User:TSPN
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
TSPN, which stands for Tom's SPorts Network, is a sports website based out of Elkridge, MD. It provides an area for discussion on today's hottest sports stories. It generally focuses on baseball, football, golf and college sports with an admitted bias towards Virginia Tech. It is owned and operated by Tom Barnes, a Virginia Tech alumnus and native to the Baltimore area.
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[edit] History:
TSPN was started in 2002 at Virginia Tech. In high school Barnes wrote for the school paper, which led him to create and maintain the website to this day. The site really took off in popularity amoung a small group at Virginia Tech, the Wesley Foundation. TSPN covered Wesley athletics as the students participated in intramural sports. The popularity of those articles led to the final installment of TSPN SportsNite, in which Barnes and co-anchor Ben Meister recapped the year of Wesley athletics in the 2005-2006 school year.
In 2006, following Barnes' graduation he expanded the authorship to include many from the Wesley community. Though few of these authors write on a consisant basis, one fan favorite is John Otey who is known as the Professor of College Football. Otey was a frequent guest on TSPN Radio, which was again hosted by Barnes and Meister, TSPN's President and Vice President of operations.
[edit] TNSPN
In the Fall of of 2006 Barnes launch TNSPN, which is Tom's Not SPorts Network. This was due to Barnes' now wider view of the world and his desire to comment on issues which TSPN did not suit well. TNSPN receives much fewer articles than the flagship, but is still updated on a regular basis. Here Barnes has found a voice for things as irrelivant as a rant on the expression the "latest and greatest" and as significant as the war in Iraq.
[edit] TSPN Curse
Amoung frequent readers, and Barnes himself, there is a myth known as the TSPN curse. The curse refers to Barnes' articles and their negative impact on the peices of those articles. The most frequent target is the Baltimore Orioles, who after Barnes writes about them tend to go into a downward spiral that depresses fans in the area.
[edit] TSPN Logo and Music
The TSPN Logo was designed by Barnes' friend, and TSPN contributer, Rob Rhyne. Rhyne attended Virginia Tech with Barnes and they have continued their friendship after both have graduated. Rhyne is also the head author of the TSPN Theme Music which appears at the start and end of every TSPN Radio Podcast as well as the final installment of TSPN's SportNite. It was created using Apple's Garageband program.
