It’s that time of year again, that time of year when the Williamsburg summer mug sets in. That same mug was once felt by residents of the Powhatan Confederacy living in this region of the country, centuries ago. To the Powhatan, this area was known as Tsenacommacah.
Fast forward to 2023 in modern-day Williamsburg: Head Coach Julie Shackford’s women’s soccer team is announcing new recruits on Twitter. Head Coach Mike London and the W&M football staff are beginning their CAA title defense with Summer Camp in the ‘Burg. W&M alum Jill Ellis is now not only a 2x FIFA Women’s World Cup Champion as Head Coach of the US Women’s National Team, but she’s also now President of the National Women’s Soccer League’s fast-growing San Diego Wave.
But wait, there’s more. What do former Super Bowl Champion and current Pittsburgh Steelers Head Coach Mike Tomlin & Buffalo Bills Head Coach Sean McDermott have in common? That’s right, they’re both alums of William & Mary who are in the W&M Football Hall of Fame. And let’s not forget another W&M sporting legend who is yet another William & Mary Women’s Soccer alum (which also counts Jill Ellis as part of this esteemed group of women) in Kathy Carter. Kathy Carter was a star soccer goalkeeper for W&M soccer; she’s now the Chief Executive Officer of the LA28 Olympic & Paralympic Games. Who knew William & Mary was a sports school, huh?
While we at the W&M Sports Blog enter the dog days of summer ourselves, enjoying a much needed offseason of our own, we find ourselves quickly turning our attention to the Fall season. It probably goes without saying for those of you who follow the W&M Sports Blog across social media, but we’re incredibly excited to experience what the 2022-23 year has in store for W&M Athletics, and for The College of William & Mary.
And with this momentum comes an exciting new announcement of our own. For far too long, we have operated as, “The William & Mary Sports Blog” — a seemingly innocuous moniker that perhaps alludes to more expansive coverage than it might let on. It’s feedback we’ve heard before, and something we take very seriously. Despite the name, our W&M sport coverage to date has really focused on coverage of football and men’s basketball.
When we founded the Blog in 2014 while students on campus, we ultimately chose to focus on covering just two sports due to time constraints. Back then, as two of the seemingly very few students on campus who attended the majority of football & men’s basketball games, we decided we might as well start a Blog to find others online who shared our passion for those two sports among current students and alums alike. And to our surprise, we had a lot of success!
Modeling ourselves off our buddies at the JMU Sports Blog (whom we deem as pioneers and role models for us in the space; really, without their existence and continued success over with JMU, the W&M Sports Blog wouldn’t exist), we adopted the simple moniker, “William & Mary Sports Blog” as a show of respect to the JMU Sports Blog (and of course due to pure lack of originality on our part — thankfully, we’ve gotten a good deal better at originality over the years with the Blog and its social channels).
Over the better part of the last decade, the W&M Sports Blog (WMSB) has attracted far more followers than we had ever dreamed. We always believed W&M to be a bigger sports school than most care to think, current students included. Let’s not forget that William & Mary’s football program dates back to 1893. That’s older than most colleges. See: James Madison University, founded 1908. And didn’t that same William & Mary Football program last year play in the D1 NCAA Football Championship Series Quarterfinals game, finishing just two wins away from the National Championship game?
Before we began the Blog, a fledgling W&M Sports Blog predecessor called “Shades of 48” existed. Believed to be run by former Flat Hat sports column writers, the page included much-welcomed W&M basketball coverage. Unfortunately, the outlet didn’t last long. Thus, we created the W&M Sports Blog to fill the void.
But since Davey graduated in 2015 and Kyle graduated in 2017, you probably wouldn’t be surprised to know that we both have even less time than we did before when we were students at W&M. Despite that, and especially with the W&M Sports Blog’s rise on social media over the years, we’ve come to realize that we cannot truly deem ourselves to be “The William & Mary Sports Blog” by covering only two sports as we do; even despite our original reason for choosing the name to honor our buddies at the JMU Sports Blog. Suffice to say, it is beyond time for a W&M Sports Blog evolution.
This is something we’ve wanted to do for a while now. Unfortunately, it can be far easier said than done, attracting talented writers with time and passion who are willing to do the job for free. We’ve never personally made money with the Blog, nor do we ever intend to. We’ve devoted countless hours of our time to building out content and building our social following, spending our own hard-earned dollars hosting the website, renewing the domain name, purchasing tickets to attend countless W&M games in-person, and traveling for games. On that note, thank you to our wives for putting up with our W&M sports obsession! And thank you to all of our supporters for adding fuel to our fire over the years, and for your love of W&M; without it, none of this happens, truly.
With the Blog’s success, we’ve been blessed to attract a talented roster of devoted students / alums who have proactively reached out to us to write over the years. But as you can imagine, that writing support is usually fairly hit or miss. Because, again, we don’t do it for money. They don’t do it for money. We don’t do it for fame. And no one has unlimited time. We all do it for our love of William & Mary Athletics, and for our love of William & Mary as a whole. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the W&M Sports Blog, to date, has largely attracted writers who want to cover the two sports that the Blog has covered in-depth for the past 9 years: football and men’s basketball. But with our evolution, this is changing.
This past offseason, we’re extremely excited to announce that we’ve added two names to the W&M Sports Blog ranks that will take the Blog to new heights, especially in advancing our efforts to provide more coverage of women’s sports at William & Mary, both on social media and on our website.
One new writer is Sophia Hosford. Devoted followers of the Blog may recognize Sophia’s name, as back in her high school days, Sophia’s love for W&M found her volunteering to write articles for the Blog while she lived in the DC area. At the time, two college seasons ago, Sophia primarily focused on coverage of women’s soccer at William & Mary. And it’s with that background that we’re extremely excited to announce that Sophia will be transferring into William & Mary this fall, both covering games and writing for the WMSB as a full-time student on campus.
On a similar note, we’re equally excited to announce the recent joining of Grace Lorch to the WMSB. We were connected to Grace through a happenstance meeting when fellow W&M alum Sean McDermott came back to campus back in March this year. Turns out, she was already covering W&M athletics for another outlet as a Freshman, even before getting connected to us. If that doesn’t scream W&M Sports Blog material, I don’t know what does. Grace is a rising Sophomore at William & Mary, and will also be writing for the WMSB as a full-time student on campus this Fall and beyond.
We are incredibly excited to further expand our W&M Sports coverage with Sophia & Grace, as well with our other writers on staff. This will not only help us to more truly live up to our “William & Mary Sports Blog” name in our 10th year of existence, but will also provide exposure to hundreds of additional student athletes across William & Mary who more than deserve the additional spotlight.
One Tribe. One Family.
LET’S GO TRIBE!!!
The William & Mary Sports Blog 
Expanding your coverage is a great idea. Let’s hope you can sign up some more contributors.