Keeping The Dream Alive

For those of you that know me personally, you know that since high school I knew I wanted to become a sports journalist and one day make my way to ESPN. However, other than a few internships here and there along with just writing for fun and having friends and family read my "articles" I hadn't really taken that next step to make my dreams a reality. In May of 2012, I decided I would start this blog. At first I wasn't sure how I wanted to organize it, how often I would post and what content it would include. I've discussed just about everything at some point or another...NFL, NBA, Golf, Tennis, MLB, and College Baseball. However, nothing has been more fun than writing about college football and more specifically, my Clemson Tigers. Its now been a year and 6 months since this blog was born and I can honestly say its been one of the best choices I've ever made. 

Things started off slow with only a few views a week, mainly from friends and family via a link on Facebook. Not too long after I got the blog up and running I decided to start a twitter account  (@CHallSportsTalk) which would be, unofficially, linked to my blog where I would tweet about sports, converse with other "sports geeks" and media outlets to help build my network and simply learn from others and become a better writer. Little by little, I got better and started posting more often and drawing larger audiences. 

The past year has been simply amazing. Thanks to my blog I've made my way onto the radio three times with two different stations, been offered a few jobs with various sports media outlets and I have readers all over the globe including Russia, China, Germany, United Kingdom, France, Canada, Malaysia, South Korea,
Indonesia, Lativa, and Pakistan. Also, one of my tweets made collegespun.com 's "Top 10 college football tweets of the day" list last November.

At the beginning of this season, I set out a goal to double by page view number and surpass 5,000 views on my blog before the end of the football season. Today I'm thrilled to announce I have met that goal. I want to say thank YOU, the reader for viewing my material week in and week out and giving me feedback and motivation to keep this dream alive. I down play it a lot in face-to-face conversation but nothing makes my day and sometimes even entire week, more than hearing someone tell me they enjoy reading my blog, or strike up a conversation about football or even ask for my thoughts about upcoming games. The support I've received has been unreal at times. 

I hope to keep this thing going strong as long as I can and continue to provide quality content that you guys (and girls) enjoy reading. Its your support, kind gestures and comments that have kept not only this blog but this dream alive. I truly feel like this is what I'm supposed to do and pray I continue to grow as a writer and a person overall. In closing, I again just want to thank all of you for reading and hopefully I can continue to build my audience and keep you guys interested in what I have to say. Its been a fun ride this past year and six months and I'm looking forward to the future and where this dream takes me. One thing is for sure, if and when I make it big...you guys will be the first to hear about it. Thanks again and of course...Go Tigers!