State of the Blog and Writing Opportunities

As you can see, I haven't been around much lately. Its been another several day absence for me from the site, and it seems that this has been becoming more common. I've kind of known this in the back of my mind for awhile now, but it really sunk in when I tried to sit down and write some team previews for the upcoming season: I just don't have 20-30 hours per week to put into this website anymore. My son is getting older and demanding more of my attention. I now have two dogs as well. And my wife would like a bit of my time, too. Regular visitors know that I've never been happy with the lack of basketball coverage due to the fact that I coach high school ball and don't see most of the games, let alone have time to blog about them. But I've always felt that the football coverage was solid. However, its becoming apparent that I don't have the time to do the job that I've done the last couple of seasons. Jared and Nick do a solid job helping out on here, but they have major time commitments as well.

This has led me to think about what the future of the site is. This has involved conversations with my wife, the higher ups at SBN, other bloggers, etc. One option was to simply quit. That was never really a viable option to me. We've got way to great of a community here to just up and leave. Besdies, I love doing this. I wasn't looking to stop completely, just looking to not spend quite so much time doing it. Another option was to just leave the status quo. Its still an okay blog just updating a few times a week--but just okay is not good enough by my standards. I think that we all expect better, and if we want the online community here to continue to be strong, people need a reason to come back. Another option was to find someone else to shift all of my responsibility onto. Besides just writing, there's a lot of behind the scences stuff to keep up with. But everyone has commitments, and if I can't find all that time, why should I expect someone else to.

So, while muddling over what to do, Peter Bean suggested a solution that could solve all our problems here. We have a great community here. And I've never thought of this as "my" site, as much as its "our" site, with "our" referring to any Duck fan who wants to come here and be a part. So, since this place belongs to all of us, lets use the community to make it stronger.

We're looking for at least two more writers. Ideally, one would be the primary football writer, and one the primary basketball writer. I'd ask the football writer for three posts a week, mainly dealing with scouting reports, previews, and game recaps. Ditto for the basketball writer. You could write whatever you want beyond that (there is no such thing as stepping on toes here), but that is all I would really ask for. I'll continue to take care of all the administration stuff, jersey contest, blogpoll, as well as a couple of articles a week, and Jared and Nick will continue their fine work. But taking some of the research off my plate will give me some time to spend will free up some time with my family, and having someone else cover the game recap will make my wife and son happy, who already sacrifice half their weekend to let me watch football all Saturday. Having a basketball writer around will allow us to actually have basketball coverage, which has been sorely lacking until late in the season the last couple of years. We could probably all team up to cover baseball.

This is a blog, so there is no pay, but its all for the love of the Ducks and to have a place to chat Oregon Sports all year round. A couple of more writers would allow us to have updates everyday, and really fuel the discussion even further. If you're interested, shoot me an email with what you'd like to cover, and a writing sample. I want to be here and keep this place going for many, many years. I just need a bit of help.

GO DUCKS!!!

--Dave (addictedtoquack@gmail.com)