Today will be the last day at Rivals for our team. I cannot believe it’s been a week shy of 22 years since this started and while the last few have been difficult, I’m grateful for the experience and the friends I’ve made along the way. It’s not the right time to reveal what’s coming next—I’ll just say that it won’t be a secret—but right now I want to focus on appreciating the road and the people that got us here.
I was approached in the fall of 2002 about launching a Vanderbilt site by a friend of mine at the Rivals network, Brent High. Though I had started to tinker around with sports writing in other forms outside of the Vanderbilt sports market, I had little more business doing that than I do of being an NFL left tackle right now. But Brent had faith that I was willing to work at it and that things might work out. Somehow, we’re improbably still here 22 years later.
Twenty-two years! If you took all the time I’ve spent here, between writing, being on the board, covering games and podcasting, and put it all together consecutively without sleep, it would total three full years. I can’t begin to thank all those who’ve helped us get there but I’ll try, and I’m nervous knowing that I’ll inadvertently leave out some good and helpful people just by virtue of there being so many.
At Rivals—thanks to Brent, Shannon Terry, Bobby Burton, John Gworek and those guys way back when for giving me a chance. Thanks to Josh Helmholdt who’s been good to me as I work with him to this day, and folks in between like Pat Tholey, Greg Ladky and John Talman who invested a lot of time into what we’ve done.
To the staff who’ve helped us get here—it would have never happened without the hard work of Mike Rapp and Jesse Johnson back near the beginning. Andrew Kerr was there for that, too. Our current team of Billy Derrick, Joey Dwyer, Alaina Morris, Brandon Bigsby and Justin Angel and (on the podcast side) Luke Wyatt has done great work. The list of guys in between is lengthy and we even got one alum (Sam Phalen) to the “Survivor” finals. Sean Williams did tremendous work for nearly a decade until leaving us in September. Seabass, Mitch Light and Chip Fridrich helped us make some memorable podcasts.
Thank you to podcast sponsors past and present: John Ingram, Jody Jones, Josh Minton, Scott Tannen, Taylor Sutherland (the only original left!), Steve Andrews, Davis Young, Jon Levin. Again, I know I’ve forgotten someone and my apologies there.
Other guys at the network running team sites who are still here at Rivals—I count many good friends still here, among them Neal McCready (Ole Miss), Anthony Dasher (Georgia), Jay Tate (Auburn) and Kelly Quinlan (Georgia Tech) as guys I’ll miss. I’m sure we won’t be strangers.
And to the hundreds of you here on the board whom I’ve met and developed various degrees of friendship that otherwise wouldn’t have existed at all—thank you all. Through the good times and the bad times, it’s been a pleasure to serve you.
And so it's with bittersweet feelings that we end an era here. No matter what’s ahead, leaving a place you helped create and build from nothing is always hard, especially when it involves no longer working with some of the great people who helped you get here. But this is not "goodbye" and we’ll be easy to find.
Until next time,
Chris
I was approached in the fall of 2002 about launching a Vanderbilt site by a friend of mine at the Rivals network, Brent High. Though I had started to tinker around with sports writing in other forms outside of the Vanderbilt sports market, I had little more business doing that than I do of being an NFL left tackle right now. But Brent had faith that I was willing to work at it and that things might work out. Somehow, we’re improbably still here 22 years later.
Twenty-two years! If you took all the time I’ve spent here, between writing, being on the board, covering games and podcasting, and put it all together consecutively without sleep, it would total three full years. I can’t begin to thank all those who’ve helped us get there but I’ll try, and I’m nervous knowing that I’ll inadvertently leave out some good and helpful people just by virtue of there being so many.
At Rivals—thanks to Brent, Shannon Terry, Bobby Burton, John Gworek and those guys way back when for giving me a chance. Thanks to Josh Helmholdt who’s been good to me as I work with him to this day, and folks in between like Pat Tholey, Greg Ladky and John Talman who invested a lot of time into what we’ve done.
To the staff who’ve helped us get here—it would have never happened without the hard work of Mike Rapp and Jesse Johnson back near the beginning. Andrew Kerr was there for that, too. Our current team of Billy Derrick, Joey Dwyer, Alaina Morris, Brandon Bigsby and Justin Angel and (on the podcast side) Luke Wyatt has done great work. The list of guys in between is lengthy and we even got one alum (Sam Phalen) to the “Survivor” finals. Sean Williams did tremendous work for nearly a decade until leaving us in September. Seabass, Mitch Light and Chip Fridrich helped us make some memorable podcasts.
Thank you to podcast sponsors past and present: John Ingram, Jody Jones, Josh Minton, Scott Tannen, Taylor Sutherland (the only original left!), Steve Andrews, Davis Young, Jon Levin. Again, I know I’ve forgotten someone and my apologies there.
Other guys at the network running team sites who are still here at Rivals—I count many good friends still here, among them Neal McCready (Ole Miss), Anthony Dasher (Georgia), Jay Tate (Auburn) and Kelly Quinlan (Georgia Tech) as guys I’ll miss. I’m sure we won’t be strangers.
And to the hundreds of you here on the board whom I’ve met and developed various degrees of friendship that otherwise wouldn’t have existed at all—thank you all. Through the good times and the bad times, it’s been a pleasure to serve you.
And so it's with bittersweet feelings that we end an era here. No matter what’s ahead, leaving a place you helped create and build from nothing is always hard, especially when it involves no longer working with some of the great people who helped you get here. But this is not "goodbye" and we’ll be easy to find.
Until next time,
Chris
