Management Change At A Sea of Blue

Well, ladies and gentlemen of the Big Blue Nation, and friends of A Sea of Blue, the time has come for your humble correspondent to make a few changes. The remorseless march of time often forces us to re-examine our lives, and I’ve decided that it’s time to step down as manager of A Sea of Blue and make room for new leadership and new ideas.

Before we go on with this, I just want to say that I’m not leaving A Sea of Blue to go somewhere else. In fact, I’m not leaving it at all, or don’t plan to. It’s my hope that if the new management is willing, they’ll let me stay around as a regular author. I love to write about Kentucky, but after eight years as steward of this site and you wonderful people, I no longer have the energy to put the kind of time in that it takes to manage a community like this. I find myself wanting time to do things that I have denied myself during my tenure, and Petra has been a blog widow far too often and far too long. I owe it to myself and her to make this change.

What does this mean for the site? I’ll just list them, it’s easier:

• I’ll be writing, just not as often. My pieces will be more analysis and less "required blogging," like pregames, postmortems and Quickies. I’ll still write about the news or whatever, but not as frequently. Instead of two or three times a day, you’ll see my byline maybe two or three times a week, more or less, depending on how I feel and how much time I have.

• SB Nation will be advertising for a new site manager. I will turn all my current duties over to that person and I’ll become a regular author, if that’s okay with them (I’m sure it will be).

• Starting on or around June 1st, I’ll be taking a break. My current plans are around a month, but if I feel like something needs saying, I’ll write about it. But for the month of June, I’ll be mostly absent from the site as I vacation, relax, and set my priorities going forward.

• Regarding the tone, policies and community guidelines of A Sea of Blue, that will be totally up to the discretion of the new management. It is possible that both will change significantly, because I won’t have a say in that anymore. I don’t expect that to happen, but that’s ultimately their decsion and not mine.

• I am not going to be writing elsewhere, or taking some gig for some other site. I am SB Nation forever, as long as they’ll have me. If they get tired of me, then I guess all bets are off. :-)

That’s really about it. There’s no need for a lot of drama here, it’s not as if I’m going on a space journey for 100 light years in a generational ship, or shipping off to fight ISIS barehanded, or some other um… more permanent endeavor like exploring the mystery of death or just plain going off the grid. My role is simply going to change from site manager to author, like JLeverenz or Will are right now.

I’m sure there will be a few changes on how things are done on a daily basis, but lets just wait and see about that, you never know how this will all shake out. Ultimately, though, I think this is the best decision for me and I hope a fresh take on the site will make it even better than it is right now.

Lastly, I want to thank all of you for reading and for helping me build A Sea of Blue into the wonderful place it is. In the end, what we do is for you, and if you have in some measure enjoyed this site and the work we put in, then it is mission accomplished. The Big Blue Nation has a large and vibrant on-line community, and it has been my incredible honor to have been able to be a part of that on the leadership level. It’s been a great experience that has brought me way more than I’ve given, most of it from you as a community. I place the highest possible life value on that. So thank you all so very much.

In closing, remember that we have embraced the inevitable change at Kentucky since Coach Cal has been here better than any fan base in America. This change should be embraced with equal alacrity, as I think it will make A Sea of Blue even better. So please join me in making our new management welcome when it is hired over the next week or so, and embrace the future as eagerly as we did in the development of its past and present.