How did you first hear about the Boneyard? | Page 3 | The Boneyard

How did you first hear about the Boneyard?

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If RabidHusky is still alive, (he is), he's the poster with the longest tenure. If he's not, I might be.

The Courant had a site called the Husky Howl - it was threaded style message board. There were days in the offseason where you could go an entire weekend without a post because most folks had computer access from work and not home. I remember Deepster, Suzy, Deadrody from back in those days...I can probably think up some others with a lil time.

At some point, they switched the format and the growing mass of posters rebelled. They complained, the administrator said "suck it" and we left in mass. We went to a College Insider UConn message board and crushed their servers. We then went to another site and crushed their servers. And so on.

Then, guy named Frank, who still posts here, thought up the name Boneyard and the original URL, uconnfan.com. He set up a server, set up a board and we all migrated there. And all was well. But Frank had a job and a life and eventually morons other than the ones the board was intended for found the site and started to spoof poster's handles and post nonsense.

At some point thereafter, I got an email from someone I didn't know named Tom who said that he had set up a version of the board on his personal site and would I take a look at it. It was on a Pair Networks home page. Frank was nice enough to give us the name Boneyard and the URL. The two of us posted on it for a while and then sent word for the rest...and that worked for a while.

At some point, Pair became alerted to the massive traffic going to one of their customer's home pages and we were booted. We then went to an Earthlink server account. And then Net-something or other. And then someone else. We crushed servers along the way.

Then, in 2000, we received an email from the original nitwits at Rivals. Tom and I met them at HCC one afternoon before a UConn-Syracuse game and I marveled at Tom's ability to ask for the most ridiculous s--- without blushing and equally marveled at the Rivals' nitwit's ability to say yes without thinking about it. That was an early hint as to the ultimate viability of Rivals as a business. (Another hint...right after we signed, they were having a convention in Vegas and were willing to fly Tom and I out there and put us up at the Venetian for three or four days. Neither of us went because we are models of integrity.)

So, given the rising servers costs and general headaches, we went with Rivals. I think that lasted 18 months until they went bankrupt. Then we were on our own. And then back with Rivals. And then with Scout. And then not.

The bumper sticker version of the story is - I heard about the Boneyard a really long time ago.
 
I was dealing with countless idiotic SJU trolls on an AOL board and an old Boneyarder who went by the name of JeffK recommended I check out the Boneyard or whatever the 1990-something incarnation was called. That was my last day on the AOL board and I was hooked on the Boneyard.
 
I'm pretty sure I did a web search around 1997 and found a board dedicated solely to the UMass-UConn rivalry. It was something generic like b-ball.com that actually didn't even refer to the U-rivalry. That board is long gone, of course. It would be about as relevant these days as a board devoted to Ross Perot's presidential aspirations. Anyway, I put one post in talking smack to someone from UMass and a UConn guy said "welcome to the fray - come join us on the Boneyard."

Not sure what the bigger mistake was - his invitation or my acceptance. The acceptance led to many hours of non-productivity. The invitation led to a couple very poor rounds of golf, and an innocuous tongue in cheek post about Syracuse being plucky, which damaged relations between the two programs forever and probably cost us a spot in the ACC.
 
Started on the Mets Scout board in late 2004 or so (I remember stalking the site for updates right before Beltran signed... could have been there a year or so earlier but I can't recall).

I thought to myself... hey what's a really generic name I could use on this Mets board? MetsMMYY? So mets1090 was born. From there I stumbled to the UConn Scout board and the rest is history.
 
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Deepster said:
I have been around since the Courant message board days. I think it was the Husky Howl or Husky Hardcores or something and I'd have to guess it was around 1995-96. The administrators of that board changed the format, people complained, they said "too bad" and Tom and Fishy basically went off built their own board and the Yard was the result. We bounced from server to server as we crashed sites every other week. It's funny to think of how, back then, we'd all email each other with the new link and over time, everyone would eventually find the new home and stagger back into the fold.

1995-96??? Geez. I really have spent a lot of time hanging around with you s.
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Stuart Levine and Frank D'Angelo started the boneyard. They got the ball rolling. Not sure if one was the leader, or both were equal partners. But they came up with the name, and started the site.
 
I think I have been lurking at least since before 97. I remember sending (small) donation checks I think to Fishy or Tom from a house I owned before 97. This was also via AOL.
 
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Migrated over from the old whatever it was called

or

googled sites for old gays
 
When twitter started getting popular in early 2009 there was a yahoo story about how UConn's players were some of the few college basketball guys on twitter. So I googled 'Jeff Adrien twitter' and one of the first links was a thread on the boneyard about his twitter feed.
 
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Found it through the courant message board when it was pre-Rivals, probably 2001? Somebody once posted some archived pages from that board.
 
Deepster said:
I have been around since the Courant message board days. I think it was the Husky Howl or Husky Hardcores or something and I'd have to guess it was around 1995-96. The administrators of that board changed the format, people complained, they said "too bad" and Tom and Fishy basically went off built their own board and the Yard was the result. We bounced from server to server as we crashed sites every other week. It's funny to think of how, back then, we'd all email each other with the new link and over time, everyone would eventually find the new home and stagger back into the fold.

1995-96??? Geez. I really have spent a lot of time hanging around with you s.
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Yep, that sounds about right for me too. Very longtime lurker; only recently a member. Those were the days -- the days before companies got wise to their employees spending all their time surfing sites like the Boneyard (and its various incarnations) . . . it certainly rescued me from many a boring afternoon back then.
 
Short-timer hear. 17 months ago finally decided to check it out. Guess I knew of it from newspaper mentions.
 
while searching for recruiting news, stumbled upon the other site, and the other other site and had lots of fun with the football look alike threads
 
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I began on the rivals main board and rivals UCONN board. Eventually, Dominicfrank and FrankIvy drove me crazy and I had to find a new home. I still remember rcatalan absolutely sh___ing on my first post. Funny that two of them ended up some of my favorite posters.
 
I stumbled upon it when the football team went 1A. Guessing it was around the time the BC FB player Garay said the bakery was closed and that uconn was no longer a cup cake.
 
Deepster said:
I have been around since the Courant message board days. I think it was the Husky Howl or Husky Hardcores or something and I'd have to guess it was around 1995-96. The administrators of that board changed the format, people complained, they said "too bad" and Tom and Fishy basically went off built their own board and the Yard was the result. We bounced from server to server as we crashed sites every other week. It's funny to think of how, back then, we'd all email each other with the new link and over time, everyone would eventually find the new home and stagger back into the fold.

1995-96??? Geez. I really have spent a lot of time hanging around with you s.
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I think I came in about 15 minutes after Tom and Fishy went rogue and took on the responsibility of keeping this place alive. Growth was slow in the beginning, but we just became a server crashing machine the 99 NCAA tourney progressed, and the place kind of exploded after 77-74.
 
Bezzz said:
Cool story. Started lurking around '98, probably through McD's site. Anywho, in 2000 my daughter was taking skating lessons at ISCC in Simsbury and I became pals with some of the parents hangin' around. One day after skating, me and another skating Dad head over to get the girls some pizza at the joint across the street. When we're done we get out to the parking lot and I see he has a 77-74 sticker on his car. Stopped me dead in my tracks. I say "Boneyard?". He sticks out his hand and says "Aussie Cuz". We're still friends. It was like a secret society back then.
View attachment 9002
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And we coincidentally had Civic Center season tickets in back to back rows, right?
 
alexd. said:
You know....I can't even remember how I found this crazy place, But I know it was a few months after 77-74 and immediately thinking, "Man...how great would it have been to have found this place BEFORE we beat Dook and be able to share in all that craziness".
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nomar said:
Through McD's site, literally days after 3/29/99.
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So I've been struggling to remember, but I know my timing is similar to alexd, except I think it was a few months before 77-74 for me, and thanks to nomar I now remember that it was absolutely through McD's site that I found this place. Thanks for that, McD. Where y@?

I do remember that this was my first message board experience, and my original handle was Hungry Husky--yes, 15 years before Shabazz made it famous. I was simply hungry at the time I registered to post.

I attended the Final Four that year and was so exuberant after my prior 15 years experience as a Husky fan that I made one of those overly optimistic posts about our prospects for the next season--especially after having attended the vaunted FF practice at which Ajou looked like the best we'd ever had--and my premise was immediately attacked by Zymurg, who employed a combination of elderly wisdom and confusing vocabulary that befuddled me. I tried to fight back, but I was basically a blubbering baby seal in a sea of sharks. I believe I signed off with some parting shot to the effect that this place being a circle jerk of friends, and I disappeared for a while.

I came back under my current handle at some point the following season. Zymurg may have been the first person to enlighten me to the "progress is not linear" mantra that I now preach. I've dropped out for weeks, months and years since, after varying degrees of frustration with how precipitously the level of discourse has dropped, but I like talking about some my life's greatest passions with some of the folks who post here, so I keep coming back.
 
I was originally on a e-mail listserv for years - I forget the name but somebody here has to remember it. Basically you would send and e-mail to a server and it would distribute your message to everyone who was signed up - or if you got an e-mail from the listserv and replied it would go to everyone. The list started to die as people began migrating to a much more friendly message board format and I followed. I found the Boneyard sometime before the 99 championship because I remember timing it so that my 1000th post was 'We just won the National Championship'. At some point when we were crushing servers, I had access to extra memory modules that I either attempted to or was told it was too late to send to Tom to help his overtaxed server. Any idea what that year would have been? Based on my post rate, I would imagine I found it sometime between 95 and 97.
 
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It was a few years ago. I was hanging on the ESPN Message Board. Of course I always talked up our dogs. Started to talk with a poster with Uconn in his nic, He said I should go to the Boneyard. So, I did. I recall CTO always being on of course Fishy, Tom, Nan, IdahoHusky. Mau, Deep. I can go on. As boards started to change, my new nic was HersheyHusky. As more changes came, it was difficult to follow along. However, that did not keep me from taking a peek often. The only way to get news on the pups. Found myself spending much reading time this year. It was an interesting year. Glad I did. Although I missed being in the yard, I will never forget, Fort he ead. something like that. That was hilarious.
Have plans in the making for Atlantis in November. It is going to be a special team next year.
 
I was doing quite a bit of business travelling in the fall of '98 so I spent a good amount of time searching Connecticut online newspapers to read different things about the basketball team. There I stumbled onto the Courant forum, which while far from great, helped a lot when we won it all in late March. It wasn't until ~ 2001 (on the suggestion of one of the Courant regulars) that I started posting Boneyard (about three or four incarnations ago). I've been a regular since ~ 2003.
 
Bret or one of the Kervicks mentioned the Boneyard on her mail list. I checked it out and the first post I saw was some UMass idiot talking trash.

My first handle was GoUConn. At the time, the board allowed multiple similar handles and a guy who called himself GOUCONN came along, with his semi-profane but infinitely hilarious rants. I didn't want people to think I only used adjectives that started with the letter F so I changed my handle.
 
Greathusky said:
I started on the Courant board. I think it was called Husky Hardcores. From that point on, I went along for the ride in all its variations..
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Same for me. After moving to Ohio, I needed a way to stay connected with the program.
 
HuskyNan said:
My first handle was GoUConn. At the time, the board allowed multiple similar handles and a guy who called himself GOUCONN came along, with his semi-profane but infinitely hilarious rants. I didn't want people to think I only used adjectives that started with the letter F so I changed my handle.
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Tremendous. Remember well GOUCONN's "Observations." Had no idea that was your original handle.
 
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