I've been working on this for well over a week. It's going to be a countdown of the 100 best VU athletes I've covered in men's hoops, baseball and football since I started the site in 2003.
I've sorted the list in five categories: football defense, football offense, baseball position players, baseball pitchers and basketball players, and rated a bunch of players in each category. On that sheet are all kinds of stats so that I have a fair point of reference for each player, and as far as baseball is concerned, a ton of effort went into putting those stats into proper context (run-scoring environment, etc.)
From there, I'm taking those five lists and just picking off players one at a time and ranking them in overall order. I will actually release an "honorable mention" of the best 25 that didn't make the cut, and will probably do this on Friday.
Before I release this, I'm asking 4-5 people to take a look at my list to give me feedback on what they think I got wrong. I'm in the process of soliciting that and will consider what I get before I finalize the list.
Then, starting Monday, I'll count down from 100, with the release of players 100 and 99. The plan is going to be to release two a day five days a week, with each release being a biography of probably 500-1,000 words or so on each player. So, Week 1 will be the 91-100, Week 2 will be 81-90, and so on.
Within that feature will be where players rank on all-time VU (and SEC) lists in terms of statistical accomplishments, honors (All-SEC, All-American, etc.) and a brief recap of their careers before and after VU, along with any good YouTube clips, links to other articles outside the side, whatever I can find that folks might be interested in seeing or reading.
Finally, I'll end with a summation of why I ranked a player where I did, and any other commentary on a player that folks may find interesting.
Anyway, I know outside of podcasting, I haven't generated a lot of content personally over the last three weeks. Vacation and suddenly being in charge of home-schooling my kids has eaten into a lot of time. and the rest has gone into doing a lot of prep work for this feature. This is one I want to do really well and maybe revisit every few years (I'm thinking at "5" intervals of site anniversaries; i.e., our 20-year anniversary will be in 2023) and add players and shuffle rankings accordingly. (Fortunately, that'll be easier since I've done most of the prep work already.)
I hope you guys will enjoy the content. I'm going to start a thread on each player as I count down the list so folks can add their own memories, tell me why I ranked a player too high/too low/etc., and just give us a "memory lane" to walk down together as we go through the coming months. If it's half as fun to talk about as it's been for me doing it, it'll be a blast!
I've sorted the list in five categories: football defense, football offense, baseball position players, baseball pitchers and basketball players, and rated a bunch of players in each category. On that sheet are all kinds of stats so that I have a fair point of reference for each player, and as far as baseball is concerned, a ton of effort went into putting those stats into proper context (run-scoring environment, etc.)
From there, I'm taking those five lists and just picking off players one at a time and ranking them in overall order. I will actually release an "honorable mention" of the best 25 that didn't make the cut, and will probably do this on Friday.
Before I release this, I'm asking 4-5 people to take a look at my list to give me feedback on what they think I got wrong. I'm in the process of soliciting that and will consider what I get before I finalize the list.
Then, starting Monday, I'll count down from 100, with the release of players 100 and 99. The plan is going to be to release two a day five days a week, with each release being a biography of probably 500-1,000 words or so on each player. So, Week 1 will be the 91-100, Week 2 will be 81-90, and so on.
Within that feature will be where players rank on all-time VU (and SEC) lists in terms of statistical accomplishments, honors (All-SEC, All-American, etc.) and a brief recap of their careers before and after VU, along with any good YouTube clips, links to other articles outside the side, whatever I can find that folks might be interested in seeing or reading.
Finally, I'll end with a summation of why I ranked a player where I did, and any other commentary on a player that folks may find interesting.
Anyway, I know outside of podcasting, I haven't generated a lot of content personally over the last three weeks. Vacation and suddenly being in charge of home-schooling my kids has eaten into a lot of time. and the rest has gone into doing a lot of prep work for this feature. This is one I want to do really well and maybe revisit every few years (I'm thinking at "5" intervals of site anniversaries; i.e., our 20-year anniversary will be in 2023) and add players and shuffle rankings accordingly. (Fortunately, that'll be easier since I've done most of the prep work already.)
I hope you guys will enjoy the content. I'm going to start a thread on each player as I count down the list so folks can add their own memories, tell me why I ranked a player too high/too low/etc., and just give us a "memory lane" to walk down together as we go through the coming months. If it's half as fun to talk about as it's been for me doing it, it'll be a blast!
