History of The Sabre – Part IV

Late in the summer of 1998, VirginiaFootball.com and VirginiaBasketball.com found a new level of respectability. The UVa Athletic Department granted the sites media credentials, with full access on a probationary basis for one year. Achieving recognition as a legitimate media outlet was not the simple task it might seem in today’s environment. Not only did Mike Ingalls, Matthew Welsh and Mark Massey do significant work to establish the sites, but Virginia officials exhibited an admirable ability to embrace the future at a time when many athletic departments viewed such sites as the enemy.


Official recognition came about after many discussions with most of the top athletic department personnel, including Athletic Director Terry Holland, Media Relations Director Rich Murray and Sports Promotions Director Wood Selig. After several months of meetings and information gathering, Murray gave the OK, and the sites have been credentialed ever since.


August of 1998 also found Virginia football fans excitedly anticipating the season opening match-up with Auburn University in Auburn, Alabama. The football message board enjoyed a welcome exchange with Auburn fans. An Auburn poster called “JR” became a popular visitor to the site and remains a friend of many Virginia posters to this day.


ESPN televised the Virginia-Auburn game on Thursday night, September 3, 1998. The message board stoked up excitement for the game and contributed to one of the largest road warrior contingents to be at an away game at such a distance. The pre-game tailgating for Virginia fans sponsored by the VSAF was a great opportunity for many posters to meet each other for the first time. The newly hired Pete Gillen was also making the rounds at this pre-game party. Virginia’s victory over the Auburn Tigers rewarded the road warriors and ratcheted up the activity on the message board.


The growing popularity of the site was brought home to Mark Massey as he was playing golf at a VSAF function the day after the Auburn game in Alabama. Mark was playing with Dirk Katstra, Executive Director of the VSAF. Mark remembers that, “Word got out to the group in front of us that I was the guy who just bought VFB.com and some guy I didn’t know ran back to our cart and said thank you man, I love you, I spend my whole life on that site now.”


This was not an isolated reaction. Mark recalls that former fraternity brothers would call him and say, “I don’t get any work done anymore, because I’m on that message board all the time now.” The message boards were fueling interest in Virginia athletics and providing the medium to make the interest grow.


During the Auburn trip, Mike Ingalls, now dedicating his efforts full-time to the VFB.com site, was looking for additions to add value to the site. One of the first regular columns he arranged was for the College Football Gurus to provide semi-regular writings during the football season. Initially the column was conceived as an anonymous pair of authors that would add a bit of levity to the football discussion while maintaining a hubris that parodied the know-it-all approach taken by some football commentators.


The first Gurus column appeared shortly after the Auburn game: These columns soon found a number of detractors as well as fans, with the message boards allowing a quick response to anything that appeared on VFB.com. Mike Ingalls found other writers to add to the buffet of options for his readers. Some regular writers were local sports columnists and some came directly from the message board posters.


Popular poster Skip Castro, creator of the always funny Doug Doubty columns, recalls his reaction to the VFB.com site: “Living in Boston, miles from any UVa outlets, I became reconnected with Virginia sports like never before. Who was this Hoosball guy, and why was he so vilified over just passing along what he had heard? By figuring out who to listen to (Hoosball, Mikeysurf, VBHOO, dex and others come to mind), I soon found myself more informed than the average Virginia resident. No other medium offered the level of inside information available here, and the insight available into the world of recruiting was particularly addictive. The impact on me has been significant. I’ve gone from disconnected to obsessed. My free time is down, my VSAF contributions are up, and I’m now a regular football season ticket holder, from 600 miles away.”


Skip Castro’s experience undoubtedly mirrors what many other Virginia fans feel as a consequence of the Sabre.com. Not only does the site provide the message board outlet but the Sabre has grown into a legitimate source of excellent sports writing with many contributors.


Skip credits the Sabre message board for much of his inspiration, reflecting on his technique for writing the column, “I frequently sat at the PC with a hazy idea for a subject, and literally had a whole new theme practically write itself. There’s just too much material. Consider the fertile ground the message board offers with a little twisting: The great football stand vs. sit debate; UVa basketball’s European Tour; Frank Beamer’s book; Cav Talk; Olden Polynice impersonating police, in this case the gay cop in the Village People; The Groh Inauguration Parade, complete with plaid Eljo’s blimp; Mike Krzyzewski, portrayed as Hannibal Lecter (or is that backwards?); Gary Williams’ salty language, while accepting the ACC Humanitarian of the Year Award; Hokie response to Al Groh, upon learning of his inevitable spontaneous combustion; Sabre Gurus, gathering at Hoosball’s Guru Christmas Party.”


Skip also sees the message board in a more serious vein as well, noting that the Sabre staked out its vital role in UVa fan requirements: the source for breaking news, rumor, inside information, innuendo, speculation and, finally, venting or celebration of the outcome. The message boards have endured through what passes in our world for cataclysmic events: the Ronald Curry fiasco, the Pete Gillen announcement, Brandon Royster, LaVell Blanchard, Terry Holland’s Sabre letter re: George Welsh, Al Groh, and the overwhelming Kai Parham/Ahmad Brooks/Michael Johnson triple commitment, a day that may well have foretold UVa football’s return to prominence.


Growing posters and a growing staff of writers marked the Fall of 1998 for the VFB.com site. bruhoo organized travel packages to help loyal Hoos make it to away games. bruhoo’s travel organization was successful for the fans, and it led Mark Massey to think about adding such a service as part of the VFB.com offerings. After meeting with bruhoo and learning the unprofitable nature of the travel trips, Mark determined not to pursue that angle. bruhoo does recall that, “Mike Ingalls joined us on our trip to Florida State, and he was jealously guarding his new laptop which he was using for VFB.com work. When he left it on the bus for a few minutes, he nervously asked to go back and get it to ensure that no one went into the locked bus and took his laptop.” Mike Ingalls was working for the site and the fans were responding.


It was in November 1998 in Blacksburg that a great addition for future readers was captured by Mike Ingalls. After Ahmad Hawkins scored the winning touchdown against Virginia Tech, capping a furious second half comeback, Ingalls was near the end zone to snap the classic photograph of Hawkins kneeling in the end zone, arms outstretched with the football in his right hand and his head looking heavenward. This photo still adorns the banner at the top of the Sabre.com. The photo has appeared in almost a dozen instances for UVa’s promotional efforts, including the cover of the 1999 Football Media Guide, schedule ads, schedule cards, ticket promo mailings and the inside of every football media guide the last few years. The 2002 Cavalier Football Calendar used this for its February photo.
Check it out.


Mike and Matt continued to work at making the sites better while working first out of an office at Jemstone Computer Services and then out of one at Matt’s house. At this point the site was being sustained by Mark Massey with the hope that it could become self-sustaining. Next time we will look at the new staff that was brought in to bolster the site’s survival chances.


Editor’s Note: A fifth segment of The History of TheSabre.com was never written. Since 2003, TheSabre.com has grown to become the largest online media source for University of Virginia Athletics. It has hired, either via freelance or full time, dozens of writers, and introduced many former players and coaches as expert analysts – to include Hall of Fame UVa Football Coach George Welsh and the aforementioned Ahmad Hawkins, who enjoyed a lengthy career as a pro football player. TheSabre.com enjoys synergistic partnerships with Gray Television’s CBS Channel 19, WINA radio’s ‘Best Seat in the House’, and Richmond’s Sports Radio 910’s ‘Hoo’s Talking’ with former UVa hoops great Jim Hobgood. TheSabre.com serves between 5-10 million page views each month to over 100,000 unique visitors.