Good and loyal readers,
It's extremely gratifying to me to see so many new and old visitors coming to A Sea of Blue. Just over a year ago (Feb. 2006), I decided after much back-and-forth to ditch my blogger.com digs and upgrade to the SportsBlogNation at their invitation.
I wasn't sure then what would come of it. I knew that my workload would increase -- I was posting maybe three times a week at Bogans' Heroes, the old site -- and that, theoretically, so would my audience. But it was a leap of faith.
Those first few months were lean indeed, as only a few readers (maybe 30-50 a day) kept me from going crazy. I did game posts where I was my own audience, made a few fake screen names to stir up interest and generally labored under the assumption that my work was basically for nothing.
Just as I began to lose forward momentum, a couple of loyal visitors made some noise, posting in game threads or after a particularly long, contentious post I put up. One of those dedicated readers -- even back at Bogans' Heroes -- was someone I've still never met, Truzenzuzex.
Over the last three-five months, a lot has changed. Posters started coming alive, creating chatter and interest. I eventually took the step of asking 'Tru' (as he's known) to help me by contributing when he could.
The ruckus at the end of the basketball season brought in a record number of viewers and with Tru's increasingly regular help, we matched the increased viewership with upgraded attention to the news and more and dedicated coverage. In January, we had 19,000 hits. In February, a little more. Then came "Tubbygate."
The feral hunger for potential coach information and rumor and anything brought in a colossal 35,000 hits in March. That was, as you can see, nearly double our record February total. And April?
We're approaching 63,000 unique visits this month, with a few days to go. One year ago at this time, we had a little over 2,000. We got 3,300 yesterday. I call that progress.
So what's my point in all this? Well, it's something important to me, and a significant announcement.
I am in the process of passing the day-to-day reins of this site -- quite honestly, after a year-plus of working every day on it, my baby -- over to Tru. He's shown dedication, an immense proclivity for writing and geniune interest in creating the exact type of atmosphere that I always hoped this site would bring to the Big Blue Experience.
There are many places to get UK hoops coverage. Jones' KSR guys do amazing recruiting news, Cats Pause gets more hits in a day than I can even fathom. Aaron's UK blog consistently trolls the web and finds great tidbits and hidden gems. The guys at FireBilly? help us shore up the mighty center, keeping the fringe from dominating all Kentucky fandom.
But we have managed to carve out our own niche. And I love it. We offer by far the most thoughtful and discerning Kentucky sports (read: hoops) commentary on the web, and it's due in large part to the readers who come here and post, come by to read and to my man, Tru.
I have a lot of outside opportunities that I've put off, or that are fast approaching whether I'm ready or not, and so this move, subtle as it is, will help me out tremendously.
I hope to continue to post my thoughts here and to get your feedback. With luck and the fates, readers will notice no great difference in our coverage at all. But I thought I'd pass along how pleased I am with the site's growth, and to let you know that Tru -- and I sincerely hope, you readers as well -- will be taking a greater role in the editorial and philosophical direction of A Sea Of Blue. Nothing would please me more than to see this place blossom into something far and beyond what I built. That would be a big success in my eyes.
Thank you again for reading.
JL.