Today b.street interviews *the* Will -freakin’- Stewart.
Founder of all things TSL.
Will (graciously) spoke at length on several topics and likewise had several interesting things to say…
To begin however, here is a little biographical information on our very own Will Stew’.
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Will Stewart is a 1987 Electrical Engineering graduate of Tech and the founder of TechSideline.
Will grew up in Charlottesville and was a Tech and UVa fan, but when the two went face to face, he always rooted for Tech. Will attended Tech from 1983-87, and after graduation returned to Charlottesville and worked from 1987-1994 as an engineer at Sperry Marine, Inc. Will eventually made his escape back down to the New River Valley in 1994 and after doing contract work for a year spent four years as a programmer at Kollmorgen in Radford, from 1995-1999. While working at Kollmorgen, Will decided to learn HTML and produce a web page on the Internet. TechSideline.com was the result and has been Will’s full-time job since the summer of 1999.
A member of the Football Writers Association of America, Will assists managing editor Chris Coleman in the planning, writing, editing, and posting of content to the site.
And now, without further ado, on to the Q’s and the A’s from TSL’s very own Will Stewart…
Q. What do you know now (about TSL) that you did not know then (when you started)???
A. I didn’t foresee, way back in the beginning (1996) — no one could have — the impact that social media and the mobile (smart phone) platform has on everything. I never, ever, EVER thought that something like Twitter and its 140-character limitation could take so much time and attention away from in-depth articles and message board discussions. But that’s because I’m a content snob; I got into this because I liked to write, and expressing yourself with 140 characters and funny memes is not, by any stretch of the imagination, “writing.”
As for smart phones, I never took the time to think back in the mid-1990s that people would one day be carrying little computers in their hands, and would access our content that way. It makes sense, given the evolution of technology, but I never THOUGHT about it. That has created some challenges, not just for us, but for everyone in the media business.
Those aren’t really things that I didn’t know about “TSL” per se, but more about the evolution of the Internet. For TSL-specific items, everything has gone as I expected it would: some people ARE willing to pay for content, we WERE able to build a big enough audience that I wound up being able to do this full time, and there has been ebb and flow to everything. I’m not surprised by TSL’s longevity (approaching 20 years now), because I sensed from the very beginning that we had a lot of loyal readers.
Q. What was the funnest day in the history of all the TSL.com message board frivolity? (Steve Logan day, “MY BOARD”, MS-paint day………….whatever……..)
A. Easy: the day Virginia Tech got into the ACC. I know you’re asking about humorous things, but for me, that day was FUN.
Q. What do you enjoy most about TSL right now?
A. Just watching it all, and by “it” I mean the Virginia Tech athletic department, and its athletic programs and administration. This is high-stakes stuff, and to have a ringside seat at all of it, and to be able to follow it all day long, as my (ha-ha) JOB, is by far the most enjoyable thing.
I like the fan interaction on the message boards, when it’s informative and engaging conversation, not the snipy, rude stuff. I don’t get to visit the Lounge often enough. You wanna know what the funnest day on TSL is? Every day, on the Lounge.
Q. What would you most want to see more (or less of) on TSL???
A. More: more posting, more interaction, more treating each other with respect.
I’d like to see more people who have never posted before, introducing themselves on the message boards and getting involved. A lot of boards have “welcome boards” for first-time posters, but if we had one of those on TSL, I don’t think people would visit it. I’d rather see people introduce themselves right there, on the Football Board, Basketball Board, Subscriber Board … whichever board is their favorite.
On a related note ….
Less: less belligerence towards new posters. TSL isn’t welcoming to new posters, and it really should be. I don’t know how that happened. I think people just got very protective of the community in its early days, and over the years, that has translated into hostility towards new posters. That’s why I think people ought to introduce themselves first.
Q. What is the most surprising thing you have learned regarding VT football, overall, or in particular, in all your years on TSL.com? WHY???
A. The success of the program through the mid-2000s, and the four ACC championships they won from 2004-2010, were probably my biggest surprise. I remember thinking, when VT entered the ACC in 2003, “Well it’s been fun … so much for BCS bowls and conference championships.” I just didn’t think there was any way that Virginia Tech could be in a 12-team league that included Miami and FSU (remember how good they both were from 1999-2003) and win more than a conference championship every decade or so. Remember, VT from 2001-2003 had only gone 11-10 in the Big East, so I figured VT’s glory days of winning conference championships were over.
The second-biggest surprise — or maybe it’s the first — was making the national championship game in 1999. That’s just really, really, really hard to do, not just for VT, but for any of the 129 Division 1A teams. And Tech did it. It does NOT surprise me that they haven’t made it back since then. Like I just said … that’s really, really, really hard to do.
Loading ...Will Stewart=16 years of TSL, and counting!
“LETS GO!”
“Hokies!”
bourbonstreet**
Can I bill TSL for lost wages for all my time on TSL?
No. Next question.