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    Mission Statement

    Our mission for this site is to provide the best Virginia sports content on the web. It’s a tall order, because there’s a lot of damn good content out there. But we’re not going to shy away from the challenge any more than Tony Bennett and the Hoos are going to go away just because of some obstacles and bad games.

    As part of providing the best Virginia sports content on the web we want to provide information and data to help our readers increase their enjoyment of the games; independent critical analysis of the teams, including program management; and help build buzz and excitement for our teams and players, recognizing and celebrating their accomplishments.

    History

    It's cool that we have been around long enough to have a history. Hoos Place was originally founded in 2015 shortly after a bitter argument on TheSabre.Com message board over then-sophomore Isaiah Wilkins' starting role. Seattle Hoo sought a way to quantify and prove the effectiveness of Wilkins to those who were not savvy enough about the game to see his myriad contributions that did not make it to the box score. Thus was born the Glue Index. Unfortunately, the Glue Index requires exhaustive viewing of video, and Seattle Hoo no longer has the time.

    Seattle also always bristled at the "boring" label for Virginia Basketball. In fact, Virginia big men probably got more dunks than anyone else. And there were a lot of blocked shots. Virginia players made a lot of great plays and Seattle wanted to make highlight videos to show them off. The thing was, it was incredibly hard to find easily usable clips of these plays. Thus was born the Hoos Place Highlights Database. Again, it required hours of video breakdown after every game to properly maintain the database, and Seattle Hoo no longer has the time. But for a period of about five years, a video database of every dunk, every blocked shot, every steal, every three-point shot, and every other play that made Seattle go "Wow!" exists. Searchable. It was cool.

    StLouHoo came on board back in May 2017 and the site added written content. That September, we did our first Hoos Place Season Preview. The code for the site was written by Seattle Hoo. After a few years, we moved to a WordPress stack because of Seattle's concern about the security of his amateur code given that we now took subscriptions. WordPress is even less secure and more open to attack, and in fall of 2022, we moved back to a custom code base created by a much more experienced and skilled Seattle Hoo.

    Through Hoos Place, we have magnified our enjoyment of the golden age of Virginia Basketball and a lot of other great Virginia sports. We had a podcast for a few years and had some great visitors on. Now we are merely a hobby site, but we go forward. Thank you for being with us.

    Our Authors

    Sports is entertainment, but it also is tribal, a way for humans to express community attachment. The sports we get passionate about are the ones where we identify ourselves with the participants. That’s what draws us so intensely to our college sports. We are part of this community with them. We all have a mission. The coaches and players and team managers devote themselves to putting forth best effort in the arena of play, while we as fans devote ourselves to supporting their efforts, adding our passion to theirs, putting our energy behind them. Thus is it more for us than just providing information to readers. It is making our small contribution to the community’s success. Maybe we, like little JoJo McDodd, can contribute our “YOPP”.

    Seattle Hoo

    The notorious Seattle Hoo from ancient message board arguments

    My first college basketball hero was Ralph Sampson. When I moved to Virginia at the start of high school, I became a Wahoo in reaction to the obnoxious Carolina fans surrounding me in southern Virginia. Given the chance to be an actual Wahoo, I seized it, then seized it again to become a Double Hoo. Never regretted it, even in the Gillen-Leitao-Groh-London years.

    Writing has been in my blood longer than sports, and once the web came along, I hopped on. I founded HOOpS Online at the crest of the first wave of internet publishing, turned down a chance to found the Virginia Rivals site because I didn't want to follow a formula and make others rich, then founded HOOS Place more than a decade later.

    Thanks to Tony Bennett, I finally saw my Hoos win a national championship, and was in the arena for one of the top five moments in NCAA Tournament history. Kihei Clark to Mamadi Diakite, from despair to elation in 5.7 seconds.

    Now here I am.

    Every day is another opportunity to get it right

    HOOAMP

    Go Hoos!
    Wahoowa

    Val

    UVa grad with a passion for women's sports.
    Wahoowa!

    Karl Hess

    Lifetime UVA fan living in Virginia Beach. UVA Class of 2000 grad.
    Go Hoos!

    StLouHoo

    A HoosPlace Original Contributor
    UVAStrong
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