And With That, Hustle Belt Comes To A Close

“You don’t have to go home but you can’t stay here…”

Well, here we are. I think I always knew this day would come, but yet, here I am somewhat surprised and more than a little gobsmacked that it’s well and truly over. No more Tuesday night #MACtion coverage. No more BetBelt (always bet the over and stop being a pansy). No more WMU Coke Bronco. Farewell old friend, I feel like a part of me has died.

Life, they say, is all about change. And in a way, I guess it is. Changes within changes, layer upon layer of transition and movement, all resulting in a span of things that at the end is called a life. Like it is for people, so too is it for this little corner of the internet. And what a life it has been.

Is there a small sense of misguided responsibility I feel? Sure. Have I wondered over the last few weeks what would have happened had I turned down the offer from Vox to leave OverThePylon and let someone else captain the ship here? Would these posts be needed? Would they have happened sooner? Or is this just an inevitability that resides at the intersection of shrinking corporate resources and a basic return-on-investment math problem for the Little Site That Could? Hard to say. But what I do know is that my nine-and-a-half years here at the helm are years I’m proud of. We did good. We did hard. We did the things that many wouldn’t or didn’t care to. And there’s a sense if inherent nobility and value in that that isn’t reflected on a balance sheet or an income statement.

But that’s the cold reality of things these days, isn’t it?

At some point in the not-so-distant past, we transitioned away from things that were needed and valued just for their presence in exchange of an inherent value proposition. Value for the sake of knowledge or presence for the sake of being was no longer a justifiable corner to stand on. It’s not an SB Nation thing or a Vox thing. It’s a world thing. And the shuttering of this site a symptom of a much larger disease that sure enough will consume everything without a positive bottom line in its wake. It doesn’t much matter anymore if you can or if you should, it only seems to matter if you can afford it. And that’s not a world that I particularly want to live in or create in. We deserve better, not the people that run this site, the collective we of humanity.

Believe me, I won’t kid myself that coverage of MAC athletics in as ridiculous a manner as possible was some bastion of creative high water. We weren’t painting chapel ceilings here or designing our version of The Shire or giving a life instructional manual Kerouac- or Hemmingway-style. But what we did do was provide fans of the MAC a home. A sense of belonging. A place where the lights were always on and people felt like they could talk their favorite conference with people that understood. They didn’t need to explain their weird obsessions. They didn’t need to write a disclaimer about their passions, however niche or myopic they may have become.There’s value in that. As a people we are in constant need of community and connection, and we provided that for the masses of #MACtion. It was our honor and privilege.

Every editor-in-chief runs their site a little differently. Some are the commanding voices, the anchors of the tone, and those that set the agenda and the subsequent narrative. I was blessed to have a staff around me that made my job remarkably easy. They were a talented group, passionate pursuers of their ideas and their angles, and it was my job to pour gas on the fire and calmly step out of the way. I watched Brandon go on ESPN and represent the Belt across from PJ Fleck as the Broncos were a game away from a BCS berth. I watched Steve create a tone and tenor that I believe rivals the biggest and most notable names in the business. I watched James do thankless work behind the scenes and keep the ship afloat doing all the dirty details that everyone just assumed happened organically, myself included. There was other James. There was Dave. There was Keith, Sam, Alexis, Omar-Rashon, Kenneth, Spencer, Justin, Ben, John, Drew Crabtree, Zack, and I’m sure others that I’m just forgetting. This site is, was, and always will be a labor of love.

Surprisingly enough, no one here did this for the money or the awesome press box hot dogs. But all of us did it because 1) it needed to be done and if not us, who? and 2) we were damn good at it. There’s value in that as well, regardless of what’s reflected on the ledger.

So, that closes the book on the Belt. Albus Dumbledore said, “Words are, in my not-so-humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic.” Thank you for making the magic here with us.

So long, and thanks for all the fish.