Hey guys.
As some of you know, I’m a pretty busy guy. It’s a lot of fun to run a Gator sports site, but it’s also time consuming, which is why, without further ado, I’m extremely excited to welcome our two newest staff writers and possibly a third contributor.
The first is Neil Blackmon. I know, it might get a bit confusing to have two Neils here, so he chose his username as nwblackmon. It’s safe to say he’s been around the block. Most recently, he worked at flippingthefield.com, where, among other things, he would share an email thread with ESPN’s Corey Long regarding hot topics from the previous week’s college football action. He’s also worked for the Independent Florida Alligator alongside Israel Gutierrez, Andy Staples and Jeff Darlington. Finally, he is the co-founder of The Yanks Are Coming, an independent US Men’s National Soccer team blog. Yes, I am thrilled to have him onboard.
The second of these isn’t really a “new” addition, as he was onboard for the prior incarceration of IAKOW that ran throughout 2011 and died in early 2012. Plus, he made his return writing here over a week ago, but I think it’s fair to give him a shout out anyway: Joey Vizzi. Joey and I have had our fair share of debates about certain topics, but that doesn’t mean he’s not a good writer, and I think he does some solid work even though I may vehemently disagree with his viewpoint. Besides, it’s nice to have different perspectives on a site that’s as big as I hope IAKOW will grow to be. So I’m very excited to have him along, too.
The third guy I’ve got my sights on is Ryan B. Maybe you don’t know the name, but I’m sure most of you know him to some degree. Whether you know him on youtube as Gator Gang Videos (most recently the creator of the video titled “Florida Gators- FNB“, or “Florida Never Breaks”) or as a contributor to the Gator Nation twitter account, I’ll bet a lot of you have come across him. I’ve still got to talk to him about it, but I’m hopeful to work something out with him to get him onboard here to some extent, quite possibly with a huge role. Ryan B is incredibly talented in various ways and can be extremely useful to IAKOW in all of those ways.
Remember, we’re still in our stages of infancy here at IAKOW, so be sure to keep your eyes out for many more changes in the coming days, weeks and months. The first change you can expect is, finally, the resurrection of the old forum that was part of what made the original IAKOW great. In the forum, anybody can post their thoughts about anything, very similar to the way it’s set up at SB Nation with FanPosts, and if I like what you wrote, I may feature it on the front page. Ryan Moyer, who has done a fantastic job in rebuilding the site pretty much just for me (and I can’t thank him enough for that), is working very hard behind the scenes to make that happen, but he has a real job, too, so give him a few days to get that finished.
So bear with me here. Keep your eyes peeled for some more site upgrades, features, and maybe even some special surprises that you wouldn’t get anywhere else- the kind of surprise that no Gator fan can possibly resist.
