Sports Fans Unite!

All over America, students of all ages are returning to school and what better signifies the return of autumn than the return of college sports. All of us have a favorite team which means we also have a hated rival. Some people, like me, are hundreds miles away from their team and have no way to stay in touch with that team and more importantly with other fans. This is where the internet really plays a major role.


What better way is there for a person to stay up to date with what is happening with their sport than on the internet? Everything is available if you know where to look. Recruiting, schedules, prognostication, of course second guessing of the coaches, and everyone’s favorite, bashing on the hated rivals, and all of this can be found on the internet with nothing more than a click or two.


With the popularity of My Space and Facebook, fans of a certain college or university can connect and all become fans of that school. That works great if you are a fan of a major college or university that has enough of a following to ensure that someone has created a group. Or there may be a group page out there for a small school but most people don’t search for it assuming it won’t be there. Now we need to find a place for those fans and alumni of America’s great small colleges and universities. Fans from every school need a place to connect and there is one website that I found that offers just that. CollegeFanz is just the site for every fan.


CollegeFanz, created by Bill Rasmussen, one of the founders of ESPN, provides a place for fans of every school, small, medium, or large, to connect. It is a true networking site in that it allows you to blog, post to message boards, interact with other fans, plus you can upload your favorite videos and photos of your team. There are some fantastic photos there and the home page keeps a current rotation of these photos. The message boards can be a great place to catch up on what you may have missed with your school, conference, or favorite college sport.


One surprising feature that I made sure I signed up for is the contests. The first one I tried was a college basketball pool. The interesting aspect of this pool is that it included brackets for men’s and women’s basketball and included the brackets for both the NCAA as well as NAIA schools. The best part about this is that it is free, and so is the registration. Even the most bitter college rivals can agree on the importance of that.