The New Bull Gator

I’m not exactly sure what I had in mind when I started this site. A group of friends and I routinely sent sports-related emails back and forth to each other and during one such exchange I think one jokingly mentioned that I should start a blog. It wasn’t the first time I’d thought about it, but it was the first I truly considered it. After going back and forth for a couple of months, The Bull Gator was born.

At first, I had no idea what I was doing or even what I was going to write about. Sports. That was the only direction I had. The name of the site had its reasons, but beyond that there wasn’t much else. So it went. Along the way, I went from trying to talk about anything and everything. To slowing down to cover what I really wanted to. To speeding up again recently.

The number of hits the site got was my motivation. After spending a number of months hovering in the depths of anonymity, I got some tips from a few seasoned veterans (Every Day Should Be Saturday and Sparty & Friends among them). The hits started coming in. Not fast. But good enough for me to want to keep the site going. All the way to a point two weeks ago when I was presented with my first advertising opportunity.

But then the company backed out. Something about the set up of my site not being conducive to their business. Still not exactly sure what that meant, but oh well. I’ll admit I was a little distraught (not sure if that’s the best word, but it’ll have to do). I thought I had a real opportunity to make something out of this site, but it was pulled away before it was entirely even offered.

It was then that I really lost interest. The site was no longer fun. Instead of just writing about what I enjoyed, I was too worried about hit counts that seemed stagnant. I seriously thought about stopping completely. A friend emailed me asking if something was wrong because I didn’t post that much for a few days. Nothing was wrong, but the desire (combined with the real job kicking my ass) wasn’t there.

Then we got to today. I nearly put together a post regarding me closing shop. But then I realized the solution was easy. College football. Fall practice is right around the corner and I couldn’t be more thrilled. I spent all of Sunday playing NCAA 2010 and getting genuinely excited about the upcoming season. This is the time of year when I’m a kid in a candy shop. So with that, I’m not shutting down. I’m introducing The NEW Bull Gator. Focused. College football.

A few months ago, I attempted to become a true baseball fan. Not long after, I immersed myself in the NBA Finals. I even spent quite some time writing for Buc ‘Em about the NFL. But during all of that, I realized one thing: college football is the greatest sport there is. You may not agree with me, but I love it and can’t get enough of it. I can watch two MAC teams do battle on a Thursday night and be perfectly happy. There’s truly nothing better than college football. And it’s what I like writing about the most.

Much like when I first started this site, I’m not exactly sure what I have in mind, but I’ll figure it out. Until then, hopefully you’ll continue to come back and maybe even comment from time to time.

So I apologize to those that may read the other stuff (I can’t imagine it’s more than a handful of you anyway), but I don’t just want to keep The Bull Gator going, I want to have fun doing it. I don’t want to try to come up with something to say about a sport just because it’s newsworthy. I want to enjoy all of it. Because that’s why I started. So to end this in the cheesiest way I can possibly think of, I’ll ask a question: are you ready for some (college) football?