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I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends
I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends
Christopher Rieman
Published by Chris R
03-06-2008
Smile I Get By With a Little Help From My Friends

DAYTON (OH) -- About seven years ago I came to a stark conclusion: I could no longer run UDPride.com as a one-man band. In the first three or four years of incubation, that’s exactly what I did however. By my senior year at UD in 1997 I had just enough experience and just enough neuroticism to take the Web site to that proverbial “next level.” That lasted for about two more seasons until I was tapped dry. As the site developed its small but loyal following my time grew increasingly busy. The R&D and constant site upkeep of not only Web pages but also a growing constituency meant the opportunity to publish content slowly but steadily suffered. It was a good problem to have I suppose, but without a solution the problem would only get worse and traction gained would end up traction lost. So I made a couple of important decisions.
Looking forward, I needed help. I sent out a casting call of sorts to a short but distinguished list of loyal backers of the Web site to gauge their interest in helping out with content creation. Unable to pawn off my R&D duties I quickly stepped aside from most on-hand basketball coverage and relegated myself to the Tier-1 sports – at the timely mostly men’s and women’s soccer. It was a sport I was highly familiar with and opening up basketball left room for a larger pool of applicants. It was a risky move at the time because I was among the few Internet hounds (still am) willing to cover the major non-revenue D-I sports. For several years we spun tires trying to draw an audience, but the fans have steadily matriculated in and serve as an important backbone to our overall coverage. That left basketball open for others to cover and I knew this was my meal ticket to ensure the long-term viability of this project. Of the roughly 15 souls I begged for assistance, just three or four responded with any degree of enthusiasm. Dave Palmere, Steve Krall, Doug Lyons, and last but not least John Churan offered to help. I promised nothing more than self-satisfaction and perhaps a t-shirt. All the research, preparation, writing, and editing were pretty much on their own. Each of them made UDPride.com a better place, but as people grow older, families and other responsibilities interfere and I never leveraged charges on the others who had to cut back. For some stupid reason, John never let up.

Without a paycheck, the only real perk with a gig like this were the doors that opened for him. John bought that sales pitch and went further with it than I ever imagined. Working out of Columbus, he was close, but not I-can-be-there-in-10-minutes close. He called interviewees long distance on his own dime, took vacation days off from work to visit campus and work his schedule around others, and ventured beyond basketball to cover several other sports that highlighted the very best of Flyer Nation. It took an enormous weight off my shoulders knowing Mad Dog could publish something substantial all fans wanted to read, rather than 800 words of filler even the pet goldfish wouldn’t find interesting. Before things around here got technically savvy, John had to send me each article in MS Word so I could publish it for him. A breakthrough came three years ago when we migrated to the Coranto publishing system and ultimately to the content management suite we have today. Just updating home pages and article pages and archive pages on a nightly basis was a full-time job, but had I been burdened with all of the content creation, moving forward with new technologies would have never happened at all.

Momentum is an important thing and the kick-in-the-pants helped us grow the fan base exponentially. Additional contributions from Jim Meadows and others have given me the opportunity to spend more time doing the things that others cannot: maintaining the message board, handling upgrades, backups, advertising, and answering e-mail about everything from “I cannot log in” to “I think you’re a jughead.” I left UD with a Journalism degree so I’m still a writer at heart. I miss having the time to write like I used to, but the Fall sports are now a body of work I find rewarding all to their own -- and it allows others the chance to cut their teeth on the sport with the largest audience: UD basketball. I enjoy giving others a chance to get closer to programs they wouldn’t otherwise and the folks at UD have treated every person representing UDPride as if they were yours truly.

While I’m certain Mad Dog’s duties will diminish considerably, even the Continental Divide won’t keep him from adding his two cents whenever the time is right. It’s hard to let go of the open range to interact with UD in a way few others are privileged. It’s what all of us at UDPride find most rewarding. For reasons still unexplained, others think you are smarter and more important when caretaking an audience. I still can’t wrap my arms around why this is, but it’s true. In the end, opinions are like backsides and we've never assumed entitlement to such expert labels.


The good news is Mad Dog is loaded. His family lives like Arab sheiks and no indulgence is too great. His two boys tote $400 Easton baseball bats and private lessons from college coaches so they can reach the Major Leagues to finance the old man’s beachfront retirement. There really is an air of brilliance (arrogance?) to it. The last time I asked, he felt he was five years away from sipping Pina Coladas and working on his tan. His wife Julia probably deserves most of the credit. After all, she’s approved 22 seasons of Flyer basketball tickets. Arizona is a beautiful place with 300 days of sunshine. What’s not to like.

I’m not sure John is riding off into the sunset so much as he’s changing horses. Good for him. Sometimes a step up means a step away – at least in the figurative sense. You can take the man away from Dayton, but you can’t take Dayton away from the man. Giddy’up pilgrim.
__________________

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Make everyone else's "one day" your "day one".
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