Changes are Coming to OurDailyBears.com

Over the past few months, ODB has been but a shell of its former self-- not in terms of the commentariat, which is as healthy and vibrant as ever before, but in terms of me.  I haven't been posting as much or as engaged as I used to be, and the blog as a whole has suffered.  If you don't believe me, I can show you the numbers to prove it. It's been something that I've wanted to talk about, but haven't, mostly because I didn't know what to say.

The truth is, that between real-life work and family, and after running this place for about four and a half years through high times like winning back-to-back Big 12 Championships in football, and low times like ... well, about like what we're all feeling right now, I have neither the time nor the passion that I used to have.

Over the last few weeks/months, I've been talking with the staff here at ODB and the great, great people at SB Nation about how to move forward with the blog.  I want to stress that at no point did anyone, anywhere suggest that we do anything here that we haven't always been doing or ask that anyone (namely, me) step aside.  We have, however, talked about how to reinvigorate this place and bring it back to the standards we once kept-- the same standards that I've let go since pretty much the end of this past season (I mean, I never even got around to doing my advanced stats postmortem this year, what's that about?). I also want to stress that SB Nation will have to pry my posting rights here out of my cold, dead fingers.

I'm telling you all of this because tomorrow morning, on the Vox careers/job postings page, the managing editor position for ODB (the one that actually has some responsibility to SB Nation as the blogmaster/blogrunner) will go up for new blood, and I wanted you to hear it from me first.  That doesn't mean that I'm leaving, or that any of our contributors here that want to stay, can't. It means that both sides, SB Nation and myself, agreed that it was time to try to bring in someone new to handle the day-to-day, and hopefully do it better than I have over the last few months. If you are interested in taking on that role, please reach out through that page directly or through the ODB email (@gmail.com) .  The people at SB Nation are honest-to-God amazing.

I want all of you to know how special and important this blog has been to me over the last four-plus years.  What started with a simple question in an email -- "Why doesn't Baylor have a SB Nation blog?" -- morphed first into something for me to obsess over when my son was in the hospital and I needed the distraction, before then becoming a staple in the Baylor online community.  It's been incredible to watch this community grow, to bring in new contributors and see them find a place to express the same love for Baylor that unites us all, and most of all, to make friends from the people I've met here that I probably wouldn't have known otherwise.  I still hope to do all of those things-- just more from the sidelines, in a kind of Manager Emeritus position, if you will.  And I hope that whoever they find to take the reins will appreciate it as much as I have, and love this place as much as I do.

-- Mark Seymour

P.S. Feel free to ask any questions you may have in the comments, as always!