Fifty Thousand: A Sure-Fire Way To Pump Up Your B/R Reads

I ask you to indulge me as I write a short piece in celebration of my approach on my 50,000th read on Bleacher Report.

It's really no big deal; over 700 B/R writers have already hit this milestone.

Here I offer advice to those who care to follow it.  I just want to pass on to B/R writers one of the most foolproof ways to reel in the big read numbers.

That is: piss off people.

Last college football season, I was awarded three silver hot read medals while covering West Virginia.  I did this by not making any friends at all.

In one article, I compared the Auburn football team to the Mountaineers' previous week's opponent: the powerhouse East Carolina.  Thousands of proud war eagle worshippers told me in no uncertain terms that I had violated sacred ground: I compared an SEC team to one from Conference USA.

Bleacher Report also awarded me a silver hot comment medal for that article.  I can attest to the fact that Auburn fans love their Tigers.  Had I lived any closer to Alabama, my house would have been TPed repeatedly.

Nice that Auburn extracted real revenge by winning the game.  The game: the final arbiter.

From the Nothing-Is-Off-Limits Department, I received another silver hot read and hot comment medals by attacking my own school.  "Pour Some Sugar On Me" was a discussion of West Virginia football's history of scheduling cream puffs.

Even though I didn't take joy in angering Mountaineers, I felt then and still feel the WVU athletic director could step it up.  Please don't pass that on.

So, now I've been a correspondent covering the Pittsburgh Steelers for three weeks.  I jumped right in there delving into the Ben Roethlisberger situations, essentially calling Roger Goodell a racist and a misogynist.

Big mistake.  Pulled in a few bronzes, but I think I should have used better judgement.  I do have a conscience.

Having been at this for 10 years, I should know better.  Initially, I covered the Steelers for The Football Network, a now-defunct service that was kind enough to get me a 'working press' pass for the 2001 AFC Championship game.

Lessons learned through that experience and my latest pit-bull-isms should combine with my recent upgrades of Seroquel and Abilify by my shrink (I'm not making that up) to make me a better, more diplomatic writer.

Maybe my recent bronze and silver article about rallying behind Big Ben could be a new beginning.

If not, remind me to call the doctor.