Very true that the predecessors of this board were informative and had a cast of characters who had real insight and connections to what was going on.
As a longtime lurker from the IIBF days in the mid-90s before Peegs took over, it was the best source of info for someone like me 600 miles away. The only other source I had was Dumb and Dumber SportsTalk on WOWO and only because Dumb’s brother was the Bloomington paper’s editor.
25 years is a long time and I’m sure many have passed on or moved on to other pursuits. It was a different era and most of the main characters real names were known to most, even to a random lurker like me.
I remember logging on one Sat night in ’97 and somebody posted Reed had quit and accused RMK of choking him. The mods quickly took the post down and I never heard anything more until three years later when everything hit the fan.
Rmkfan1 was still posting on Facebook as late as last summer using his real name. He walked away from IU basketball a long time ago. Back then he was a friend of Bloom from AAU coaching days, not sure if that’s still the case or not.
Wischoosier is now a Colorado Hoosier and is his same old self on Twitter. It may surprise some that he’s a lefty Democrat and apparently quite prominent in the Colorado party.
Andy Graham of the Bloomington paper used to post back then, don’t recall his handle. Kirk Haston’s relative posted frequently and was Bad Knee. Gojko, proudly using his own John Hancock, was the king of the board, skewering any anti-RMK poster. Twin Degrees was Ducati and again his real name was known.
Galen Clavio posted when he was a student. PJ Murphy, aka Ohio Guy, of course had inside connections with his brother. Both Galen and PJ were kind enough to IM me back in the turbulent 2000 “investigation” with answers to my questions of what was going on.
There was a guy named S Walker who was close to the Alfords who posted a long story that I saved and still have detailing how Steve was all set to be the coach after 2001 until Brand pulled the rug out from under him. IIRC S Walker was a Ball State prof who was a big deal in the IU Foundation/Alumni but I could be mistaken.
The old boards used to actually have meet-ups for dinner too. But that all changed after 2000. It’s been a fractured fan base ever since.
S Walker was one of my favorite posters of all time. He wrote well, was knowledgeable on so many topics, and most all of his posts made some positive contribution to the board.