| The Birth of Jockstocks Picture, if you will, a guy severely addicted to an online sports game. Now picture that same guy knowing full well that, as addicting as the game was, he felt he could put together and run an even better one if he had the chance. Then picture him being fully aware that there were hundreds, perhaps thousands of other guys just as addicted to this game as he was…and that withdrawals could soon come to every one of them as their game appeared to be dying. That guy was me, back in the summer of 2001. The day after Labor Day that year, a message board post was made that the company that owned the game was being purchased by Sportsline. Should we be excited about this new ownership? Inquiring minds wanted to know- and this one didn’t wait long. Quick research netted me a phone number and a bit of creative talking quickly got me to the people who could tell me what was going on- Sportsline had no interest in our game and would let it die! I made another phone call- this time to a fellow addict who had already once mentioned an interest in financing such a venture for me. Verbal commitment in ‘hand’ I began negotiating with Sportsline to purchase the game from them. All went well, and a deal appeared imminent until suddenly..it all came to a screeching halt when Sportsline decided they would NOT be purchasing that company after all…and therefore could not sell me a game they did not own. After a fruitless attempt to buy the game directly from the company that had run it, I began searching for potential partners to build my own game..while also working up ideas to make the game better. Meanwhile, a thousand miles away, a group of guys unknown to me at the time, were thinking and planning on the same thing. They decided to contact me about joining forces. The end was near at the old game so we had to work fast. After only one phone conversation and one online chat, we decided to go for it…and quickly worked up a message board on a domain already owned by one of the group. And so, in late March of 2002, an announcement was made to members of the old game that Jockstocks was born! We had only the forums at first…but hundreds of members soon registered and began talking about the new game. We decided that we needed something to keep our new members entertained at least somewhat while we created the main game from scratch. In April, Pick’em was launched. Even tho my financial partner ran into health problems and never did become part of the project, we labored on. Membership continued to grow, ideas continually flowing on the boards…but we were all in great anticipation of the stock game getting built. In August, we began beta testing, and on Saturday September 28, 2002 the wait, that had seemed like years to some (including admins), was over…..the stock game was live! Many know, many do not, that this game was put together by 5 guys- all of whom put the hours in to create it in our �spare time��working around full time jobs and real lives. In January of 2003, 2 of our partners decided to leave our small company. We appreciated the work they put into the project and understood their reasons for leaving. In 2006, I was even more disappointed to have my other 2 partners leave, but again understood. I only actually met my partners once- when I flew down to Nashville in April of 2002 and spent a few days. But that�s one of the beautiful things about an internet business- not only is it easy to find ways to communicate, but we can build and run a game while sitting across the country from each other at our own computers at home. After a year or so working basically on my own, Nick arrived on the scene. He'd already been a member and someone I instant messaged with for years, but now he was willing to help me out with the site. I now consider him a full partner in this venture. We have much bigger plans for Jockstocks than our budget allows, but we continue plodding along doing the best we can. Sometimes we feel like the puppetmasters, sometimes we feel like the puppets. Along the way, tho, the best community on the web continues to get better…and larger. Things haven’t always gone as planned. Problems come up and we deal with them as best we can. We try our best to correct things as quickly as possibly when they go awry…and keep our members informed along the way. We’ve learned some things that work, we’ve learned some things that haven’t. But, as a community, we’ve grown up quite nicely. Just think…down the road apiece you can say you were here…some of you for a lot of it, some for only some of it….each and every one of you appreciated by your humble admins. As Paul Harvey used to say, “And now you know…the
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