Boneyard inception?

[upstater]

Wow, thanks for the WayBack Machine.
I thought I hopped on here in 1999, but apparently I was here on 5/11/98 according to that, and I responded to a guy who wrote:

": Calhoun is the most selfish coach in college basketball. First off, he cheats in getting recruits. Second, he pressured RIP in coming back so he could finally have a real chance at getting a shot at the final four. The whole country knows that UCONN is a joke in college basketball. They have top 5 talent every year, but still lose to inferior competition, can you say choke? Just look at ALL the NBA players who came from UCONN(all were bought btw), yet NO final fours, hahaha, you guys are pathetic. RIP is good, but he's not going to lead you to the Championship, maybe the weak @$$ big east, but surely not the NATIONAL. RIP should of gone to the NBA and be a bust instead of coming back for yet ANOTHER final 8 lost. UCONN will NEVER get there, just deal with it!! El-Amin is a joke too, that fat slob is a waste of a scholorship, and he'll end up having kids left and right. Once again, Calhoun should be ashamed of himself in risking a player's future. I like Calhoun as a PERSON, but as a coach and recruiter, he just doesn't have it."

Err, you contradict yourself. Read the first few lines and then the last line.

 

[gibhunter]

The mojo hangings started in the championship year.

The board had a bracket challenge on ESPN - everyone, I mean everyone, took UConn to win the title. Except a poster called DogFather - I think there was the potential to win a pizza for the high scorer and he figured Duke would give him the best chance.

So we had a trial. Obviously, it worked mojo-wise, so we kept doing it.

That's when I joined. I also picked Duke, got myself a hanging and had to post as my signature "Shane Battier is my daddy."

Having said that, the board back then was an ugly mess. I was using a bunch of other message boards for tech sites and the boneyard was by far the worst. Of course I was told to take it or leave it...

 

[61cygni]

Wish I had found out about it earlier... I came around only in time to spend half the day on Rivals and the other half on Scout

 

[tykurez]

Seems like we have a post like this every year or so. Who's going to build out the wikipedia page on the boneyard?

I remember joining as a lurker back in 2002-2003 when I was attending UConn, after converting over from whatever the Courant still had in place at the time.

Gotta say, what this place accomplished this past fall for the Jim Calhoun Foundation was remarkable. Lot of that credit goes to those who helped bring the site to what it is.

 

[The Funster]

I found the 'yard in the summer of 98 and was along for the ride for that magical run in 99. Those were good times. I had been posting on the Big East boards for two years prior to that.

 

[mauconnfan]

Fishy one you missed is GOUCONN ...............and I miss his comedic rant every once in a while about everything from to womens basketball every month or so in the past!!

 

[alexd]

My one regret is that I didn't discover the Boneyard until a month after 77-74. I always wished I had been around to celebrate that first national championship with all these crazy diehards.

My first chance to meet some 'Yarders was in the summer of 2000 when we had that Red Sox game road trip. Had to be 20 or 25 of us. We invaded some 3 floor bar behind the green monster, the name of the bar started with a "J"...a women's name??? First person beerfan and I met was Deepster.

Pedro pitched vs Texas. The Sox scored a ton of runs. We all sat in right field.

 

[gars44]

15 or 16 years and no avatar????
View attachment 2378

There's one!!

I nominate Patrick for "the man." !!

 

[CL82]

FWIW, I wondered over from the Courant board when Tom was hosting the site in his garage. I think HooperScooper, then MassHuskyFan, I think, suggested it. It's a great site and great community.

Let me add the obligatory old guy comment that as good as the site is now, and it still is funny and interesting, it is nothing like what it used to be. Great insights and hysterical commentary. Running jokes and pranks at the time used to go on for pages. There was a recent thread on the Love Potion thread that is my favorite example of this. Now some kind, but misinformed, soul will let someone know that the board is having a little fun with them.

There were some classic battles between posters, but they were funnier, and though harsh, rarely mean spirited. Fishy is a still pretty funny guy but his posts now pale by comparision.

Hangings generated more mojo because people used to fight them. The sentencing thread was hysterical as people would use reason and logic to explain why they shouldn't be hanged and everyone would pile on with trumped up charges. Finally the victim, er defendant, would launch into a go ahead and ban me tirade and then the Jurrdge would explain the actual sentence, typically the addition of a funny signature line. Fishy was hanged one year and his mandated signature line would almost certainly cause this site's profanity filter to blow an o-ring. I believe he is still on an FBI watch list because of it.

That might be the extent of my knowledge, and even much of that was made up.

 

[CL82]

While we're taking a trip down memory lane, years ago ESPN ran a poll for the best town/city in college basketball and someone on the Boneyard developed a program to stuff the ballot box for Storrs. Can't remember what it was called but damn that was funny. We inched up from behind Lexington and Durham to take the lead if I'm remembering right. Anyone have more details on that?

I beleive it was the Votamatic 2000 or something similar.

 

[ZenConn]

Fishy one you missed is GOUCONN ...............and I miss his comedic rant every once in a while about everything from to womens basketball every month or so in the past!!

Definately miss GOUCONN's posts. His posts actually ruined a couple keyboards of mine after spitting out whatever I was drinking at the time ....

 

[partial]

It's nice to know that there's so much history to this place relative to the age of the internet. I was too young and in a different country to even know what the huskies were 16 years ago and god forbid i went online by using the one computer in the country to search for the 'boneyard' looking for 'husky' fans(probably would have gotten stoned by the entire village).

 

[Dove]

In October of 1998 I was bored with the internet after 3 years and started looking for a place to talk Huskies I found McD's site through Husky Hardcores. His site had a link to something called The Boneyard. After two weeks of lurking I needed the right name. And in November I debuted with, of course, an OT thread called "Sexist Pigs of the Boneyard". Basically requesting everyone's top 3 hottest woman Husky players of all time. Back then the men's and women's board were one.

Will always cherish the mojo churning that took place in March. WINNING!! was the best, as was 11 wins in 11 games. Thanks Kemba!!

As for GOUCONN'S "Observations"...we gotta get those back even though they were part of the Golden Age of the Boneyard. Pat Summitt crank jokes NEVER get old.

 

[nomar]

I remember Vuce and seeing the old screenshot previously posted reminded me of Revrat. Question: Did McD's pre-exist the Boneyard? I remember going there for news articles and info before becoming a professional Yard lurker.

Yeah, I read every link on McD's site every day of the 1998-99 season, and started lurking on the Yard at some point because he had a link to that. I didn't post until after the title. The one thing I remember from that time is that Revrat had said in the chatroom during the Duke game that he would have Ricky Moore's baby.

I remember in the fall of 1999 (the Jacob Jaacks year -- ugh), Cuse fans started coming to the Yard in droves. It's amazing to think about it today, but they were extremely good-natured (CTO, for one, but she's still good-natured). There were so many of them that we told them, politely, to get their own board. The current Cuse board is the descendant of that board.

 

[SWHuskyFan]

I was a regular on the AOL UConn message board with UconnHenry in the early to mid 90s as Chuck. RRLBEES headed up the SU contingent there. Anyone from AOL?

I 've been mostly lurking for decades now. I also started with the AOL days. I can't even remember what it was called then. I think I went by huskymaniac for a while. At some point someone beat me to that and I've had several names since. Though I've probably totaled maybe 500 posts the whole time.

 

[CTMike]

Great, great thread. Should be required reading for all new members...

Like UConnDan97... I wish I had found the place sooner. The Dream Season was a formative memory for me as a 12 year old. Even when I ended up at UConn from 98-01... I was enough of an IT geek and hoops fan I should have found it. In the meantime I became a crazed UConn Football fan. For whatever reason I think it took me until 09 to start lurking... I remember just wanting to read something, anything, in the wake of Jasper Howard's death. I think I first started posting trying to make sense of Edsall leaving in the dark of night. And since that point it's devolved in to me checking this board at all hours of the day and night, posting some sense, a lot of nonsense, and probably liking too many posts. Thanks to all who make this place possible.

 

[Samoo]

I remember the site starting as an offshoot of the Hartford Courant in 1996. The original name at the time was "Husky Hardcores." I remember this because of a computer problem I had. The repairman looked at my history folder and saw it was filled with Husky Hardcore views. He looked me straight in the face and exclaimed "You know I love large women as well."

Similar thing happened to me with our IT person at work, until I made him check the site. Never have posted much, but this site and it's ancestors have had a huge negative impact on my productivity over teh past 17 years or so.

 

[DogMania]

This was a fun read. I don't exactly remember when I first found the Boneyard. I got to know AlexD, HooperScooper (MassHuskyFan at that time), CitrusDog, and Husky99 (I think that's what his moniker was). I think it might have been just after the 99 championship season. Those were the golden days of the Boneyard.

I think my first post was NA, but maybe it was something a little bit longer.

 

[Mike Honcho]

The kid Chuck, or Joyce's friend Chuck?

The former. My screen name was Chuck981.

PS -- Here's Fishy's history of the Boneyard history from 8/2011.

 

[Kitaman]

Remember when '"NM" counted as a post? I recall when there was no post counting, just typing. I think that alone had one of the biggest impacts on the Yard as people were posting "I agree", "Yes", You're right", "Not", etc. frequently just to get there numbers up.

 

[tzznandrew]

Hangings generated more mojo because people used to fight them. The sentencing thread was hysterical as people would use reason and logic to explain why they shouldn't be hanged and everyone would pile on with trumped up charges. Finally the victim, er defendant, would launch into a go ahead and ban me tirade and then the Jurrdge would explain the actual sentence, typically the addition of a funny signature line. Fishy was hanged one year and his mandated signature line would almost certainly cause this site's profanity filter to blow an o-ring. I believe he is still on an FBI watch list because of it.

That picture of him taking the awful stuffed animal Jonathan from behind, with "I abanged the mojo and now the mojo abangs me"?

I wasn't around for the satin pants and the BeneDuke 5 (5?), but that was my favorite hanging.

I was very skeptical of "WINNING!" at first...it felt like when we did "SHOO SHOO ORANGE FLU!"

 

[Dove]

That picture of him taking the awful stuffed animal Jonathan from behind, with "I a banged the mojo and now the mojo a bangs me"?

I wasn't around for the satin pants and the BeneDuke 5 (5?), but that was my favorite hanging.

I was very skeptical of "WINNING!" at first...it felt like when we did "SHOO SHOO ORANGE FLU!"

The BeneDuke 5 was really the Dukie 5. gibby admits to being one. I was one. DF and a guy named Tartan were, too. Don't remember the 5th.

 

[temery]

The former. My screen name was Chuck981.

PS -- Here's Fishy's history of the Boneyard history from 8/2011.

If I remember right, you had started your own site for music. Still have the site?

 

[CL82]

That picture of him taking the awful stuffed animal Jonathan from behind, with "I a banged the mojo and now the mojo a bangs me"?

I wasn't around for the satin pants and the BeneDuke 5 (5?), but that was my favorite hanging.

I was very skeptical of "WINNING!" at first...it felt like when we did "SHOO SHOO ORANGE FLU!"

Agreed, but WINNING! (plus Makers Muppet) ended up being the greatest mojo generater of them all.

 

[Mike Honcho]

If I remember right, you had started your own site for music. Still have the site?

Good memory. Freestyling.com. I sold it in college, nearly a decade ago. Still making a living on the internet though.