Armchair Superstar Turns 1

One year ago Mark Fodor and myself decided to embark on an adventure to have our own sports blog. ACSS is what has become of this idea. As of writing this we have had 19,519 hits for our page (so close to 20,000). We all know that 90-95% of these hits are Mark and myself, with the other 5% coming from Mark’s mom (who never posts any comments). It’s been a fun year and it’s time to look back and see some of the good, and not so great moments. Needless to say, enjoy the post, re-read some of the old posts, it’s amazing how good, bad and funny some of the things we have posted on this site. That was the best part of creating this post, just seeing what we were talking about at different times of the year last year.

Stats on Posts

We currently have a stable of 10 different posters who have posted a total of 360 different posts, just shy of Fodor’s year goal for 365. Now, I bet you are wondering, who had the most posts for the year. Including this post Mark Fodor and I are tied at 155.5 (we co-wrote one piece together) posts for the year. Fodor has led the blog in total posts for most the year. I passed him once in the last full week of October, only to have him reclaim the lead the next week. I have caught up to him again at this tie. Here is a breakdown of posts by writer.


Fodor 155.5
Noffke 155.5
Ryan 23
Tim 5
AJ 5
Alec 4
Dan 4
Colin 3
Derek 3
Ben 2

Fodor led the blog with the most posts in one month with 20 posts in February 2009. Who said sports is dead in February? I hold the record for most post in a week with 10. This happened on 11/08-11/15. This is also the record week for ACSS with 18 posts. The ACSS month with the most posts was October with 40. The ACSS record for week with most different posters was 08/30-09/06 where we had 5 different people post an article.

In honor of our one year anniversary I decided to hand out some awards for the blog. I have named the awards the ACeSS (pounced Aces)






Worst Writer of the Year!

The Winner is…Stephen Noffke

I clearly win the award for worst writer. Leaving aside the inconsistent posting with few post over a couple a weeks, one need to go no further then this post to figure out why I am the worst writer. I have 0, that’s right 0, grammar skills. I couldn’t form a cohesive sentence to save my life. We also can’t forget about the numerous typos that are any given post. On top of all this, I also have an inability to finish what I started. Fodor and I did a countdown of our Top 10 sports moments, I stopped at 5. I also was going around the NFL to name which players on each team’s roster would have their number retired or make the hall of fame. I got through 2 of the 8 divisions. So clearly I earn this award.



Laziest Post of The Year!

The Winner is…. Important Story I Can’t Get Through by Mark Fodor


Instead of reading the story, Fodor read the first little bit of it, got bored, and posted it on the website hoping someone would explain. Luckily the ACSS future writer Ryan is in law school and was able to break it down for him. Bravo for Fodor to be too lazy to read the article, and barely explain anything in your post.



The Article with the most Comments!

The Winner is…. A tie Urlacher Out For Season: Paging Derrick Brooks? , posted by Fodor, and Random Trivia of the Week, RB College , posted by me, with 7 each

I would like to give extra credit to the Urlacher post because the Trivia encourages people to post, while the Urlacher post just led to many comments.



Best Pictured Posted

The Winner is….



This picture is found in the Depressing Landscape of College Football by me. I really like this picture, the way it uses all the different football helmets to show where each team is located. I know most of you will not agree with me, but oh well.



Article with the best Pictures Posted

The nomiees are…

Would You Rather: See Notre Dame or Chicago Bears Win this Weekend By Stephen Noffke

Dissecting ESPN’s Scouts Inc. NFL Rankings By Position: The Quarterbacks by AJ Etsch


Dissecting ESPN’s Scouts Inc. NFL Rankings By Position: The Running Backs By AJ Etsch


Dissecting ESPN’s Scouts Inc. NFL Rankings By Position: The Wide Receivers By AJ Etsch



The Winner is…. Dissecting ESPN’s Scouts Inc. NFL Rankings By Position: The Quarterbacks
By AJ Etsch

This one wins by a landslide. The array of comical and painful pictures (depending on who you cheer for) are in a beautiful mix. I believe this article also has the most pictures with help. I honestly couldn’t help but laugh at each and everyone of these pictures.



Best Link Posted

If you have ever read this blog, then you know what choice I am going to go with. The clip of Super Bo on Super Techmo Bowl. This clip has been posted numerous times by myself.




Best Video Posted.

The Nominees

College Baseball Dance-off by Mark Fodor

Miami Dolphins fight song by T-Pain in This One’s for Fodor by Stephen Noffke

Peyton Manning Yells at his Protection By Stephen Noffke


The Winner is…. Miami Dolphins Fight Song!

The song is amazingly catchy, and can easily get stuck in your head. I know it’s been the most listed to song and most watched video we have ever posted.

The other two are solid contenders. The College Baseball Dance-off is hysterical at points and just ok at other. Peyton swearing on TV is also a classic moment.




Most Inappropriate Writer

The Nominees

Ryan Parrent or AJ Etsch

The Winner is….Ryan!

Ryan has gone out of his way to call ESPN mentally challenged (in not as pc ways) numerous times. The entire purpose of this post was to show the picture of Spider-man doing his best Peter North impression. He has used angry and sometimes foul language in his posts and comments, and even a letter he sent to David Stern.

AJ does use a lot of rough language but is not as over the top as Ryan is, congratulations Ryan!




Most Unbelievably Timed Post

The Nominees

Big Ten Expansion By Stephen Noffke

Hard Luck NFL Fans By Stephen Noffke



The Winner is… Big Ten Expansion By Stephen Noffke.

This article wins the award because about a month after I posted this, the Big Ten announced plans to look into expansion. The crazy thing is, I had started this article in June, and put off finishing it forever. One day I decided to do finish it, and couldn’t have timed it better.

The Hard Luck fans had lucky timing too because a week after I posted my article, the Sports Guy posted his.



Longest Article of the Year

The Nominees


Steve’s Bracket by Stephen Noffke

Armchair Superstar Mock Draft By Stephen Noffke and Mark Fodor

Retro Diary: Classic College Football on BTN Illinois at Indiana 1999 By Stephen Noffke

27 Up 27 Down By Stephen Noffke


Outback Bowl – Live Blog Madness By Mark Fodor



The Winner is…. Outback Bowl – Live Blog Madness By Mark Fodor


Technically Fodor split his live blog into two separate entries, but since they were basically one continual entry he gets the nod. The Longest single post was the Retro Diary, and the Longest no diary was Steve’s Bracket. Here is a word count of each article



Finish
Outback Bowl – Live Blog Madness By Mark Fodor 3,640
Retro Diary: Classic College Football on BTN Illinois at Indiana 1999 2,853
Steve’s Bracket: 2,516
Armchair Superstar Mock Draft 2,428
27 Up and 27 Down 2,210





Most Heated Post

Letter To David Stern by Stephen Noffke

This article as well as it’s follow up got more heated debates between ACSS writers, friends and family then any other post of the year. Obviously it wasn’t as much about the post as it was about the NBA lack of actions. This article would be the first of many NBA bashing the website would do. Which leads us to




Most Target Topics for Rants

The nominees

College Football Scheduling

NBA Refs


ESPN Hating Jay Cutler


The Winner is…. NBA Refs

NBA Refs took more of a beating throughout the year from our posters and comments then anything else. You can find shots at NBA refs from March through December, even when the NBA was in the off-season. ESPN hating Jay Cutler lead to a lot of other heated posts of its own from multiple sources including some less then flattering words from Ryan (see inappropriate awards). College Football Scheduling was some I personally ranted on a lot but did often enough to make this list.

Now we come to the final two awards; Writer of the Year and Post of the Year.



Writer of the Year:

The Nominees

Mark Fodor

Stephen Noffke

The Winner is…. Mark Fodor

Mark started the blog and convinced me to join. He is tied with me for the most post for the year, but didn’t rely as heavily as I did on posting a link or a trivia questions (Total “Short Posts” as I called them: Noffke 50 Fodor 29). Fodor also got ACSS onto Bleacher Report where he also landed a columnist job for Indiana Basketball. With out Mark Fodor there would be no ACSS so congrats to Mark.

(Editor’s Note: I was going to pick myself, but I don’t think anyone enjoys my writing as much as I do myself)




Post of the Year

I ran into a dilemma with this. When flipping through for Post of the Year, I noticed a trend that every one of my nominations was an article that I had written. It’s not that I don’t enjoy reading everyone else’s articles, it was just that I was clearly biased in liking my articles because I know what it took to write them, how long it took to write and they were about topics I liked. So instead of doing Post of the Year, I am going to do Stephen Noffke Post of the Year and leave the other writers to have their own if they so choose.


Stephen Noffke Post of the Year

Nominees

Sports Stigmas

Case for POY: I felt like this was my first really good article I had written for the site. I had the idea in my head for a few years and finally got the idea on paper. The article discusses a sensitive issue but I think gives everyone a different view of how we look at sports.


How to Pick a Bracket

Case for POY: I did a statistical breakdown of every Final Four since 1985 to prove my point. I have long held onto this theory and finally had the stats to back me up. I though the piece had a good flow to it, a serious, but not too serious tone of suggesting to take it’s advice On top of that, it was proven correct on both accounts this year.


Problems with College Football Schedules and College Football: A Depressing Landscape of out of Conference Games(I know these are two different articles, but they were a few days apart and basically one long rant)

Case for POY: This topic just got me fired up. I have discussed this with friends for years, and I am sure I will continue to rant on the site about this. Both articles had good information and good flows to them.


Home Field Advantage for the World Series

Case for POY: This article got me the best compliment I ever received. While waiting for a movie, I had Jamie read this piece on my Blackberry. Once she was done she noticed my name at the bottom and said, “O you commented on this article.” She didn’t realize until I told her that I wrote this piece that it wasn’t from a major website. I also really liked this article because it was so easy to write; it just came to me naturally and flowed off my fingertips onto the page.

Ode to College Football

Case for POY: I love this article because I couldn’t tell you one reason why I love College Football, so I listed off as many reasons as I could, and I still don’t think it gives it justice. It makes me excited for football every time I read it and I can’t wait to experience more college atmosphere’s live compared to on TV.

Big Ten Expansion

Case for POY: The timing of this couldn’t be beat. The fact I spent so much time on it, and almost everything I discussed in this article has been discussed by every other article I have read about Big Ten Expansion post announcement. I got tons of great feedback on it and how much people enjoyed the in depth look at each team as well as the reason behind the expansion and the problems with it.

Hard Luck NFL Fans

Case for POY: I originally thought this was going to be a throw away article. An article I just write real quickly to get some quick though provocation and then it’s gone. I was surprised how much everyone told me they liked this article and how it was clear to see the amount of research that went into it. Then Sports Guy’s article a few days later made me smile


And the Winner is….

This was such a tough choice; I kept going back and forth between Ode to College Football and Big Ten Expansion I liked each for different reasons. In the end I chose Ode to College Football because I didn’t stop writing it for 3 months like I did with Big Ten Expansion. It took me about an hour to write and I tried to list off everything I love about College Football and what everyone else around the country loves about college football and that’s what came up. It was a close race, but I loved all these articles for different reasons and I think they are all winners.


So there you have it, the ACeSS. Was my choice for POY your favorite too? Did I mess up any other awards? Did I complete forget about some? Am I going to agree with my own awards in 24 hours? Probably Not. Comment or Post away with your thoughts.

Finally, Thank You to all our Readers out there (all 3 of you!).