The Fall of 1997 was a momentous time in the history of the Sabre.com. Mike Ingalls launched the new VirginiaBasketball.com message board, and the excitement about Virginia football was revved up by a number of events. The Auburn University football team visited Charlottesville in September 1997 for an ESPN night game. During the game a hot recruiting story was broken on the air. Ronald Curry, the high school phenomenon from Hampton in both football and basketball was at the game and announced his commitment to attend the University of Virginia along with his teammates, Bobby Blizzard and Darnell Hollier. Wooohooo! Virginia fans had sugar plums dancing in their heads about the future. Forget the loss to Auburn that night; this was a watershed moment in Virginia sports history. But this proved to be a premature matriculation.
Another big discussion during that Auburn ESPN game was the $25 million challenge grant that Carl W. Smith made in June 1997 for the stadium expansion. The talk of the new improved stadium with players like Curry and the other top talent that would be begging to play for Virginia in order to play with Curry triggered unrestrained excitement. Mike Ingalls’ little site, VirginiaFootball.com, and its football message board started hopping like popcorn over a hot griddle. The message
boards became the medium for Virginia fans to discuss the bright future that seemed almost blinding at the time. Mike’s message board oozed over with excited posters sharing their enthusiasm. Carl W. Smith and Ronald Curry were the main topics on the football message board. The basketball message board was a more somber venue.
The message boards got another energy boost in the Fall of 1997 when Mr. Curry announced that he was still planning on taking his allowed recruiting trips while not totally reneging on his commitment to play at Virginia. Bobby Blizzard had already retracted his commitment. Darnell Hollier would be the only one of the three from that ESPN announcement to ever suit up for the Cavaliers. Curry’s uncertainty served to fuel the message boards like gasoline on a fire. The previous discussions of unrestrained excitement devolved into weeping and gnashing of teeth about what Ronald Curry would do. The situation also spawned the message board’s first recruiting gurus as posters with connections to Curry began to share titillating bits of information on his recruiting situation.
Virginia fans found themselves drawn like addicts to the message board for their daily fix of information. The Virginia coaching staff was not nearly distracted by this situation as were the fans. Coach Welsh brought Ronald Curry into his office late in the recruiting season and personally asked him about the strength of his commitment to attend Virginia. We now know that Ronald personally assured Coach Welsh that there was no doubt he would be playing football for Virginia, “Yes, coach, I’m still coming,” said Mr. Curry to Mr. Welsh. This was all Coach Welsh needed to hear. Forget about recruiting other quarterbacks, why go after that kid Mike Vick when Ronald Curry says he is a definite commitment. Apparently days before signing day, Ronald reaffirmed his commitment to the Virginia coaches. While all this was going on behind the scenes, the message boards could not have been busier.
Hoosball, WahooBrac, Mayor, and others emerged as VFB.com recruiting guru posters and whatever morsels they served up on the message boards were devoured by hungry fans. When Ronald Curry actually signed with the enemy, the evil empire of North Carolina, the message boards erupted more than ever. This was too much to take. To have something (Curry’s commitment) and then to lose it was particularly painful but to lose Curry to the baby bluers, amounted to exquisite pain for Virginia fans.
“The Curry fiasco was a jolt to all of us. I had excellent sources on Curry’s recruitment. If Curry knew he was going elsewhere, he certainly did not share it with anyone else until the last minute. It definitely gave me a new perspective on the recruiting scene,” recalled Hoosball. The message board gurus, who had shared what had been accurate inside information about Curry’s commitment to Virginia, became the object of scorn for many posters on the message boards who decried the fact that they had been led to believe that Curry was going to be a Hoo but now wore baby blue. Not all Virginia fans were so enamored of Mr. Curry.
Mikeysurf recalls that “there were several of us in the anti-Curry corner suggesting that UVA was spending far too much capital/resources on recruiting one player at the expense of the entire ’98 class. Also, he was terribly overrated as a basketball player, as one of NOVA’s sophomore guards from Potomac High destroyed him in the state semifinals. And Curry’s college outcome was certainly not what many Hampton followers or Curry worshipers expected.”
Such views, however, did not prevent Virginia fans from agonizing over the loss of Curry.
After Mr. Curry explained his original commitment to Virginia as simply a “business decision” for him to cut down on recruiting calls by other coaches, he quickly replaced the recruiting gurus as the object of Virginia fans distaste. It wasn’t just that a young man had changed his mind, it was an ill-advised comment suggesting that he “used” Virginia for his own benefit only to discard Virginia when it suited him that turned Ronald Curry into a pariah on the message boards. Nike also felt the fans’ wrath. Fans were convinced that Nike had lured young Ronald Curry with promises of Nike booty since UNC was a Nike school and Virginia was a Reebok school in 1997. Nefarious basketball coaches also worked against Virginia in an evil conspiracy with Nike to keep Curry from attending Mr. Jefferson’s University.
Ronald Curry became, “Benedict Ronald,” and then, “What’s His Name” (WHN) as Virginia fans found Mike Ingalls’ message boards to be cheaper than therapy to deal with the deep disappointment they were feeling. (Nike undoubtedly lost some sales to Virginia fans during that time period, though Nike seems to have weathered the storm and made penance for their errors by embracing Virginia at this time). The message boards became a community of Virginia fans and familiar poster names were
greeted like old friends at the local pub, only this was an internet pub where electronic messages were the beverage of choice.
Virginia fans across the country discovered Mike Ingalls’ site and a loyal fan base grew quickly. Gerry Capone, Director of Football Operations for Virginia, and >Matthew Welsh, a recruiting assistant in the football office, both recognized the importance of the internet for the future of Virginia football. They were attempting to secure funding for improving the official Virginia sports site and both were fans of Mike Ingalls’ VFB.com site and its message board. They had been consulting with Mike about how to make the official site better. Mike met with them at the football office and freely shared his insights with Gerry and Matt.
“I was truly impressed with what Mike was doing with VirginiaFootball.com. And his willingness to help out the football
program was much appreciated,” Matt recalled. “He was clearly a pretty talented and intelligent guy, and probably the biggest Virginia Football fan I’d ever met.”
A working relationship was developing.
After the Curry debacle, Mike Ingalls wanted to give fans a more promising topic to discuss and the Carl Smith stadium expansion project was just what the doctor ordered. Construction work began on the stadium shortly after completion of the 1997 season. Mike had the idea of taking digital photos of the stadium construction and placing them on his site. He decided to use his connections in the football office.
“I thought it would be great if I could get into the stadium to take pictures. I knew if I was interested in the construction project, visitors to the site probably would be, also,” recalled Mike.
Arrangements were made for Matt to meet Mike at the stadium and allow entry for sufficient time to take photos. Thus commenced the weekly photo sessions at Scott Stadium for Mike and Matt. Mike’s photo history of the construction project became a fan favorite on the VFB.com site. Check them out here.
These weekly photo shoots would prove to have a significant role in the Sabre history as well. More on that later.
By the early spring of 1998, VFB.com was getting so much traffic that BITS (Mike’s employer at the time) was getting a little upset about the cost and inconvenience of hosting the site. VFB.com needed its own stand-alone box. The site was also in need of a more efficient message board system to handle the growing load. In an effort to minimize the costs of both of these projects, Mike submitted a message board post asking for donations.
“I figured I might get a little assistance from a few of the posters, but I was really stunned by the positive response,”
remembered Mike. From a post that was up on the site for only one day, Mike received over 75 pledges from posters wanting to help. Over 50 of those who pledged donations actually sent in money to support the projects. Some were as small as $15, several upwards of $100, and the one that knocked Mike’s socks off was for $2,000. Virginia fans didn’t want to lose their new home on the web.
That $2,000 donation came from Mark Massey, a loyal Hoo living in the northeast, who would eventually become the primary owner and principle investor of a business now known as TheSabre, LLC. “The internet was an intriguing new way to stay in touch with my team. We all started out on the AOL Virginia message board, which eventually deteriorated into a mud
throwing contest between Hokies and a few remaining Hoos. I visited it less and less. There was no leadership. There was also Wes Colley’s site that had links to articles about Virginia sports from various sources. It was a great one-stop-shop for reading about the team. Then I heard about Mike Ingalls’ site, checked it out and was immediately hooked,” recalled Mark Massey.
“I got so much enjoyment out of VFB.com and as a Virginia fan I wanted the site to be the best, so I was happy to respond to Mike’s request for donations.”
Ingalls quickly invested the donated funds in a new server and upgrades for the message board system. Email communication between Mike and Mark increased as their mutual interest to improve the site spurred them each on. At some point in the late Spring of 1998, Mark sent Mike an email asking what it would cost to make the VFB.com site the best site of its
kind, with an invitation to get together to discuss it in more detail. Soon, Mark flew to Charlottesville to meet with Mike and hammer out the details that culminated in Mark owning an interest in the site and Mike having a new full-time job.
“I was ecstatic to be able to be able to dedicate all my time and effort to the site and get paid for it. It was a dream come true for me,” said Ingalls.
Mark Massey remembers his decision to get involved as being primarily motivated by his love of the University of Virginia and its sports teams.
“As a fan I wanted to insure that the UVA site was the best one out there because back then, and still today, it was an addiction that I could not shake. I figured if I was going spend so much time at this site, it may as well be great. By the way, I don’t think I am the only addict; the fan base has been very, very supportive all along the way. I also remember believing that this could and should be a business able to support itself, which hasn’t really happened yet,” laughed Massey. “The guys are working very hard, though, and we are determined to make this a self sustaining enterprise.
“I also remember meeting with some of Mike’s co-workers in 1998 who now run Category 4, the company that currently handles our web work; I remember talking to Tim McDaniel who designed the message boards. Mike and I hammered out a budget and he quickly took the ball and ran with it.”
Massey also reflected on the growing impact of the internet on college sports and at UVA in particular: “Prior to the Web, media relations departments had great control over information flow; while the core base of fans and alumni had very little input. That is just the way it was. The internet has altered that equation by allowing much greater scrutiny of what goes on inside athletic departments and their athletic programs. There are certainly a few negatives to this evolution, but I think the positives far outweigh them. Matt, Mike and the rest of the team really work diligently to make sure the Sabre a positive partner for Virginia athletics.”
Mike resigned from BITS and started working full-time on VirginiaFootball.com and VirginiaBasketball.com as a salaried employee, working out of his home-office on Afton Mountain. Long work hours were the order of the day for Mike. Managing the two sites and dealing with the challenges of a new business required no small amount of energy. Mark and Mike discussed eventually adding an online store and trying to make these sites into a profitable company, or at least a company that could stand on its own without rivers of red ink. Mike’s plate was full to overflowing with responsibilities and the need for someone to help with the development of an online store became apparent. Reenter the Scott Stadium photo shoots.
During the weekly photo shoots, Mike naturally had many chats with Matthew Welsh. Welsh recalls, “One day when I let Mike in to shoot photos at Scott, he told me how this mysterious alum, Mr. Massey, had bought the majority of the site from him and had hired him to manage it full-time. Mike was visibly excited and I thought this was fantastic news too because I really wanted to see the sites succeed. It was mostly an inadvertent side effect, but the sites were obviously enormous
promotional vehicles for the football and basketball programs. VirginiaFootball.com was already stirring a great deal of excitement. Working in the football office, I thought that was great. We couldn’t get the funding to do what we wanted to do on the official site so I was happy to see some Virginia site moving in a positive direction. It didn’t matter that it was independent of the university. In fact, I thought it was probably better that way. Hoos from literally all over
the world were already taking advantage of the message boards. You could sense the boards bringing far-flung alumni back into the fold and turning casual fans into die-hards.”
Matthew Welsh’s tenure in the football office was drawing to a close. “I gave notice to the football office that June [1998] that I would be leaving at the end of August,” said Matt. “Originally, I was there to explore my interest in coaching. I decided after about a year that I definitely didn’t want to get into coaching because the time commitment was overwhelming; you have to live it and breathe it fourteen hours a day, seven days a week to be successful. I thought I could be pretty good at it but I determined I had too many other interests to be fully dedicated to coaching. I had some money saved and I planned on starting my own graphic design business when I gave my notice. I never once imagined that I would be working full-time for a VFB.com and VBB.com,” recalls Matt. “The irony is that this job has taken over my life in
almost the same way coaching would have,” mused Matt.
Mike Ingalls immediately thought of Matt as the man for the job of getting the online store set up for the sites. “When Matt told me he was leaving the football office, I convinced Mark Massey to take a serious look at hiring him. I knew Matt was a person who could really help us with our efforts to build an online store. He was already an expert in design, having a Studio Art degree from UVa and being the creator of the now famous V-Sabres logo,” Ingalls recalled. Matt wasn’t so sure at first. “I remember Mike casually asking me if I would be interested in coming aboard and getting an online store going for the site. I had some pretty firm plans already in place so I didn’t give it much consideration,” Matt said.
Mark Massey remembers that, “Mike called and said Matthew Welsh might be available. I was intrigued by the prospect of having Matt involved because of his clear design talent and obvious connections inside the athletic department. In August of 1998 the parties reached an agreement and Matt was a full-time employee of VFB.com by September 1998. “The more I thought about it, the more intrigued I became,” Matt said. “I had this really strange feeling that I would regret it for the rest of my life if I passed up the job. Mark actually flew down to meet with me, we talked for a couple hours, and he offered me the job. I accepted on the spot.”
Immediately they began looking to get an online store going on the website. The online store project defied a quick commencement as they found themselves in uncharted waters. They talked with the University of Virginia Bookstore operation about working with them as an online arm of their operation. This partnership never developed as too many obstacles
arose to allow a smooth, mutually beneficial arrangement. They spoke with a group in North Carolina, that had put together a very impressive Tar Heel online store, but that alternative seemed prohibitively expensive. Matt then contacted High Peak Sportswear in Lynchburg, Virginia. Matt met with High Peak a few times and hammered out a deal on wholesale costs, items to carry, distribution and warehousing functions. More challenges awaited.
The fledgling business had its server hosted with a certain large northern Virginia company to handle the ever-growing traffic. This company was one of few at the time that offered an “out of the box” e-commerce solution for an online store and they sold VFB.com on trying it. “It was inexpensive, but as the old saying goes, you get what you pay for,” Matt recalls. “We were pretty much suckered. It was not a good store. When they said we had to pay extra, a lot extra, to show pictures of products, I knew we had to get away from them.” Eventually they decided to just build the online store from scratch with the help of the Category 4 people. The quality standards established by Mark and Matt for the online store caused several unwanted delays but the online store has become a durable reality as a result.
The Fall of 1998 thus marked an exciting early chapter in the history of the Sabre and with a football game at Auburn in September of 1998, the message boards were hopping.
