{"id":1809,"date":"2010-12-10T00:56:19","date_gmt":"2010-12-10T05:56:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=1809"},"modified":"2010-12-10T00:57:29","modified_gmt":"2010-12-10T05:57:29","slug":"jmusb-first-birthday-charity-pledge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/jmusportsblog.com\/?p=1809","title":{"rendered":"JMUSB First Birthday Charity Pledge"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I’m not sure if this is an anniversary or a birthday, but the first JMUSB post ever <\/a>was made one year ago tomorrow.\u00a0You’ll notice that the very first comment on that very first post\u00a0closed with\u00a0this little bit of friendly advice, “Let’s hope it gets better from here.” At least we knew someone was reading.<\/p>\n

The past 12 months have been a real thrill for us. I can’t speak for Todd, but my excitement for starting the blog was definitely overshadowed by my paranoia that nobody would ever read it, or worse, that tons of people would read it only to tell us how bad it was. By some stroke of luck people have read it, thousands of people actually.\u00a0And with the notable exception of Liberty fans<\/a>, I think it’s safe to say that most of you understand that we’re doing this not because we claim to be experts on JMU sports, but simply because it’s a lot of fun. And it really is a ton of fun.<\/p>\n

Todd and I\u00a0definitely wrote a few posts that were forgetable, but there were others that we’ll remember for a while. Todd’s Mike’s Chevron post <\/a>\u00a0and our Best Eats Bracket <\/a>series of posts were\u00a0 neat for us.\u00a0While both were admittedly wierd,\u00a0they clicked with some new readers who thankfully have decided to stick around.\u00a0Our simple post about a throwaway line in one of Arthur Moats’ pre-draft interviews <\/a>got linked in SI.com’s Hot Clicks and ended up getting more views than every other post we had written to that point combined. And finally the preview of Tech game <\/a>was my personal favorite because I got to be a total smart ass and make a ridiculous prediction for a JMU win. Then somehow\u00a0the Dukes\u00a0miraculously\u00a0won the game\u00a0providing the true highlight of the year\u00a0for every JMU fan on the planet.<\/p>\n

We are enormously grateful, and quite frankly kind of amazed, that so many people read the blog. In order to show our appreciation we’re going\u00a0to make\u00a0a donation to charity in the name of JMUSB. To be precise, we’ll be donating to Autism Speaks<\/a>. There are tons of worthy causes and charities, this just happens to be one that means something to us. My cousin has autism as do the children of several friends. Additionally, both of our wives work in the school system and do a lot of work with children with autism and aspergers. Autism Speaks is an outstanding charity and we really encourage you to support them. In fact, if\u00a0you make\u00a0a donation online\u00a0between now and Christmas,\u00a0please email us the receipt at jmusportsblog@gmail.com<\/a>. Do that and we’ll go ahead and match all donations until we reach a total of $500.<\/p>\n

The blog has attracted a lot more readers than we ever thought it would and we just figured if even a small number of you donate 5 or 10 bucks each, it could add up. We’re not going to pressure anyone and we understand that times are tough and lots of you can’t donate, support other worthy causes, or simply aren’t interested. That’s completely fine. We just thought we’d take a flyer and see if we could get a few folks to support an organization that does a lot of good. We promise not to beat you over the head with this or continually beg for donations. We’ll let you know if anyone takes us up on the offer though and post the totals after Christmas.<\/p>\n

Thanks again for reading. We sincerely appreciate it.<\/p>\n