Merry Christmas From Hammer & Rails

This year I passed the 10-year mark of blogging. Back in August marked the 10-year anniversary of starting this little enterprise. Some of you remember the old days of Off the Tracks. The really seasoned remember that first year of the “Boilermaker Football blog” on blogger, where I was placing links on the GBI forums and had a ridiculously small audience. I started it because I was unemployed and looking for an outlet to write.

Now, 10 years later, I am still amazed by the audience we have. In October we hit 1 million page views in a single month for the first time ever. We did it again in November and are on pace to do it again here in December. A million page views in a month puts us in the top 10 of all college sites on SB Nation (and there are more than 90 such sites).

For all this, I am deeply humbled and honored. I am blessed to have a great staff here to help me out and grow this beyond anything I have ever dreamed of. I know I am loud, emotional, and tend to say what I think before really thinking it, but Juan, Andrew, Andrew, Drew, Jack, Casey, Kyle, Rachel, and Rob keep me grounded. I truly could not do this without them now, and they are a blessing beyond words for making this a better place.

So Merry Christmas to you all. Thank you for a great year. Personally, 2016 has been quite a shitty year with only the Cubs winning the World Series as a true positive. Let’s make 2017 a great one with a Final Four (please? We ahve been good!) and a bowlg ame for football.