Two Year Anniversary Post

Today is the second anniversary of this blog. A number of people have been reading since post #1 two years ago. And I understand, there are a number of new readers in the last week as the Development Office at North Shore just completed a mailing promoting this site. Thanks to all for reading.

I started two years ago with the goal of writing something once a week about sports at North Shore. I saw it as a way to better communicate what I saw our educational mission was.  But I found that writing once a week was hard to remember to do. So I quickly changed that goal to writing every day. I did not initially post something every day, but I made a pledge to write every day for 10 minutes.

In the last two years, I have posted 921 times, had over 200,000 pageviews and supposedly over 15,000 unique viewers -- although I am always suspicious of these stats. Most of these posts are from my second year of blogging as I learned how to live blog events. Last March I had my biggest day on the blog when our boys basketball team played in the Super Sectional Game. I had 2000 pageviews on that day.

My favorite part of the writing this blog, though, is sharing stories that I hope communicate an aspect of why we (or I) do what we do. I am lucky that I work in a community that loves sports -- and I am referring to the North Shore of Chicago in general here not just the school. That leads to a lot of interest in what I post. A typical day for this blog is about 5-600 pageviews. A good day is over 1000 pageviews.

The most common question I get about this blog is how do I find time to write it. My answer is I started with a discipline of writing for 10 minutes a day. I am a believer in the power of habit, and I learned a long time ago that to start a new habit it takes 21 days. The first 21 days were the hardest part, but since then writing has become a habit.

Since the 2013 New Year, I have tried to change the habit to writing 30 minutes every day. That has been harder for me to accomplish.

There are certainly days when I spend more then 30 minutes writing, but I try to do most of my writing right before I go to bed. That way, if I spend more than 30 minutes it is just taking away from sleep and as I get older sleep seems to be harder and harder to come by anyway. It also gives me a chance to sleep on what I write and change it in the morning before posting.

The biggest change to my life from writing this blog is how much more I read and how little I watch TV. I did watch the Super Bowl, but I have not watched much else on TV since. Yes, not even Downton Abbey! I started reviewing books on occasion and from those book reviews I got book suggestions from readers. Now I am reading every day. I have a hard time reading at night because I fall asleep pretty quickly, so I try to get up early in the morning and read. My own father started getting up at 4:30 am to read when he was about my age, and I think I am just following that pattern.

There have been a lot of folks who inspired and inspire me to continue these blogposts. My Dad told me from early in my career to write something daily. I tried unsuccessfully a couple of other times. For some reason, this format stuck. I invited Vern Gambetta to North Shore Country Day in 2001-02 school year as a Master in Residence, and we became friends after that visit. His blog, Functional Path Training, which has now been going for seven or eight years has been a huge influence. I met Dr. David Hoch, a former High School Athletic Director and Coach from Maryland, almost ten years ago now. He is the most prolific writer I know on issues of High School athletics with well over 100 articles and two books. He has been a great role model for me. Among many folks at North Shore, Head of School Tom Doar has read I am sure every post and always been a supporter as has our webmaster Art Jessen '70 -- who also occasionally gives me greatly appreciated advice about how to create better posts.

But mostly it is the nice notes I get from family, friends, athletes, colleagues and people who are literally all over the world that keep this going.

I started with a goal of a year of writing and now my goal has expanded to five years. I hope by that point I might have written a few pieces worth remembering and also helped our program get stronger and stronger.

Thanks for reading this blog. I love hearing from readers whether you are a North Shore Country Day School student, colleague, parent or alum or you have no connection to the school at all. Send me a note or post a comment.