For those of you not already aware, BSD has been named the Best Big Ten Blog by my fellow bloggers. I thought it would be appropriate if I say a few words.
First and foremost, congratulations to Black Heart Gold Pants on being named the runner up as well as winning the Best New Blog Award. Jebus, Oops POW Surprise, and Hawkeye State do a fantastic job and deserve this award as much as I do. The same goes for all the other nominees. I'm honored to just be mentioned in the same breath as The M Zone, Eleven Warriors, and Lake The Posts. At some point you guys have all inspired me and made me a better blogger.
Thanks to all of my fellow bloggers who nominated and voted for Black Shoe Diaries. It's truly humbling to know that your peers appreciate what you do and consider you to be the best. There are so many good Big Ten blogs out there I was just honored to be nominated for this award. To win it blows my mind. I thought for sure The M Zone was going to win since they were the runner up last year. And then when Black Heart Gold Pants took home the Best New Blog I thought I was probably going to finish in third. So this is definitely a surprise for me.
I'd like to thank Joel, who was really the visionary and ring leader for these blogger awards. And thanks to the other members of the selection committee; Orson, Kyle, Brian, and Peter. You guys rock.
I'd like to especially thank Tyler and Peter for giving me this great platform on SBN in which to blog. Without them inviting me to join SBN I would probably be running some small blog nobody ever heard of dreaming of the day I had a google rank of 3.
I'd like to thank Brian for the kind words in his presentation post. He and I have gone toe to toe on more than one occassion, but we've always kept it civil and let the readers sort out the nasty details. It's truly an honor for me to have him present this award since MGoBlog was instrumental in inspiring me to start my own blog. I don't think I've skipped one of his posts in the past two years, and his writing is always the model to which I aspire to reach. Truthfully, I only won this award because he was ineligible this year. We all know who the best Big Ten blog is. But having said that, I'm not giving it back.
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| It's cheezy. It's glorious. It's mine. |
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Now that the thanks and ass kissing are out of the way, I think this is the part where I'm supposed to shower you all with words of wisdom. If I had any, I would. The truth is this blog is just a stupid hobby of mine. Some would call it an obsession. Please indulge me for a moment while I rant. The guy in the back is only giving me the yellow light so I think that means I have 30 seconds to spare.
I first got the idea to start a college football blog in the fall of 2005. Penn State was at the tail end of the magical Michael Robinson season in which we turned around five years of disappointment into a Big Ten championship. I had been running a political blog for two years at that point, but my interest was getting low and my readership was even lower. I gave up the political blog but still enjoyed reading blogs on a daily basis. With Penn State doing so well I tried to seek out Penn State blogs and to my astonishment, there were none. Well, there were one or two, but they weren't updated very regularly and they looked horrible. I ran across these great blogs from other schools for Michigan, Ohio State, Texas, Florida, Notre Dame, and others. It just seemed to me that our great Penn State fan base deserved better. So in January of 2006 I started a little Penn State blog called Hail To The Lion. Let me tell you, it's not easy starting up a college football blog in the first month of the offseason. After a week and a half I had run out of things to say. My site meter said I was averaging ten hits per day, and I was pretty sure nine of those were me.
But I plugged along because I love Penn State football. It's my hobby. It's my passion. I did it for my fellow Penn State fans like me who crave Penn State content 365 days a year. About six months after starting HTTL is when Peter approached me about coming on with SBN. So in August of 2006, Black Shoe Diaries was launched to a shaky start and the rest is history.
I think shortly after I started up HTTL is when The Nittany Line and Run Up The Score started up. The three of us grew our blogs together. We encouraged each other. We bounced ideas off each other and RUTS soon came up with the idea to start the Blue White Roundtable. I consider Chris and Galen two of my best friends in the blogosphere. Thanks, guys.
And now today it seems like Penn State blogs are popping up all over the place. There Is No Name On My Jersey is a seasoned veteran now even though Chris, Galen, and I had our doubts about JB's extreme homerism. But he's made it work and came up with his own voice. Lately new blogs like Tangled Up In White And Blue and The Big 11th among others have popped up to further fuel our Penn State football obsessions. Some time ago I had a new Penn State blogger tell me I was their inspiration for starting their blog. What do you say to that? In my eyes I'm just a schmuck who spends too much time on his laptop when he should be spending more time with his family or doing actual work.
Ok the red light is flashing and the music is starting so I have to wrap this up. So in conclusion I have one more person to thank, and that's you. The readers. I've said before that this gig doesn't pay for shit. If it wasn't for the hawt chicks I wouldn't even be doing this. I keed, I keed. Seriously, I get next to nothing monetarily for doing this. My payment is the site meter. It's the comments. It's seeing this community in our little tube of the internet grow. Without you I would be a lone voice talking to myself. But it's you guys who make BSD what it is. And for that, I thank you.