Over $10,000 Contributed: TELL-a-thon 3.0, The Key Play Requests Your Financial Support

Update 8/29/2015: It's almost game week. Hooray! The TKP reader contributions hit the five-digit club yesterday. That's right, thus far y'all have supported The Key Play to the tune of $10,440.92; 26% of the way to the $40,000 goal. I pushed this thread back to the front for all of your who have recently woken up from hibernation and are ready to mom-hug the hell out of football season. The original post is below, and you should read that if you're confused as to what this is all about.

Otherwise, click the PayPal button below to financially support TKP. If you really want to be an All-American, make it recurring. If you're a registered user, you'll get a gold star next to your user name. If you're a lurker, you'll get a sincere thank you email. I will regularly update the support page as new contributions come in.

OK, I'm going back to editing all the previews and features that'll run this week.

Update 8/22/2015: This morning I took a quick break from content planning and editing to update the total amount of TKP reader contributions. Prior to the original post on Monday, TKP gave a total of $6,681.42 in 2015. As of yesterday, that number jumped to $9,276.92. That's an impressive $2,595.50 in 5 days. That figure includes recurring and one-time gifts through 8/21/2015. Thank you for your support! I speak for the entire team when I say the TKP community is what motivates us to write and make TKP the best Hokies community online. I truly believe a full-time beat writer is what will serve the readership and community the best in the long term. I bumped this back to the top of the front page in case you missed it the first time around. I don't want the noise of jar ringing to distract everyone from the wonderful posts the staff produces, but I do want to keep subtle reminders around. vt2016 made a great suggestion to add a progress bar in the sidebar, and I did just that. Hopefully that increases the visibility of what we are trying to accomplish. I am open to any other suggestions and feedback. Thank you all for your support, and I hope this tremendous progress will encourage others to open up their wallets.

When I start to write a post at 11:39 PM, there's a good chance it's football season, or it's about to be. And yup, Virginia Tech hosts Ohio State in three weeks.

Before I launched The Key Play, the offseason was a burden for me. And since, it's this stretch of time that's never long enough to prepare for the season ahead. There have been actual times I've wished the offseason was longer, just so I'd have more time to get a better handle on managing TKP. The fan inside me, who has been ready to jump to Enter Sandman on Labor Day night since the end of the Military Bowl, was embarrassed to share a brain with the former thought.

Similarly, I do miss being just a fan. Covering Tech's upset in The Horseshoe from the press box was an all-time experience. But after it happened, I couldn't help to think how out of place I felt. I wasn't draped in maroon and orange. My voice still worked. I didn't high five any random Hokies, nor had a single sip of Maker's Mark.

Prior to TKP, I knew an unhealthy amount of information about every Power 5 program in America. I read all the headlines, watched every game on TV, and was a master of the flip channel. I had the answer every time someone asked a question like, "Who was that Michigan State running back that barely got any carries in the second half against Notre Dame in the monsoon?" Nowadays, I am as knowledgeable about Tech football as any person unassociated with the program, at the cost of knowing much less about what's going on around the country.

College football, and Virginia Tech football, is a different experience for me now than it was before TKP. But that's okay because TKP is my passion. It's been a humbling, rewarding, challenge to scale the website from a one-man operation read by hundreds, to an Internet destination with double-digit contributors read by millions.

My overall objective for TKP each season has simply been to be better than the last. That's vague and hard to quantify, but if my gut's the judge, a year hasn't gone by when I felt TKP came up short. I hope you, as the reader and community member, feel the same way. (If not your feedback as always is invaluable.)

I wrote the following in January at the time of TKP's last TELL-a-thon.

My plan for The Key Play in 2015 is to: 1) grow non-revenue sports coverage; 2) expand existing football, basketball and high school recruiting coverage; 3) find a couple of new voices to add to TKP's already diverse offering (if you're interested); 4) update TKP's technology stack (beginning with an improved search experience); and 5) be TKP's best year yet.

1. Alex Koma and Joey Coogan crushed wrestling and baseball coverage, respectively.

2. That same Koma fellow also wrote some sensational football features, and doubled down on recruiting coverage. Brian Marcolini, Pierson Booher and Alex covered the inaugural season of Buzzketball more thoroughly than basketball had ever been on TKP.

3. Oh hello Kevin Weiss.

4. Search was improved, and will continue to be refined. Numerous updates, both those documented and undocumented, were pushed live in the past 8 months.

5. This season will be TKP's best yet. The plan is to leverage our press credentials as much as possible, but continue to provide TKP's brand of unique content and analysis (French, Billdozer, Mason, and Joel aren't going anywhere), and maintain our sense of humor.

The major goal of Orange and Maroon Media, LLC, the business that owns The Key Play, is to hire its first full-time employee, a beat writer that answers to, and works for you, the diehard Hokie fan. This is the next logical step for a website that's growing up fast. In order to even consider that a possibility, financial support from the readership needs to hit $40,000. TKP's generosity in 2015 has contributed $6,681.42 (16.7%).

Based on the feedback received from the last reader survey, I strongly believe I could turn on a competitively priced content paywall and there would be enough paying subscribers that the $40,000 mark would be reached in less than 6 months. However, that will never happen. "Premium" content and restricted access to various sections of the website would destroy TKP's culture. This is the best Virginia Tech community online, and I don't want to shake its foundation.

I can't thank those of you who have selflessly contributed enough. Your generosity has enhanced everyone's TKP experience, and has directly correlated to the growth of the website. You paid it forward for the rest of the community, and you should feel very good about that.

If you have the extra money, are excited by the notion of a full-time beat writer on TKP's staff to deliver more great content, and want to make the community better for everyone else, then I need your help.

Click the PayPal button below to financially support TKP. If you really want to be an All-American, make it recurring. If you're a registered user, you'll get a gold star next to your user name. If you're a lurker, you'll get a sincere thank you email. I will regularly update the support page as new contributions come in.

If you're strapped for cash, or have already opened up your wallet, but want to go above and beyond, organic growth has been crucial to TKP's success. A good deal of Hokie Nation knows about the website, but many folks do not. I need your help to reach those people who don't have Twitter or Facebook, who have never seen one of French's film reviews, or who are stepping foot on campus for the first time. Would you tell a friend or friends about the website the next time you're discussing the Hokies?

We have a lot of awesomeness planned for this season, it will be The Key Play's best yet. Thank you for your support!