I blame Steve.
The podcast was all his idea. And this is all his fault.
He pitched me the podcast in a Twitter DM and I had to eagerly say “yes” but like I said, this was largely all his idea. It was even his idea to brand it as Stuff Somers Says with Steve.
Although to steal some credit away from my co-host Steve Sampsell, I’d wanted to do something for quite a while.
A podcast was probably easier in terms of workload. I like to talk. Just ask my mother. She’ll tell you I never shut up as a child. Also, ask my wife. She will also tell you I never shut up now. And a podcast was just taking those topics we were passionate about and capturing them. So when Steve reached out, it was the push I needed and it was also a no-brainer.
For the last three years, we’ve spent countless hours together, mostly laughing with and at each other, chatting about Penn State athletics, sports media and our obvious age gap. Our regular conversations have been a true highlight of my week and also my free therapy sessions about Penn State football. I now couldn’t imagine doing it without him.
Yet there still was this itch.
Writing has always been my passion. As young as I can remember, I was writing stories in a notebook. In junior high and high school, I joined the student newspapers to write. I was so obsessed with my budding journalism career that my full-page article in the Mt. Echo on the 0-9 Altoona Mt. Lions football team hung in my childhood bedroom until very recently. After high school, there was no other school for me than Penn State and there was no other major for me than journalism. At the Daily Collegian, I covered Penn State men’s volleyball proudly and treated my Penn State men’s hockey coverage like it was my day job. Then after graduation, aside from a few things here or there, it stopped.
And I’ve missed it dearly.
So every year since then, every opinion I’ve had about how Sean Clifford was the savior of Penn State football and every single disappointing 4th and 5 has compounded into a massive midsummer-mosquito-bite itch that one night in January caused me to finally say, “Screw it. I’m doing this.”
And that is why you are here today.
Welcome to StuffSomersSays.com. The place where I’m finally scratching that itch.
I have spent the first few months of 2023 building out the site. In addition to the blog, which has some initial posts rolling out today, you’ll also find the most recent podcast episodes and what I have deemed to be the Penn State Football section of the site. You can find the 2023 schedule, future Penn State football schedules, the current roster and for right now, the 2024 recruiting class. You can also see every Big Ten football schedule by both week and team, plus the 2023 standings, which are useless to you right now since it’s March.
So where were we? Mentioned the podcast, mentioned the Penn State and the Big Ten stuff, relived my glory days. I don’t think I’m missing anything.
Oh, right, Steve.
Don’t worry, Steve’s here too. As I said, I wouldn’t be doing this without him. So much so, I gave him his own landing page. He’s going to throw some of his Old Guy opinions on that part of the site throughout the year as well.
The podcast isn’t going away. In fact, my goal in creating this site is for it to be an extension of the podcast and not the other way around. That’s why Steve and I have operated under the assumption that if we don’t have something, we won’t force something. We enjoy making good content that you hopefully enjoy listening to.
The same principle will apply here. I enjoy writing content that you hopefully enjoy reading. I’m not going to write because I have to write; I’m going to write because I want to write.
This site will largely follow the ebbs and flows of Penn State football so you can expect a big pick-up in content come August. That being said, spring ball is getting underway this week and I’ve got content planned to keep you occupied until September. There will probably be some Penn State hockey and basketball content mixed in there as well. And, we’re using the podcast as a guiding light. We will also offer up some sports media and business opinions along the way too.
I wouldn’t come expecting news content from SSS.com. First off, I’ve got a job and secondly, there are plenty of great sites already keeping an eye on Penn State athletics. What you find here will be strictly opinion for the foreseeable and likely permanent future.
In addition to the content that will appear on the blog, I’ve planned a monthly newsletter with “exclusive” thoughts. They are “exclusive” in that you’ll pretty much just need to sign up for the newsletter. No pay wall, no nothing. Just other random thoughts rattling around in my brain that I don’t feel like writing a full blog post about but you might find interesting. Once we get to football season, you’ll probably get more of those emails from me.
You will, for now, notice no ads on this website. I am not going to put ads on this site, at least the ones that pull in dynamically from Google. They’ve got enough money. I want this to be a clean and enjoyable experience for you. I would however consider putting local Centre Region business ads on this site. But that’s a conversation for another day.
That being said, if you’d like to support this initiative, you can do three things:
- Create an account on the site. That will be the only way you can comment.
- Join the newsletter, follow our Facebook page and follow Steve and I on Twitter. My Twitter handle is @StuffSomersSays and Steve’s is @SteveSampsell.
- Support the SSSWS media empire by contributing a small donation.
As the support page says, this is a passion project. I’m not doing this to cash in on my opinions but I’d like to make enough to keep the lights on. Once we hit that threshold, I’ll start taking your support and supporting organizations that matter to the Centre region like Centre County United Way and THON.
I’m excited about this. I’m looking forward to this. I want to thank Marty and Bolt (our co-Chief Barking Officers) for only barking once during the several late nights I have put into this blog so far. I also want to thank Anna for not thinking I’m that crazy when I told her I’m doing this.
And even if I blame him for starting all of this, I want to thank Steve for giving me the kick in the butt to start the podcast, which has now also turned into a blog.
So buckle up. Strap in. Insert your third new adventure cliche here. I’m finally scratching that itch.
