It’s hard to believe, but TechHoops.com launched one year ago today. I can’t believe it has grown up so quickly. I could write a long essay about the first year, but I am not going to bore you. You are here to read about Tech basketball. However, it’s the awards season in the world of entertainment. So, going with that theme, I do want to thank some folks.

First, thank you to our sponsors: Campus Emporium, Collegiate Inn of Blacksburg, Dogtail Solutions, Jackson Hewitt, and the Pete Dye River Course of Virginia Tech. They’ve enabled us to grow and keep us motivated to be the best Hokie basketball website around.

Thanks to our content partners: ACC Nation, The Sports Dominion, and VTHokieFans.com. The web is all about openness and the sharing of content. We appreciate our partners’ willingness to post our content and invite us to appear on their radio shows. In addition, we appreciate the content they provide that we can make our readers aware of. I wish more sites would promote the same type of openness, but I guess they are worried about losing their market share.

Thanks to all of our guest writers and interviewees. We’ve had a lot of fun with our guest columnists (some at their expense).

Thank you to The Team. The Team is the TechHoops.com “staff”. Staff is in quotes because we are all moonlighting. This is not a full time gig for anyone. In fact, this site just evolved with no real plan. As the story goes, I bought several Tech basketball related domain names like cassellcoliseum.com and vpibasketball.com in early 2006. A year later after icecoldstreetballaRob and I got back home from our victory over #1 carolina, I emailed the other guys that share season tickets with us and proposed launching a blog about Tech basketball. Maybe we could make enough dough from Google Ads to pay for our season tickets? There was no initial mention of previews or recaps or any format, at least from what I can remember. I pitched the idea as a free-for-all. In fact, I had no idea how much anyone would or could write. So, it came as a complete shock when Niemo started cranking out game previews and recaps and stats out his arse. He raised the bar, and the rest of us had to keep up. Niemo quickly became our Senior Writer, but he is better known as “King of Tech Hoops”. A few days after we launched the site, I approached our fifth team member, Jay Adams. Jay has been MIA this season, which has been a huge blow to the site, but we are managing. If you don’t know Jay’s work, click here. It’s so good I’ve thought about replaying his bricks for each game this year. Daveywoods, who is afraid to write any more columns (thus our de-facto editor), and icecoldstreetballaRob settled into comfy roles and contribute mostly behind the scenes in the million emails we trade each day. BTW, I might be the Founder of TechHoops.com; Niemo might be the King, but Daveywoods is the Visionary. Finally, late last year, we added Gary Cope-acabana of VTHokieFans.com. He took over for me as our A/V expert and quickly has expanded his role. I only wish we had asked him to come on board sooner.

Most importantly, I’d like to thank all of our readers! In honor of our first year, we plan on giving away DVDs of all the Hokie victories from the ’07-’08 season (that we’ve recorded) to our #1 Fan. Think of it as the Hokie Basketball Box Set. To be the #1 Fan, you’ve got to participate. We want to see you comment, sign up on our email list and/or Facebook page, send us ideas, spread the word, get involved.

As we wrap up the first year, I thought I would share some site stats. The site has received almost 40,000 visits in the last year. The most popular content is our desktop wallpaper. Believe it or not, May 30, 2007 was our biggest traffic day ever with almost 900 visits. We were linked on duke basketball report and we ran our first Q&A with ESPN Bracketologist Joe Lunardi. Not too shabby for a bunch of dudes who never blogged before.

I have no idea how Year 2 will end up. Hell, we might not even be in operation. But, I can tell you that week one of year two is going to be the best week ever. Niemo has some choice columns planned, and icecoldstreetballaRob and I are bringing our good karma back to the Cassell to see the Hokies upset another Top 5 team.

Finally, as I look back at all the events and columns from the past year, one day stands out more than any other: February 22, 2007. The day that the Niemo armcurl was born. No other TechHoops.com column, photo, or comment has made me laugh harder over the past year than this one:

I am looking forward to the encore in Year 2.

Niemo’s Notes:

One thing I can tell you about Year 2 is we will still be FREE to read for you, John and Jane Q. Public! That’s right, game videos, stats, previews, recaps, and recruiting updates at no cost to you. If you want to pay $10 per month for that same stuff, maybe you should check out our “rivals”. But it’s all free here, baby!

And my favorite memory of the last year is also the armcurl photos. I was laughing the whole way home from Tech the next day, but resisted telling Wick. I just told him I had some photos for him. I wanted it to be a surprise when he opened them later that day. And, boy, were they ever. Those photos have started a couple of lengthy, and animated, threads on other sites.