I hope you all will read, discuss and enjoy this new website, www.pittpov.com as we are rolling out a new Pitt sports blog owned, operated and written by myself; Reed Kohberger. I had planned on July 5th as the “Go Date” but a friendly post on Facebook precluded that… which is fine.
As most of you may know I have been the lead football writer for Chas Rich’s fantastic The Pitt Blather website. That blog, covering Pitt football, basketball and some other athletics is the standard bearer in Pitt blog coverage…and it is about to have some competition.
I have written for Chas for over five years – formally starting on the first day of Spring Practice in 2011 with new Head Coach Todd Graham (not my fault there).
I have posted almost 500 articles in total for The Blather and after reviewing the output I figure each article averaged at about 1,750 words. You do that math – OK, I’ll do the math – that’s about 875,000 words all told. Considering the average length of a fiction novel is between 80K – 100K words the fact is that I’ve put out over what could be ten Pitt Blather books for Chas.
And I had an truly wonderful time doing it.
But needs must and it’s time that I got up on the (not high) horse and started my own Pitt Sports blog. I’m not doing this because of anything negative with the Blather – I mean it when I said it has been wonderful to be part of that blog – but this is just something I have wanted to do for some time now.
Besides, every time I tell Blather readers I was slowly backing out of writing to do something different I found myself writing even more Pitt football articles than I had been before on there.
So – those who have read my stuff and whoever I have had the pleasure of discussing and debating with, either in the comments section or in person, know that I’m pretty well informed overall, not shy about posting my opinions on issues (not limited to football) and that I’m not, given the nature of the blogosphere, completely bound by journalistic rules. That said – I try to honor those standards as much as possible as an amateur writer can do.
I invite and want you along with me on this new endeavor. I don’t want you to exclude reading other blogs though , the fun of all this is having tons of different sources to read, share and talk about with each other. But I would appreciate if you give me the same amount of reading time as you did before and comment on here as much as you did elsewhere in response to my writings.
And please, do not hesitate to let me know what I can do to improve this website. Building it has been a chore and I’m sure some of you all know much better than I do what works…
One last note; should this website ever make any money – and I have no idea how that would work because all it is doing now is emptying my wallet – 50% of all proceeds from it will go to both Homeless Housing Services and Adult Literacy programs. I volunteer at both local places a couple of times a week and can say that it is money well spent.
Thanks so much for all your support and friendships… and I’ll see you early on the 5th of July this morning to start a new line of writing about Pitt Football!!
HTP!
Test of new blog comments
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Congrats Reed. I’ll definitely check in. Enjoy your insight, opinion and passion.
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Congrats on the new blog! Looking forward to reading it.
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me too
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Having Burghguy make the 1st reply does not bode well for this site…Reed i hope u do well on this site. Good luck bro.
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Best of luck, Reed –
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Thanks Anson –
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Burghguy makes 1st comment. U in trouble bro!
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HEY NOW
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Good luck with this. Look forward to all the articles to come.
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I just posted the invitation to the Blog on Facebook – we’ll see how this unfolds now. I’ll have actual football stuff up soon.
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Reed, congrats. I will be a regular on The Pitt POV
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Thanks Not – this should be fun.
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Looking forward to your continued great work
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Great links to the web site (but Blather at the bottom?)
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I can’t change the order – maybe I should ask readers to choose from the bottom up…
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Checking in on you Reed from a comfortable 100 degree day in Texas!
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Congratulations Reed!
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Reed, you refer to yourself as an amateur writer. Perhaps you meant to say unpaid writer. I’ve found your posts on the Blather to be of professional caliber -better than many who call themselves pros- and quite informative.
Looking forward to your posts here.
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Thanks – practice makes perfect. One of the reasons I wanted my own venue is that I don’t have word count limitations like newspapers and magazines do. So those long posts I have done in the past are more fun to read and discuss than the shorter media pieces.
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OK – we are on Facebook and have been talked about on Twitter – BTW – feel free to send link out to anyone you know who may be interested in a new place to talk about Pitt football.
And thanks so much for chipping in – I think we’ll have a lot of fun and interesting debates on here…
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Good luck Reed, have you bookmarked!
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Congrats Reed, faithful reader of the Blather but never comment so kicking it off on your new venture. Always appreciated your lengthy articles and that you like to generate discussion and disagreement in a constructive and well thought out manner. I am probably closer to the kool-aid drinker positive view like Tossing Thabeets then on the contrarian Upittbaseball side but I appreciate all of the views/perspectives and the fact that you are accommodating to both sides. Look forward to another blog to distract me from the daily grind..H2P!
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Congratulations Reed!
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Does this mean that Chas is going to have to write for the Blather again?
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Good luck with this blog Reed. You can bet I’ll be checking in almost every day.
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Will the blond from the dating site ad be joining you?
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That is Chas’s blond… you get a photo of me on here…
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best of luck Reed
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Congrats,Reed. Site looks good. Looks like all the usual suspects are going to be here! Good luck!
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Consultations on the your new site.. Look forward to the commerodity..
Seems like we should have an open house.. Beers , cigars and a little bull- shitting time
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Congrats Reed… We should be having an open house with beers, cigars, and plenty of bullshit thing… Looking forward to the commerodity…
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Looks like all the usual suspects are being rounded up! Congrats on your new site!
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Nice modern site…responsive for mobile and different window widths. Clean look and feel.
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Looks like I have two sites to visit every day now!
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We got a verbal from Carson Van Lyn…anybody with info about him?
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Worthington is an affluent suburb with two large high schools north of Columbus. He plays top notch competition there. I’m moving to New Albany Ohio soon so while I have no info now, I’ll have some soon.
For me, the biggest aspect is that PN is striking right in the heart of OSU territory. There are plenty of fine players (Kijana Carter of PSU…who cares if I can’t spell) who want to get out from the OSU shadow. This is a strategic move by Pitt.
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Cool site Reed. Glad to spread around the Pitt Fan explosion that is about to hit now that Pitt Football is about to go the roof. Looking forward to reading your articles and hearing from my fellow Pitt Fans. H2p!
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Hell Reed….you should have posted a phony picture of you as some tattooed, chain smoking, God fearing bad ass. Sort of a combo between Blackbeard and a Navy Seal with a screw or two slightly amiss. Might have kept scoundrels at bay. Maybe your CIA type look will keep the spies on their toes!
Looking forward to your prose. Thanks for taking this on.
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Huh – Well, I just got my first tattoo at age 60 – after 33 years of active duty without one; I smoke cigs and just last week had to slap around a drunk 20-something guy who was screaming at me then tried to grab my arm as I walked back into the library. (first ‘fight’ I have been in for a few years even though it lasted about three seconds)… but I still look much the same as that photo.
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Reed,
Good luck brother. I left the daddy out this time.
Tried to sign in as upitttossingdan, but it was taken. Looks like Carson is tall and lanky at 6’6″ 240. What I like about his blocking is that he blocks through the whistle and pancakes smaller defenders. Hopefully he gets a lot bigger, quicker and keeps blocking through the whistle. Love the finish.
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Awesome Reed. Good luck. Now I can get a daily Blather and POV fix!
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Congrats Reed. Looking forward to it.
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Love the panther eyes in your banner!
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Good luck with the new blog.
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Thanks all – new article will be up this am…
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Best wishes for continued success Reed. Always enjoy your insight and look forward to keeping up with your new blog.
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I tried to sign in as Joe D. Didn’t work for some reason.
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Try Chris Dokish…. 😉
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Reed, site looks fantastic. Look forward to reading and talking.
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Changed my name, just typing this to see if it works.
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Good luck!!!
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still trying to figure this out, techies Help!
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Sorry…using multiple names is strictly prohibited. 🙂
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Just kidding of course…
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Hi Reed. We met at the Military Bowl. I was traveling with Joe from Richmond and Big Al from Pittsburgh. Somehow we got way ahead of you on the pub crawl and missed hanging out with all super-Pitt celebrities.
Anyways, all is forgiven on that count. All the best with your new blog.
Jim from Perth
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Best of luck with your blog Reed. Thanks for all your efforts to keep us informed. H2P My website has plenty of information on literacy, etc. (even a Pittsburgh page) cybraryman.com
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