We are at the end of another HS season. Ten in the books.
We do things nobody else does. We write up every news item. We take pictures. (Which reminds me, I still owe Instagram my state photos — it’s on my agenda tonight). We preview many events. We make predictions — badly sometimes, but we’re in there, battling. We publish youth results (WHEN we get them). We provide early scouting reports, by noting what your direct competition will/may in substantial part have back for next season, often a few months before the season begins.
We’re not the best at any of them — not in the Southeast, not even in Florida — but none do what we do so comprehensively.
But we’re not independently funded (or wealthy). So we rely upon donations. Thank you to those who’ve donated since our last #ThankYou post.
- Joe Mobley (x2)
- Stormy Kubatzke
- Amanda McLean (x2)
- Danny Brewer
- Erin Raynor (x2)
- Darren Glenn
- Kevin Glavin
- Donald Maurer
- Lindsay Bibla
- Cary Helton
- Jefferson Brant
- Emily Brown
- Andy Siegal
- Nichole Smith
- Shannon Perry
- Todd Schaefer
- Tonya Hawkes
- Mindy Gibson
- Dana Elliott
- Conrad Bishop
- Christine Mercado
- Two anonymous HS coaches
I’m really grateful for these donations — 26 in all. In one sense, it’s a very large list.
But in another sense, it’s a little less than three per month between the last post I wrote to thank donors, in June of last year (was it really that long ago? Editor: It was). Two or three donations per month versus the at least 150 hours per month of time I’m putting toward the site.
Or, in another sense, the donations came from people connected with 15 programs I cover. Imagine if I only covered the teams that donate. Over half of the number of donations (not the $ amount) came from four teams; almost 20% of them came from one team.
By contrast, I cover 107 now.
Nearly 90 percent of the coverage area was covered for free in 2022-23.
I hear all the ideas to fix this situation. Make every team donate a preset amount in order to get coverage. Go ahead and build a subscription model. Find advertisers. This offseason, I hope to start finding a solution, a solution that makes the donation model less necessary. Plans are beginning to come into place.
I understand why you hesitate to donate. Things remain up in the air for a lot of us. It’s expensive to travel and give opportunities for your son or daughter to compete. I get that.
Things are up in the air for me, too. But in the meantime, I continue to call upon the community to help fund our time that we put into this site. It’s thousands of hours each year, working every day of the year. We DO like doing it and if you like us doing it, also, please do donate. The links are at the bottom of the post. Right down there.
North Florida Matmen 