Thanks for taking the time to do this for us give us a little background of The Sports Bank.net:
The Sports Bank.net is a Midwest focused webzine featuring commentaries on the most stimulating topics and interviews with some of the biggest names in sports. It provides top notch content for the sports markets in Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan and Minnesota; with continued expansion planned.
If you’re tired of all the Duke-North Carolina or Red Sox-Yankees stories incessantly produced by the Eastern Seaboard Programming Network, then it’s right up your alley. I founded it in 2007 in Chicago a year after I became one of twenty young American journalists selected to participate in a Fulbright fellowship program in Berlin. TSB has been featured in numerous media outlets including Deadspin, the Big Lead, USA Today, NBC, FOX, CBS, Chicago Tribune and more FOX, CBS, Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune and 670 The Score.
How did you get selected into the Fullbright fellowship program?
I still can’t believe I had a break like that because the acceptance rate is so low. My cousin, who’s a philosophy professor at Wright St. was previously in the Fulbright program, and he told me about applying for the program back in 2006 when they were just starting up the journalism fellowship, so I applied.
How long have you been doing this for?
I wrote for a NFL Draft site, NFL Draft Blitz.com a few years ago, and covered the New England Patriots. I did a couple ESPN Radio spots talking about the draft for them, and eventually I moved on to cover Big Ten football for NBC Chicago.com, and now I write a national college football blog for the Washington Times.com so I’ve been at it a few years. And I’ve been doing my mock at The Sports Bank for a couple years, starting this fall I update it weekly.
How did you get started in evaluating NCAA players for the NFL draft?
I was one of the football beat writers for the student run daily newspaper at the University of Illinois. And with those 1990s Penn State, Wisconsin, Ohio State and Michigan teams coming through town, I saw and interviewed a lot of future NFL talent. It’s just been a natural process since then.
Devin Hester, Jay Cutler, Aaron Rodgers, college level Mark Ingram, Ndamukong Suh, Colt McCoy, Case Keenum. Illinois and Northwestern are the two teams I cover regularly, so everyone on the Cats and Illini, and whomever they’re playing.
What is the ultimate goal for the future?
Like the O’Jays sang, “money. money, money, money, money, (pause) mon-ey!” Seriously, I want to give as many people as possible a place they can go to get an idea where their favorite college player will end up or who their favorite team will pick. And I want them to have that chance months before the draft even draws near.
Because I know the people reading this stuff live out the football season year round. I prefer college football to the NFL, so I kind of look at it from a “bottom-up” perspective. Same with the growth of my mock. I want to reach as many people as possible with superior quality content that grows in page views organically. Everything else comes in time. Because good things happen when you consistently increase your traffic.
What are the top things a mock draft should cover?
A good mock draft is like a football geek’s crossword puzzle. You have to find and fill all the spaces and make them fit together. Sort of like Tetris. First you need power rankings for draft order, then team needs, prospect lists to see who goes where, then remember that it almost never goes down the way it should on paper.
GMs, scouts, coaches, other people pulling the strings- they all come together and sometimes the final decision is made by impulse, intangibles and/or whim. Or in the case of Bears GM Jerry Angelo, completely opposite of whatever common sense tells you.
Lets get a little less technical for the audience Your favorite Pro:
Football Team:
Previously the Bears, but I’ve had so many negative experiences (and when I say negative I mean NEGATIVE) with the them in every way you could imagine (as a fan, journalist, ticket buyer, reporter, general Chicagoan) they just make me sick and disgusted, organization is a complete mess on all levels. I’m currently looking for a new favorite NFL team.
I am sure the Steelers could use a very educated fan like yourself to jump on if you would consider it. Or maybe you can jump on the Saints wagon and see where that takes you.
Baseball Team: White Sox, and Oakland to some extent
Basketball Team: Bulls, love Deron Williams and the Utah Jazz too
That he’s a total punk to think so little about the Bulls to do something like that. So disrespectful. But also Vinny Del Negro needs to do something to fire up his team in response to that. Yes, the Bulls defense was atrocious last year. This year it’s slightly improved, but seriously, how do not at least TRY to go up and steal the ball in that situation?
Hockey Team: Blackhawks
Favorite
Music: 90s, especially 90s hip-hop and r&b
Food: anything a little spicy, but not too spicy. There’s a Chinese restaurant here with this killer 7-flavor chicken and/or beef, and pretty much any dish at this New Orleans themed, cajun-southern place
Do you have any questions for me before I publish this interview?
Sure, tell me about the past, present, and future of your site….How you got into NFL Mock drafts, and who are your all-time favorite players and teams from watching football over the years?
NLS Past been asked that many times in the past few weeks and will reply with the same thing, I started this site because I enjoyed going to multiple sites and never could find the one I wanted to stay at. One site had a sweet fan base, one had great graphics, one was a great fantasy site and another had a great arcade. Well shoot lets get that all in one site. Well I tried and it just got to be way to much to real cover everything and I have been scaling it back ever since and I hope in the future I can build this up to the dominant site that covers everything that I always wanted.
We are mainly a fantasy football site but since there is not much fantasy football to cover in the off season we decided to dive into the NFL draft. The mock database is something I enjoyed on other sites and thought that it was a good way for me to meet new people like yourself.
All time favorite football players Jerry Rice, Peyton Manning, Jerome Bettis, John Stallworth, Joe Greene, and Tomlinson and currently Like many know right now my favorite player is Chris Johnson. Teams: Steelers and I enjoy watching the Falcons and Chargers.
Thanks for taking the time with this interview its appreciated greatly.
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