is for certain — a monthly subscriber is hopeful for this newsletter’s success, and you want to be at least a small part of that success.
Subscribers receive all paywalled articles + the ability to leave comments.
Support to me averages out to just under $0.22/day.
AN ANNUAL SUBSCRIPTION ($65/YR) is absolutely more dependable and reliable than a monthly subscription. If you’re signing onto this level of commitment, then you’re telling me that my writing and reporting are really important to you. You’re also telling me that you want to be the boss of me. To that I say: you’re hired!
Support to me averages out to just under $0.18/day.
A SERIOUS INVESTOR ($165/YR) is not here for the jokes. You’re not here to play games. You absolutely know what’s at stake here. My success is your success. The Ypsilanti Eleven will last an incredibly long time because you’re going to make it happen. You don’t just want this newsletter to exist for your personal benefit. You want this newsletter to exist for you to enjoy with some of your friends or family.
Subscribers at this level will receive a second, gifted, subscription. One for you, one for somebody else. Maybe for your best friend. Maybe for your lover. Maybe for your roommate, or a cousin. You can be a hero in somebody’s life today.
Support to me averages out to $0.45/day for the transaction. Or, it’s $0.23/day per subscription.
CONTACT, REACH OUT
EMAIL ME AT [email protected].
FOLLOW YPSILANTI11.COM ON BLUESKY. As far as microblogging style of social media goes, BlueSky’s my go-to home for posts and conversation. Times are changing, folks.
TWEET AT ME: @ARALVARADO13. I’m only using a personal account on Twitter these days, I don’t need two accounts over on that site. (I still hate having this one.)
Thanks to everybody in advance for your support; I’m excited for what the future holds for this newsletter.
-Alex
Photo by Super Straho on Unsplash