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10 thoughts on 10 years as a D.C. sports blogger

Ten years in the past Thursday, close to as I can tell, very crucial things befell within the international of sports.

1. Roger Goodell started out his reign as commissioner of the NFL.

2. The Put up launched this blog, calling it the D.C. sports Bathroom, a final-minute name that no person positioned a good deal concept into The Know It Guy.

Those activities converged just once, I accept as true with, when — for inexplicable motives — I asked Roger Goodell to describe the final time he stated “Hip Hooray.” The ones have been easier times and for each folk. The tenth anniversary, though, has induced me to think a chunk approximately what things had been like 10 years ago and what they’re like now. It hasn’t caused deep thoughts, truely, because I don’t concentrate on The ones. But right here are 10 thoughts.

1) This blog wasn’t truly about sports

Well, it wasn’t about video games, anyhow. Lower back then, a huge part of what we on the Publish did change into still writing and reporting on the outcomes of games. I remember a body of workers-wide assembly in possibly 2003 or 2004 wherein I argued that we must simply forestall doing sports memories, that everybody who cared already knew the consequences, that none of my friends subscribed to newspapers, and that they in no way would if we have been imparting sports tales. I think I were given emotional and almost cried. It changed into strange. The weblog became purported to be extra conversational and much less formal, more about random matters that happened and less about matters you could look ahead to yourself on Television.

I didn’t want to jot down about injuries or defensive strategies. I didn’t even really need to write down about sports. (That has because changed.) But if I was at a Wizards exercise and something goofy befell — which was each wizard practice Lower back then — I wanted to put in writing it up right now, while with terrible blurry photos and manner too much first-man or woman. I desired to write about lovers, the matters they skilled and the things that mattered to them. I desired to throw pumpkins off the roof of RFK Stadium with Alecko Eskandarian. (We did.) I desired to make people smile if you can consider that.

This appears impossibly trite now. Very few famous sports activities Internet content entails a score. Invoice Simmons is one of the kings of online sports activities. Everybody wants viral content, and a game table isn’t going viral (even though nor is a Wizards exercise, lamentably). All our beat writers continuously supply brilliant off-the-field updates, with greater context and understanding that everybody else ought to control. And each quirky moment in a game right away lands on social media. In some methods, The one’s changes have made the idea of the Bog obsolete.

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2) I didn’t need to have takes

Suppose there has been one conviction that connected that early generation of sports activities bloggers. In that case, I assume it changed into this: that sports have been purported to be a laugh. That vintage guy yelling angrily at approximate decorum or unwritten rules or incorrect conduct changed into clearly now not amusing. This has lengthy due to the fact changed; the sports Net now has extra crazily shouted opinions than newspapers ever did. There may be judgment anywhere. Takes — or takes on takes — are over again gold.

But Back then, it appeared like there had been a gaggle of youngish non-conventional writers who mostly desired to apply sports activities as amusement and escapism, and who wanted to avoid what we saw in many newspapers and magazines: Critical sports Folks who knew How matters need to Be and who had been irritating to teach the world. Now I’m a “columnist,” theoretically. If you’ve ever examined my wishy-washy thoughts and puzzled, “why doesn’t he simply have a damn opinion,” this might be why. I’m still suspicious of reality. Gilbert Arenas rehabs his surgically repaired knee in the 2007 offseason at Cardozo High within the District.

3) The Bog stumbled into the Internet at the best time

This wasn’t The Post’s first blog. It wasn’t even The Put up’s first sports activities weblog — Redskins Insider had launched multiple weeks earlier under Jason La Canfora and Cindy Boren’s steerage. And Caps Insider and Wizards Insider got here a couple weeks later. (I can’t recall whilst Nats Journal began?) However, I assume I was the first Post employee — or one in every one of them, anyways — whose whole activity was to feed content to the Internet. (WashingtonPost. Com become then still a separate entity.)

And I saw myself as much less of a journalist and more of a blogger, something that supposed. Deadspin and the Large Lead have been already setting out, and all the cool kids had been analyzing Unfastened Darko and can’t stop the Bleeding, and new sports activities blogs have been stoning up every day. The Wizznutzz had a cult following, and just about every Nats fan became walking Nat’s blog. (The Caps also had an extremely colorful blogosphere, which became embraced using the group earlier than many groups were doing such matters.)

Newspapers, though, regarded sluggish to seize on, or gradually to recollect themselves peers with the net team. There have been still a few of us in opposition to them. But I figured Absolutely everyone who was writing approximately Washington sports activities turned into kind of my colleague, and the illusion that any of this was different or modern helped.

Elizabeth R. Cournoyer

Web enthusiast. Internet fanatic. Music geek. Gamer. Reader. Hipster-friendly coffee practitioner. Spent 2001-2007 merchandising human hair in Fort Lauderdale, FL. Spent 2001-2007 short selling tinker toys in Fort Walton Beach, FL. Spent 2001-2007 importing acne in Phoenix, AZ. Spent several months importing methane in Mexico. Spent the better part of the 90's creating marketing channels for wooden horses in Bethesda, MD. Lead a team implementing toy monkeys in Deltona, FL.

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