Thomas Brown's Resignation Speech

Good evening.

I was born in a small town off Route 33 in rural Idaho.  I never had much as a kid, and I had to work in the field.  I don't think my parents liked me too much.

This is the 53rd time I have spoken to you from this computer, where so many articles have been made that shaped the history of Bleacher Report. Each time I have done so to discuss with you some matter that I believe affected the sports fans' interest.

Throughout my life, I have always considered myself a sports fan.  I never had a computer or television when I was growing up, my daddy said they were too expensive.  I listened to Ohio State and Iowa football games on the radio on Saturday afternoons when my father wasn't making me pick the fields.

I got my first computer when I was 23 years old, and I discovered Bleacher Report just three score days ago.  You have no idea how much joy it has brought me producing articles for you B/R users to read.

In all the decisions I have made in my public life, I have always tried to do what was best for both myself and Bleacher Report. Throughout the long and difficult period of yesterday night, I have felt it was my duty to persevere, to make every possible effort to write the best material on Bleacher Report.

In the past few days, however, it has become evident to me that I no longer have a strong enough social base on Bleacher Report to justify continuing that effort. As long as there was such a base, I felt strongly that it was necessary to produce great, thought provoking articles, that to do otherwise would be unfaithful to the spirit of Bleacher Report.

Many of you have called for my head.  Contrary to the spirit of a free open sports network, you have driven me from Bleacher Report using guerilla methods. Contrary to free speech, you have driven me to close my mouth.  From this point on, I will never come back to comment or write an article on Bleacher Report.

To all my fans, you know what voicing your opinion is all about.  It is not agreeing with politically correct statements, it is pushing the envelope and making people think about their social norms.

I would have preferred to carry on writing articles, whatever the personal agony it would have involved, and my family unanimously urged me to do so. But the interest of Bleacher Report must always come before any personal considerations.

From the discussions I have had with Zander Freund and other Bleacher Report users, I have concluded that because of the hatred I face everyday, I might not have the support of the Bleacher Report users that I would consider necessary to back the very difficult opinions I put out on the line day in and day out.

I have never been a quitter. To leave Bleacher Report before my own liking is abhorrent to every instinct in my body. But as a great man, I must put the interest of B/R first. 

To continue to fight through the months ahead for my personal vindication would almost totally absorb the time and attention of both the B/R users and me in a period when our entire focus should be on the great issues of college football.

Therefore, I shall resign from Bleacher Report effective immediately.

As I recall the high hopes for B/R with which I began this month, I feel a great sadness that I will not be here to achieve those hopes in the upcoming months. But in turning over direction of B/R to the great mass of B/R users, I know, as I told the B/R users when I first came on the scene, that the leadership of B/R will be in good hands with Zander Freund.

As we look to the future, the first essential is to begin healing the wounds I have left, to put the bitterness and divisions of the recent past behind us, and to rediscover those shared ideals that lie at the heart of our strength and unity as a great and as a free B/R community.

By taking this action, I hope that I will have hastened the start of that process of healing which is so desperately needed here.

I regret deeply any injuries that may have been done in the course of the events that led to this decision. I would say only that if some of my judgments were wrong, and some were wrong, they were made in what I believed at the time to be the best interest of Bleacher Report.

To those who have stood with me during these past difficult days, to my family, my friends, to many others who joined in supporting my cause because they believed it was right, I will be eternally grateful for your support (L.J. Burgess, Mosang Miles, Peter Fleischer).

And to those who have not felt able to give me your support (Zander Fruend, Lauren Green, Brian Hood, Thomas Leemon), let me say I leave with no bitterness toward those who have opposed me, because all of us, in the final analysis, have been concerned with the good of Bleacher Report, however our judgments might differ.

I shall leave B/R with regret at not writing the college football season, but with gratitude for the privilege of serving as your best writer for the past two months. These months have been a momentous time in the history of B/R.  They have been a time of achievement in which we can all be proud, achievements that represent the shared efforts of the B/R Administration, myself, and the B/R users.

Sometimes I have succeeded and sometimes I have failed, but always I have taken heart from what Theodore Roosevelt once said about the man in the arena, "whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes short again and again because there is not effort without error and shortcoming, but who does actually strive to do the deed, who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumphs of high achievements and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly."

I pledge to you tonight that as long as I have a breath of life in my body, I shall continue in that spirit. I shall continue to work for the great causes to which I have been dedicated throughout my years as a college football writer.

There is one cause above all to which I have been devoted and to which I shall always be devoted for as long as I live.

With this resignation, my heart is crushed and I no longer know how I will live.  All I can say is good luck in all of your future endevours, B/R users.

To have served you as a B/R writer, I feel a great sense of kinship towards each and every one of you.  In leaving it, I do so with this prayer: May God's grace be with you in all the days ahead.