Happy Sixth Birthday to The Key Play

The Key Play turned six today.

TKP provided its most comprehensive year of Virginia Tech coverage in 2015. The staff published 643 front-page posts / articles (1.76 per day). The community dropped over 390,000 comments, started more than 8,200 forum topics and cast over 580,000 votes. All in all, thekeyplay.com served near 11mm pageviews.

It's an exciting time for Hokie Nation. Between Buzzketball's success on the hardwood, and the energy Justin Fuente is breathing into the football program, TKP's traffic in 2016 has seen a 27.45% increase over the same span in 2015.

Even though TKP is my baby, its success has been largely due to a talented team of contributors and a terrific community. Thank you everyone for your support.

Besides editing TKP's front-page stories, pitching concepts and handling business operations, I keep my finger on the pulse of Tech athletics and handle breaking news. It's really an around-the-clock gig that's required me to ignore both my family and friends. My wife and son have been kept waiting at the door too many times after a breaking news interruption; me repeating "five more minutes" from my loft office while banging out a post. I've abandoned guests in my living room to hammer out 500 words on a surprise commit. I spend more time with my phone than any company when I'm out to dinner. Covering a beat requires a ton of commitment and maintenance.

I realize I'm ruining a birthday celebration with an introspective, so I'll get to the point. I start a new job on April 1st. Even though the time commitment is intense, TKP is not my full-time job. This may surprise some of you. Over the years, quite a few people have inaccurately concluded it was, but it's a terrific compliment. After my family, my new employer is my most important priority. Unlike at my previous job of ten-plus years, I won't work from home and will lose the flexibility that's helped me keep up with the Hokies' beat.

I hope The Key Players Club will eventually be able to fund TKP's first full-time reporter. Someone who is trained and charged to cover Virginia Tech athletics as their number one priority. Until then, TKP will adapt as best as possible. No matter what, it will continue to deliver its unique film and statistics analyses, as well as stories and interviews. The plan remains to provide the best Virginia Tech athletics coverage on the Internet, even if my role is diminished.