The Mission
Watching the launch of a cool new KU blog called Rock Chalk Talk this week got me to thinking that I really needed to set forth the mission of Hawk Digest. The decision to start this thing didn't come easily. I toyed with the idea of blogging the KU football team for about two years. Finally, I jumped in full force a few weeks into this season. The debate was whether or not it was really needed. The Lawrence Journal-World has a critically-acclaimed site in KUsports.com that does an awesome job of covering all KU sports. I've been around a lot of Big 12 sites this year and the LJW site is hands-down, the best. In addition to the LJW, there are three KU football message boards out there that actually provide pretty good info and discussion -- Phog.net, KUsports and Jayhawkslant.com. Of course, the Slant and Phog also provide recruiting info.*
So with all of that available what would a blog offer? I really didn't know, but as I was searching around I found out that K-State and most of the other Big 12 schools had a football-focused blog. Phog Blog is an excellent KU blog, but it's pretty focused on basketball. With that info in hand, I decided KU football really deserved a blog just to keep up with the Big 12. Sort of like gigantic video boards, it could be critical for recruiting.
From there I started to think about what a blog could provide. I settled on the idea that a good football blog should offer a few things:
- A condensed look at all of the major news
- A filter for the quality information and rumors that flow through the message boards
- Recruit signings and class updates with a little analysis
- Opinion on the games, program and conference
So I came up with the idea that it should really be a digest of all things KU football. The URL hawkdigest.com followed, but I can't really remember why I passed on Jayhawk Digest.** The site has really held pretty much to those objectives, but I'm still looking to improve. In the meantime, the posts will keep coming and let's hope the Hawks are thinking about 2007.
*It's generally accepted that the Phog.net gridiron board is the most popular KU football message board, but JayhawkSlant is better at covering football recruiting.
**There may have been a magazine called Jayhawk Digest for a while. That may have been why I avoided that name.