B
Brian Shoemaker
Guest
It's time to party! Gamecock Central turns 20 on August 27.
As a way to celebrate the occasion and to show appreciation of our loyal members, we're giving away 20 free weeks of Gamecock Central to 20 current members for a week -- starting Saturday, Aug. 25 and ending Friday, Aug. 31. The randomly selected winners will be posted on The Insiders Forum each day, and the winners will have 20 hours to claim their free time.
P.S. Be on the watch for some other special giveaways!
---------------------------------
If you'd like to know more about the story of Gamecock Central, here's an article written by David Cloninger and published in the Oct. 29, 2008 edition of the Side Line, a former publication of the Free Times.
Brian Shoemaker, known by one and all as "Shoe," never thought it'd get this big. It started as a hobby, something he did for fun.
Ten years, several thousand subscribers and miles of struggles later, Shoe still doesn't seem to believe his project, GamecockCentral.com, took off the way it did.
"I'm very, very fortunate," Shoe said, flashing that easy grin. "A lot of hard work went into it, but I'm still very fortunate. Who gets to do what I do?"
Not many, and there are fewer still who get to sustain it.
The hobby, which morphed from a meeting ground for all fans and subjects Gamecock to an extensive media source, celebrated its 10th anniversary at the beginning of football season and is enjoying its strongest year yet. The site has helped usher in a new age to South Carolina athletics - while print and electronic media are still around, the Internet has become just as important a piece of the information fans crave.
Several hundred of USC's rampant message board posters swear GamecockCentral.com is the only source they'll go to for athletic news. The site has sped past the "fan" tag that was stamped on it in the beginning and now employs three full-time writers, ones who work with the understanding that their purpose is to inform, not promote.
The innocent hobby that began with no intention of ever earning a cent has muscled into the Columbia media, covering every aspect of USC football and other Gamecock sports. Shoe's smile is always present when discussing his oldest child, but it hides the long trail he had to blaze to become relevant, accepted and trusted.
"I think three years ago, when I first started, (our stories were) perceived as having a lack of credibility," said Scott Hood, one of GamecockCentral.com's staff writers. "I think a lot of that is eroding now. I think we're being taken more seriously now than when we first started."
"Certain sites, you could call them fan sites because of the way their writers talk and behave," Shoe said. "I don't think we pander. We don't want to blow smoke, but we don't want to focus only on the negative. There are five beat writers that cover the Gamecocks and we have two of them. What does that say?
"But it was tough at first. It was a real struggle at times."
The Beginning
Shoe graduated from USC in 1994 with a business degree, majoring in accounting. He took a job with a CPA firm in Columbia and continued to follow the Gamecocks.
Working near or with a computer all day had its advantages. In July of 1998, Shoe began a project that would link all Gamecock fans who used ICQ, a popular instant-messaging program. Once that got some positive feedback, it was expanded to a directory of e-mail addresses.
"It was called the USC Gamecocks Worldwide Fan List," Shoe said. "It was hosted on a free site called GeoCities. That's just how it started.
"Once I started that, I sort of got the bug."
A month later, on Aug. 27, 1998, GamecockCentral.com (then called Cockfans.com, it changed to its current name in 1999) was launched. Shoe had no HTML or Web design experience -- he had to learn while creating. He searched for free programs that could teach him how to build a front page and link content, and began to devote every minute he could to making the site more extensive.
It wasn't much at first. He added the e-mail list and a football history section, pages and pages of recalled games and stats that Shoe typed in from an old media guide. A section devoted to jokes about arch rival Clemson was added and within a week of the launch, a pick 'em contest was started.
Everything was free. There were no message boards, no news stories, just a service for the 500-1,000 folks Shoe had rounded up and given a common ground.
"I was pretty much obsessed and spent all of my free time building the site," Shoe said. "I spent a lot of time at work, building the site. Basically every waking moment, when I wasn't at work, I was working on the site."
The foundation was laid. Time to start building the castle.
Taking Off
Shoe knew of a message board that was pretty popular, begun just before GamecockCentral, called Fighting Gamecocks Forum. One of the moderators and creators, Jim Streeter, was one of those people who never quit working or trying new ventures.
Still, in the infant days of the information superhighway, there was a lot to learn.
"We were all sort of fumbling around back then," said Streeter, now 80 and a multiple retiree. "He approached us and said he'd be interested in incorporating our board, so we talked about it and came to an agreement."
In January of 1999, FGF became a part of GamecockCentral that's still around today. It's the place to go to get a feel for the site, a free message board where people can find out some of the latest news and some of the reasons to pay for the extensive exclusive content.
Once advertising revenue began to pick up, Shoe made GamecockCentral his full-time profession.
"We were together but sort of independent," Streeter said. "Then what happened was it just kept growing and growing."
The message boards took off and fans were writing their own stories, recollections and opinions for Shoe to post on the site. Everything was going along fine until Shoe had a thought - why not post some official news?
Breaking In
Shoe approached USC's sports information department and began talking about obtaining press credentials. He reasoned that since he was going to be putting out a lot of the same information, he was a media entity.
Denied.
"The biggest battle I fought was with the USC sports information department," Shoe said. "I remember them telling me I was putting out too much information, that the information I was putting out was like a scouting report."
The SIDs were complaining that anyone - like the opponent - could log on to GamecockCentral and get an advantage over the football team. Shoe argued that all he was doing was posting the straight transcription from the football coach (Lou Holtz at the time) and the assistants.
From 1999, the time Shoe sent the first letter to USC sports information, to 2002, it was a continuing battle. Shoe's access went from limited to revoked to denied to limited to denied again.
The problem USC had was with the reports. All of it was on the record but sports information didn't want that detail of information being released.
"These are coaches on the record," Shoe said. "Instead of me writing a nice little article -- I can't write -- I just did Q&As."
After a lot of haggling and pleading, USC relented and granted limited access from 2000-02. Shoe continued to post his Q&As, often driving from Moncks Corner to Columbia to talk to Holtz and players after practice, driving back, transcribing it all and posting it on the site.
It was tough to do, especially on multiple days of the week throughout the fall, but Shoe was getting his and GamecockCentral's name out there.
Until.
The SIDs revoked the access soon after, again using the excuse of "too much information." Shoe re-argued and re-re-argued his case, finally hiring an attorney in 2002.
"I wasn't sitting in the press box," Shoe said. "I was trying to be accommodating -- I'm not here for the free food. I just want to go to practice and cover practice."
So Shoe's attorney contacted the university attorneys, basically saying since USC was a government entity, it couldn't revoke media access considering what was posted was coming straight from coaches and players who spoke on the record. The access was restored and in September 2002, GamecockCentral was fully credentialed as a working member of the press.
Shoe could enjoy the free food now, although he still mainly covered practice. The games were an added bonus.
Change
The bottom fell out of the advertising as the "tech bubble" burst. Revenue dried up and Shoe was relying on donations from subscribers.
"Advertising revenue that was coming in evaporated, basically," Shoe said. "We started talking about doing the paid content. At that point, we didn't have recruiting content. We might have had databases."
Shoe hired a recruiting writer and announced the creation of a pay section in late 2001. He held his breath once the announcement hit and the deadline passed. He exhaled mightily when a large portion of GamecockCentral's base paid to read the exclusive content.
It was 2002, the Gamecocks were coming off back-to-back Outback Bowl wins, and interest in the site was high. Shoe was finally feeling established.
But times were changing, and opportunity was about to knock.
The Big Time
Rivals.com, a national network promoting specialized Web sites, had contacted Shoe in 1999, along with a few other companies. They were interested in purchasing GamecockCentral, but Shoe was hesitant.
"I'd always resisted," he said. "I wanted to remain independent, you know, my site. Well, some bandwidth issues came out where my expenses were going to go up a lot. Basically at the same time, somebody from Rivals contacted me again."
Shoe would still get to be in charge of content and keep the site's name. The only difference was with Rivals' name behind it, GamecockCentral could offer more extensive recruiting coverage and Shoe would be freed from the daily grind of processing payment, designing the front page, coding entries, etc.
On New Year's Eve, 2003, Shoe sent his contract in. From then on, GamecockCentral was an officially licensed affiliate of Rivals.com, although Shoe retained 100 percent ownership.
Then he began thinking of how to extend the day-to-day coverage of USC, since recruiting and inside information was now on tap, especially since interest had skyrocketed over Gamecock football.
The reason? Steve Spurrier had just been hired.
Back to the message boards.
Enthusiasm
There was a guy who was a frequent poster on the message boards and would take notes from the stands during the 2002 baseball season, doing what he could without media access. That branched into covering baseball and basketball for the site, for free.
Following a detour to a paid position at another site, Hood, a New Hampshire native who had a journalism/SID background but was practicing law in Columbia, rejoined GamecockCentral in 2005.
"I remember seeing Brian in the media room over at (Colonial Life Arena) one night and he was advertising for a full-time writer," Hood said. "I told him I wanted the job. Substantial reduction in salary, but I wanted to do it. I turned in my law license and resigned."
Hood was signed on and GamecockCentral suddenly had its first beat writer, someone who could be at every practice, every game for USC's football, men's basketball and baseball teams. Hood began circulating with the other in-town beat writers, getting his name and face familiar to the coaching staffs and players.
Subscriptions began exploding, fans wanting to be a part of Spurrier's tenure at USC. Shoe and Rivals kept the message boards for the fans and the news stories down the middle.
The number of paid subscriptions, with the arrival of Spurrier, had doubled. Still, there was a slight concern.
GamecockCentral was established as a media entity. It had the presence.
But it was still being derided as a fan site, a stigma that believed Internet reporting wasn't true journalism. Although newspapers and TV stations across the nation were trumpeting their own Web sites, their employees were thinking anyone could post on a site like GamecockCentral and therefore be misleading to the public.
Not true. Only employees could post a story. The rest were message-board posts.
"We're still referred to as a fan site," Shoe said, expressing his exasperation. "Got three full-time writers, people still want to refer to us as a fan site. It's true that we have a fan message board, but we also have tons of original content."
GamecockCentral added part-time photographers and now boasts video from many events, courtesy of a part-time videographer. While many other media sources have two or three new stories per day about the Gamecocks on their Web sites, GamecockCentral has an average of seven to eight.
Yet the site is still fighting to be recognized as legit.
Shoe pointed out that during the 2008 football season-opener, one media outlet had press passes for five writers, four photographers, one photo editor and a videographer. GamecockCentral made do with one photo and one writer pass for the site and one photo and one writer pass for its print publication, Gamecocks Illustrated.
"I just look forward to the day where we can get what we need," Shoe sighed, again pointing out two of the five beat writers that cover USC work for GamecockCentral.
The Future
After 10 years of constantly getting better, Shoe and Co. are taking advantage of the dwindling print and electronic media budgets.
But it's a tricky proposition, because the site's success has to be factored with the success of the football team. Despite its coverage of basketball and baseball, football and recruiting are the hot topics on GamecockCentral.
If the football team suddenly drops into mediocrity, as it did last season with five straight losses, the site could lose a lot of subscriptions. That's what happened in 2007, although the site has regrouped to re-add those lost customers.
Central is established enough where there may have to be some belt-tightening, depending on the fortunes of the teams, but should never be in serious trouble of folding. It's a credit to Shoe, who built the site out of nothing more than a desire to link some Gamecock fans to others across the Internet.
"I'll stay in it as long as the business will support me," Shoe said, thanking all of the people that were behind his quest. "My wife (Dana), she was just as supportive as she could be. I don't know how to even describe it. The money wasn't very lucrative."
Central plans to give readers the most exclusivity possible for the rest of the football season and has already begun its basketball coverage. It'll continue into baseball season, doing spring football and recruiting at the same time, and begin Year 12 in August.
Not bad for a guy who flunked his first computer class at USC.
"Half of it had to do with not knowing anything about computers and half of it had to do with me having too much fun and enjoying college," Shoe laughed. "I think I got a 'C' the second time.
"I had no intention of ever making a dime off the site. I started it for fun. Then it just took off, it just took off."
As a way to celebrate the occasion and to show appreciation of our loyal members, we're giving away 20 free weeks of Gamecock Central to 20 current members for a week -- starting Saturday, Aug. 25 and ending Friday, Aug. 31. The randomly selected winners will be posted on The Insiders Forum each day, and the winners will have 20 hours to claim their free time.
P.S. Be on the watch for some other special giveaways!
---------------------------------
If you'd like to know more about the story of Gamecock Central, here's an article written by David Cloninger and published in the Oct. 29, 2008 edition of the Side Line, a former publication of the Free Times.
Brian Shoemaker, known by one and all as "Shoe," never thought it'd get this big. It started as a hobby, something he did for fun.
Ten years, several thousand subscribers and miles of struggles later, Shoe still doesn't seem to believe his project, GamecockCentral.com, took off the way it did.
"I'm very, very fortunate," Shoe said, flashing that easy grin. "A lot of hard work went into it, but I'm still very fortunate. Who gets to do what I do?"
Not many, and there are fewer still who get to sustain it.
The hobby, which morphed from a meeting ground for all fans and subjects Gamecock to an extensive media source, celebrated its 10th anniversary at the beginning of football season and is enjoying its strongest year yet. The site has helped usher in a new age to South Carolina athletics - while print and electronic media are still around, the Internet has become just as important a piece of the information fans crave.
Several hundred of USC's rampant message board posters swear GamecockCentral.com is the only source they'll go to for athletic news. The site has sped past the "fan" tag that was stamped on it in the beginning and now employs three full-time writers, ones who work with the understanding that their purpose is to inform, not promote.
The innocent hobby that began with no intention of ever earning a cent has muscled into the Columbia media, covering every aspect of USC football and other Gamecock sports. Shoe's smile is always present when discussing his oldest child, but it hides the long trail he had to blaze to become relevant, accepted and trusted.
"I think three years ago, when I first started, (our stories were) perceived as having a lack of credibility," said Scott Hood, one of GamecockCentral.com's staff writers. "I think a lot of that is eroding now. I think we're being taken more seriously now than when we first started."
"Certain sites, you could call them fan sites because of the way their writers talk and behave," Shoe said. "I don't think we pander. We don't want to blow smoke, but we don't want to focus only on the negative. There are five beat writers that cover the Gamecocks and we have two of them. What does that say?
"But it was tough at first. It was a real struggle at times."
The Beginning
Shoe graduated from USC in 1994 with a business degree, majoring in accounting. He took a job with a CPA firm in Columbia and continued to follow the Gamecocks.
Working near or with a computer all day had its advantages. In July of 1998, Shoe began a project that would link all Gamecock fans who used ICQ, a popular instant-messaging program. Once that got some positive feedback, it was expanded to a directory of e-mail addresses.
"It was called the USC Gamecocks Worldwide Fan List," Shoe said. "It was hosted on a free site called GeoCities. That's just how it started.
"Once I started that, I sort of got the bug."
A month later, on Aug. 27, 1998, GamecockCentral.com (then called Cockfans.com, it changed to its current name in 1999) was launched. Shoe had no HTML or Web design experience -- he had to learn while creating. He searched for free programs that could teach him how to build a front page and link content, and began to devote every minute he could to making the site more extensive.
It wasn't much at first. He added the e-mail list and a football history section, pages and pages of recalled games and stats that Shoe typed in from an old media guide. A section devoted to jokes about arch rival Clemson was added and within a week of the launch, a pick 'em contest was started.
Everything was free. There were no message boards, no news stories, just a service for the 500-1,000 folks Shoe had rounded up and given a common ground.
"I was pretty much obsessed and spent all of my free time building the site," Shoe said. "I spent a lot of time at work, building the site. Basically every waking moment, when I wasn't at work, I was working on the site."
The foundation was laid. Time to start building the castle.
Taking Off
Shoe knew of a message board that was pretty popular, begun just before GamecockCentral, called Fighting Gamecocks Forum. One of the moderators and creators, Jim Streeter, was one of those people who never quit working or trying new ventures.
Still, in the infant days of the information superhighway, there was a lot to learn.
"We were all sort of fumbling around back then," said Streeter, now 80 and a multiple retiree. "He approached us and said he'd be interested in incorporating our board, so we talked about it and came to an agreement."
In January of 1999, FGF became a part of GamecockCentral that's still around today. It's the place to go to get a feel for the site, a free message board where people can find out some of the latest news and some of the reasons to pay for the extensive exclusive content.
Once advertising revenue began to pick up, Shoe made GamecockCentral his full-time profession.
"We were together but sort of independent," Streeter said. "Then what happened was it just kept growing and growing."
The message boards took off and fans were writing their own stories, recollections and opinions for Shoe to post on the site. Everything was going along fine until Shoe had a thought - why not post some official news?
Breaking In
Shoe approached USC's sports information department and began talking about obtaining press credentials. He reasoned that since he was going to be putting out a lot of the same information, he was a media entity.
Denied.
"The biggest battle I fought was with the USC sports information department," Shoe said. "I remember them telling me I was putting out too much information, that the information I was putting out was like a scouting report."
The SIDs were complaining that anyone - like the opponent - could log on to GamecockCentral and get an advantage over the football team. Shoe argued that all he was doing was posting the straight transcription from the football coach (Lou Holtz at the time) and the assistants.
From 1999, the time Shoe sent the first letter to USC sports information, to 2002, it was a continuing battle. Shoe's access went from limited to revoked to denied to limited to denied again.
The problem USC had was with the reports. All of it was on the record but sports information didn't want that detail of information being released.
"These are coaches on the record," Shoe said. "Instead of me writing a nice little article -- I can't write -- I just did Q&As."
After a lot of haggling and pleading, USC relented and granted limited access from 2000-02. Shoe continued to post his Q&As, often driving from Moncks Corner to Columbia to talk to Holtz and players after practice, driving back, transcribing it all and posting it on the site.
It was tough to do, especially on multiple days of the week throughout the fall, but Shoe was getting his and GamecockCentral's name out there.
Until.
The SIDs revoked the access soon after, again using the excuse of "too much information." Shoe re-argued and re-re-argued his case, finally hiring an attorney in 2002.
"I wasn't sitting in the press box," Shoe said. "I was trying to be accommodating -- I'm not here for the free food. I just want to go to practice and cover practice."
So Shoe's attorney contacted the university attorneys, basically saying since USC was a government entity, it couldn't revoke media access considering what was posted was coming straight from coaches and players who spoke on the record. The access was restored and in September 2002, GamecockCentral was fully credentialed as a working member of the press.
Shoe could enjoy the free food now, although he still mainly covered practice. The games were an added bonus.
Change
The bottom fell out of the advertising as the "tech bubble" burst. Revenue dried up and Shoe was relying on donations from subscribers.
"Advertising revenue that was coming in evaporated, basically," Shoe said. "We started talking about doing the paid content. At that point, we didn't have recruiting content. We might have had databases."
Shoe hired a recruiting writer and announced the creation of a pay section in late 2001. He held his breath once the announcement hit and the deadline passed. He exhaled mightily when a large portion of GamecockCentral's base paid to read the exclusive content.
It was 2002, the Gamecocks were coming off back-to-back Outback Bowl wins, and interest in the site was high. Shoe was finally feeling established.
But times were changing, and opportunity was about to knock.
The Big Time
Rivals.com, a national network promoting specialized Web sites, had contacted Shoe in 1999, along with a few other companies. They were interested in purchasing GamecockCentral, but Shoe was hesitant.
"I'd always resisted," he said. "I wanted to remain independent, you know, my site. Well, some bandwidth issues came out where my expenses were going to go up a lot. Basically at the same time, somebody from Rivals contacted me again."
Shoe would still get to be in charge of content and keep the site's name. The only difference was with Rivals' name behind it, GamecockCentral could offer more extensive recruiting coverage and Shoe would be freed from the daily grind of processing payment, designing the front page, coding entries, etc.
On New Year's Eve, 2003, Shoe sent his contract in. From then on, GamecockCentral was an officially licensed affiliate of Rivals.com, although Shoe retained 100 percent ownership.
Then he began thinking of how to extend the day-to-day coverage of USC, since recruiting and inside information was now on tap, especially since interest had skyrocketed over Gamecock football.
The reason? Steve Spurrier had just been hired.
Back to the message boards.
Enthusiasm
There was a guy who was a frequent poster on the message boards and would take notes from the stands during the 2002 baseball season, doing what he could without media access. That branched into covering baseball and basketball for the site, for free.
Following a detour to a paid position at another site, Hood, a New Hampshire native who had a journalism/SID background but was practicing law in Columbia, rejoined GamecockCentral in 2005.
"I remember seeing Brian in the media room over at (Colonial Life Arena) one night and he was advertising for a full-time writer," Hood said. "I told him I wanted the job. Substantial reduction in salary, but I wanted to do it. I turned in my law license and resigned."
Hood was signed on and GamecockCentral suddenly had its first beat writer, someone who could be at every practice, every game for USC's football, men's basketball and baseball teams. Hood began circulating with the other in-town beat writers, getting his name and face familiar to the coaching staffs and players.
Subscriptions began exploding, fans wanting to be a part of Spurrier's tenure at USC. Shoe and Rivals kept the message boards for the fans and the news stories down the middle.
The number of paid subscriptions, with the arrival of Spurrier, had doubled. Still, there was a slight concern.
GamecockCentral was established as a media entity. It had the presence.
But it was still being derided as a fan site, a stigma that believed Internet reporting wasn't true journalism. Although newspapers and TV stations across the nation were trumpeting their own Web sites, their employees were thinking anyone could post on a site like GamecockCentral and therefore be misleading to the public.
Not true. Only employees could post a story. The rest were message-board posts.
"We're still referred to as a fan site," Shoe said, expressing his exasperation. "Got three full-time writers, people still want to refer to us as a fan site. It's true that we have a fan message board, but we also have tons of original content."
GamecockCentral added part-time photographers and now boasts video from many events, courtesy of a part-time videographer. While many other media sources have two or three new stories per day about the Gamecocks on their Web sites, GamecockCentral has an average of seven to eight.
Yet the site is still fighting to be recognized as legit.
Shoe pointed out that during the 2008 football season-opener, one media outlet had press passes for five writers, four photographers, one photo editor and a videographer. GamecockCentral made do with one photo and one writer pass for the site and one photo and one writer pass for its print publication, Gamecocks Illustrated.
"I just look forward to the day where we can get what we need," Shoe sighed, again pointing out two of the five beat writers that cover USC work for GamecockCentral.
The Future
After 10 years of constantly getting better, Shoe and Co. are taking advantage of the dwindling print and electronic media budgets.
But it's a tricky proposition, because the site's success has to be factored with the success of the football team. Despite its coverage of basketball and baseball, football and recruiting are the hot topics on GamecockCentral.
If the football team suddenly drops into mediocrity, as it did last season with five straight losses, the site could lose a lot of subscriptions. That's what happened in 2007, although the site has regrouped to re-add those lost customers.
Central is established enough where there may have to be some belt-tightening, depending on the fortunes of the teams, but should never be in serious trouble of folding. It's a credit to Shoe, who built the site out of nothing more than a desire to link some Gamecock fans to others across the Internet.
"I'll stay in it as long as the business will support me," Shoe said, thanking all of the people that were behind his quest. "My wife (Dana), she was just as supportive as she could be. I don't know how to even describe it. The money wasn't very lucrative."
Central plans to give readers the most exclusivity possible for the rest of the football season and has already begun its basketball coverage. It'll continue into baseball season, doing spring football and recruiting at the same time, and begin Year 12 in August.
Not bad for a guy who flunked his first computer class at USC.
"Half of it had to do with not knowing anything about computers and half of it had to do with me having too much fun and enjoying college," Shoe laughed. "I think I got a 'C' the second time.
"I had no intention of ever making a dime off the site. I started it for fun. Then it just took off, it just took off."
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