A view from the cheap seats
Let’s start at the beginning.
Last winter over many, many beers, Jared Smith and I were discussing our wishes for an Iowa State centric podcast that consisted more of raw emotion than stats and logic. Even the most calm and rational fans have a hard time separating the emotion from the logic at times, and there really wasn’t a way to directly express that emotion. The idea we came up with in our drunken stupor, was to host a call-in show, immediately following the game to garnish the most emotionally raw responses.
After a few more beers, we decided that if we wanted this type of forum, it was up to us to create it. We thought, if we could get the podcast up and running by football season, we could really establish ourselves with postgame call-in shows. So we decided to enlist Tom Danielson, who was running the Wide Right & Natty Lite podcasts, to help us work through the technical difficulties that we were sure to encounter. We owe quite a bit of gratitude to Kevin Fitzpatrick and his colleagues over at WRNL for helping us get set up with podcasting and giving us a bump in their Mid-Morning Dumps.
What we didn’t anticipate, however, was how ‘easy’ the whole venture would be. Don’t get me wrong, the podcasts have been far from perfect, but if three drunks like us can get a podcast off the ground in just a few short weeks, it certainly can’t be that hard. After a few trial runs during the basketball season we decided to try our first call-in show after Iowa State advanced to the Sweet 16. Due to the resounding positive feedback we received and our constant desire to improve, we decided to keep the podcasts going throughout the summer. We have since branched off and branded three separate podcasts targeting the distinct interests of our listeners, which brings us to where we are today.
One of my main goals, personally, has been to make Twitter fun again, but why stop there? One thing we learned from our podcasts, is that our little niche of the internet has interests outside of just our local college sports teams, so we’ve set out to try and make the whole internet fun again. That is the purpose of the The Tailgate Society.
The Tailgate Society is a place for young writers to write about whatever they are interested in. That could be sports, politics, entertainment, 90’s music, crying Jordan’s or even who makes the best hot wings. Nothing is off the table, and as long as it isn’t hateful they can write about it. So many of the contacts I’ve made via Twitter have great thoughts and ideas that they’ve been unable to adequately share when constrained to 140 characters, so I wanted to give them a place to really speak their minds freely.
I have brought together some of the brightest minds from my Twitter feed and while this is by no means an exhaustive list, they are the ones that shared in my interest to produce this site. These contributors come in all flavors: women and men, Jayhawks, Cyclones and Hawkeyes, Cubs, Cardinals and Royals, Republicans, Democrats and at least one that thinks that all presidents are lizard people.
I cannot wait to see what they come up with and share that will you all. If you want to contribute, or know someone who does, we’re always looking to add more talent. You know where to find me.
Cheers,
Ted Flint, Kansas
Site Founder – “Man With the Plan”