Is it correct that this rivals message board just turned 20 years old??

[superfan01]

Believe this very rivals board started sometime around now in 2001. Making it 20 years old. Almost old enough for it's first legal drink.

Obviously the board has been through several makeovers from rutgersfan to John O and scarletnation to now TKR.

Lotta guys still here from the beginning. (I didn't join until 2003). Some no longer with us.

board has witnessed a lot in the last 20 years both within rutgers sports and the world in general. Some of the craziest topics imaginable have been discussed on here. Also some of the best (and maybe worst) advice have been offered at different times.

If I am correct that this is the boards 20th bday, let's celebrate the community this board has created among Rutgers biggest fans. And let's hope the next 20 years bring us some championships.
God bless.

 

[knight82]

I could swear I remember posts from the Terry Shea and Kevin Bannon era from the late 1990s

 

[MADHAT1]

11/28/2003 football

The History of Rutgersfan.com​

Keith Burkert
RutgersFan.com Publisher

The Birth of Rutgersfan.com

After my experience with Fd Must Go I knew that

I wanted to do something for the Rutgers Community online. I toyed with

the idea of a fan site whe true Rutgers fans could come and download wallpaper

and other internet media about Rutgers. At the time Exit109 was the

authority in Rutgers Sports, and people went the multiple times a day to ad

the latest news. As of yet the was no al message board for Rutgers fans on

the net.


https://rutgers.rivals.com/news/the-history-of-rutgersfan-com

 

[RutHut]

11/28/2003 football

The History of Rutgersfan.com​

Keith Burkert
RutgersFan.com Publisher

The Birth of Rutgersfan.com

After my experience with Fd Must Go I knew that

I wanted to do something for the Rutgers Community online. I toyed with

the idea of a fan site whe true Rutgers fans could come and download wallpaper

and other internet media about Rutgers. At the time Exit109 was the

authority in Rutgers Sports, and people went the multiple times a day to ad

the latest news. As of yet the was no al message board for Rutgers fans on

the net.


https://rutgers.rivals.com/news/the-history-of-rutgersfan-com

The linked article has the same formatting of TOS.

 

[wheezer]

Believe this very rivals board started sometime around now in 2001. Making it 20 years old. Almost old enough for it's first legal drink.

Obviously the board has been through several makeovers from rutgersfan to John O and scarletnation to now TKR.

Lotta guys still here from the beginning. (I didn't join until 2003). Some no longer with us.

board has witnessed a lot in the last 20 years both within rutgers sports and the world in general. Some of the craziest topics imaginable have been discussed on here. Also some of the best (and maybe worst) advice have been offered at different times.

If I am correct that this is the boards 20th bday, let's celebrate the community this board has created among Rutgers biggest fans. And let's hope the next 20 years bring us some championships.
God bless.

Joined 6/3/2001.

it was a dark and stormy night

the seas were angry that day, my friend!

 

[ejgonz]

I joined during hoops season in early 2002. Crazy how long ago that was.

 

[RU848789]

Joined 6/3/2001.

it was a dark and stormy night

the seas were angry that day, my friend!

Mine says 7/27/01 - iirc, the date feature for start date didn't work properly, as many people who signed up on day one after Keith took over the old Exit109 board didn't get a day one start date. Not that anyone really cares about it, although I cry silently from time to time and sometimes even get a little angry WHEN I THINK ABOUT NOT HAVING THE RIGHT GODDAMN JOINED DATE!! PEOPLE WILL BURN FOR THIS!!

 

[superfan01]

I could swear I remember posts from the Terry Shea and Kevin Bannon era from the late 1990s

There were other message boards. But didn't the rivals board start in 2001

 

[superfan01]

Mine says 7/27/01 - iirc, the date feature for start date didn't work properly, as many people who signed up on day one after Keith took over the old Exit109 board didn't get a day one start date. Not that anyone really cares about it, although I cry silently from time to time and sometimes even get a little angry WHEN I THINK ABOUT NOT HAVING THE RIGHT GODDAMN JOINED DATE!! PEOPLE WILL BURN FOR THIS!!

When did rivals start hosting Keith's message boards.

 

[anon_ivydyf0amkzay]

20 years of really bad, difficult-to-navigate web sites, wiggy code and lack of standardization. 😆

happy birthday…

 

[bac2therac]

This board existed before 2001. It may have not been connected with rivals but during Bannon and Shea this community existed

 

[TheHandOfChaos]

It existed as rutgersfan.com before rivals

 

[RUnTeX]

When did rivals start hosting Keith's message boards.

I think this is the better question to ask if you're specifically looking for the start of Rutgersfan.com on the Rivals network. Sometime in 2001 appears to be the date so this year would be the 20th annversary of that transition, however, the Rutgersfan.com message board was originally created pre-Rivals by Keith B. (or Keith and John O. together?).

 

[beaced]

Believe this very rivals board started sometime around now in 2001. Making it 20 years old. Almost old enough for it's first legal drink.

Obviously the board has been through several makeovers from rutgersfan to John O and scarletnation to now TKR.

Lotta guys still here from the beginning. (I didn't join until 2003). Some no longer with us.

board has witnessed a lot in the last 20 years both within rutgers sports and the world in general. Some of the craziest topics imaginable have been discussed on here. Also some of the best (and maybe worst) advice have been offered at different times.

If I am correct that this is the boards 20th bday, let's celebrate the community this board has created among Rutgers biggest fans. And let's hope the next 20 years bring us some championships.
God bless.

DON'T KNOW DATES BUT I WAS ON IT WHEN IT WAS eXIT 9

 

[PiscatawayMike]

Mine says 7/27/01 - iirc, the date feature for start date didn't work properly, as many people who signed up on day one after Keith took over the old Exit109 board didn't get a day one start date.

Mine is a day later... 7/28/01

 

[NickKnight 1]

Mine says 7/27/01 - iirc, the date feature for start date didn't work properly, as many people who signed up on day one after Keith took over the old Exit109 board didn't get a day one start date. Not that anyonreally cares about it, although I cry silently from time to time and sometimes even get a little angry WHEN I THINK ABOUT NOTHAVING THE RIGHT GODDAMN JOINED DATE!! PEOPLE WILL BURN FOR THIS!!

mine says 3/22/03 I joined
in 2001 but one day it says
please log in and when I tried it says there already a NickKnight. So after a while I changed to NickKnight 1. So I lost My true starting date and two years of posts. I wish their was a way to get them back.

 

[MADHAT1]

mine says 3/22/03 I joined
in 2001 but one day it says
please log in and when I tried it says there already a NickKnight. So after a while I changed to NickKnight 1. So I lost My true starting date and two years of posts. I wish their was a way to get them back.

I joined in 2001 as Madhat, then for some reason couldn't access site and forgot password.
Re-entered as Madhat1 in 2003 ( so current profile says)

 

[RU848789]

I could swear I remember posts from the Terry Shea and Kevin Bannon era from the late 1990s

There were other message boards. But didn't the rivals board start in 2001

The answers you seek are in the history of the site that Keith Burkert posted years ago, which @MADHAT1 linked to. An edited version is below, showing the key events in the genesis of this message board, starting with Mike Fasano's Exit109 board in 1998 and culminating in the Rutgersfan.com board becoming part of the Rivals network in 1999 (which folded, but then was revived by Alliance retaining the Rivals name, later that year) and the rest is kind of history. The history doesn't say it, but the 2001 start dates were when they had a major overhaul of the board technology. Also, below is a link to a much better version (not all chopped up) of the history page about the early days of the site.

https://rutgersfan.com/history

September 1, 1998
That is the date I registered Rutgersfan.com....It was about this time that Mike Fasano introduced a new feature to his site, one long sought after by the Rutgers community - a message board. It was a simple thad-based board, I believe a public one that was hosted on another site, and people began posting all sorts of things about Rutgers sports. The Rutgers message board community was born. The was one problem - the board could only hold a finite amount of messages. Once a new message was added an old one was deleted. This made it difficult for people to follow posts unless they checked every day.

There was one problem - the board could only hold a finite amount of messages. Once a new message was added an old one was deleted. This made it difficult for people to follow posts unless they checked every day. Realizing the problem with the board on Exit109, I looked around to see if there was a CGI script that could do a message board. Luckily enough there was. I added it to Rutgersfan.com and tested it out. After testing I approached Mike about moving the message board to Rutgersfan.com. He agreed and began to link to the message board on Rutgersfan.com

Now that messages didn't delete people could follow posts and look back into the history of a conversation. People were happy. Soon after moving the message board to Rutgersfan.com, Mike Fasano decided to close down Exit109. It was indeed a sad day for Rutgers on the internet, and people started to e-mail me and ask me to pick up where Mike left off. There was no way I could fill Mikes' shoes, but I agreed to become the portal for Rutgers fans and do the best I could with the help of other Rutgers fans. This began the Rutgersfan.com tradition of having members of the community write articles for the site.

Rutgersfan.com was very popular. but there were problems on the back end that no-one knew about at that time. The site was becoming a victim of its own success. Bandwidth and hosting costs were getting out of hand. John called me one night and said that he had gotten a call from a representative of Rivals.com. The offer couldn't have come at a better time. The main advantage to the offer was that Rivals.com would host the site. No more worries about bandwidth and webspace. This was the time of greatest growth at Rutgersfan.com. The visibility that Rivals.com gave us along with the growth of the web in general made our stats go through the roof.

 

[RUJohnny99]

"joined" November 7, 2003. 3 weeks after Johnny Cash died & a day or two after BC announced they were leaving the Big East after all. I'd been using burner accounts for everything online for the ten years up to then, but for some reason this stupid username has stuck for 18 years.

 

[superfan01]

z

The answers you seek are in the history of the site that Keith Burkert posted years ago, which @MADHAT1 linked to. An edited version is below, showing the key events in the genesis of this message board, starting with Mike Fasano's Exit109 board in 1998 and culminating in the Rutgersfan.com board becoming part of the Rivals network in 1999 (which folded, but then was revived by Alliance retaining the Rivals name, later that year) and the rest is kind of history. The history doesn't say it, but the 2001 start dates were when they had a major overhaul of the board technology. Also, below is a link to a much better version (not all chopped up) of the history page about the early days of the site.

https://rutgersfan.com/history

September 1, 1998
That is the date I registered Rutgersfan.com....It was about this time that Mike Fasano introduced a new feature to his site, one long sought after by the Rutgers community - a message board. It was a simple thad-based board, I believe a public one that was hosted on another site, and people began posting all sorts of things about Rutgers sports. The Rutgers message board community was born. The was one problem - the board could only hold a finite amount of messages. Once a new message was added an old one was deleted. This made it difficult for people to follow posts unless they checked every day.

There was one problem - the board could only hold a finite amount of messages. Once a new message was added an old one was deleted. This made it difficult for people to follow posts unless they checked every day. Realizing the problem with the board on Exit109, I looked around to see if there was a CGI script that could do a message board. Luckily enough there was. I added it to Rutgersfan.com and tested it out. After testing I approached Mike about moving the message board to Rutgersfan.com. He agreed and began to link to the message board on Rutgersfan.com

Now that messages didn't delete people could follow posts and look back into the history of a conversation. People were happy. Soon after moving the message board to Rutgersfan.com, Mike Fasano decided to close down Exit109. It was indeed a sad day for Rutgers on the internet, and people started to e-mail me and ask me to pick up where Mike left off. There was no way I could fill Mikes' shoes, but I agreed to become the portal for Rutgers fans and do the best I could with the help of other Rutgers fans. This began the Rutgersfan.com tradition of having members of the community write articles for the site.

Rutgersfan.com was very popular. but there were problems on the back end that no-one knew about at that time. The site was becoming a victim of its own success. Bandwidth and hosting costs were getting out of hand. John called me one night and said that he had gotten a call from a representative of Rivals.com. The offer couldn't have come at a better time. The main advantage to the offer was that Rivals.com would host the site. No more worries about bandwidth and webspace. This was the time of greatest growth at Rutgersfan.com. The visibility that Rivals.com gave us along with the growth of the web in general made our stats go through the roof.

very helpful. Appreciate the post. Guess I was wrong on this but my sentiment on the great community on this Board stands.

 

[GoodOl'Rutgers]

Been on a variety of Rutgers boards including an AOL one. THIS.. was my third handle on this board.

The first one attracted a couple stalkers (as has this one now). So I created a brand new handle and before long I proved the point that some people had been following me around simply to disagree with me... as those same people found much AGREEMENT with my new identity.

Then, I took the same "SameOldRutgers".. largely to prevent someone else from grabbing it and being excessively negative all the time. I naively thought I could get "SameOldRutgers" to mean something like.. "another big win.. same old Rutgers". But others hated seeing it, despite my positivity.. they read everything with that handle as being negative.

So I changed to this.

Happy Birthday.. er.. every version of this board.

 

[batts]

I recall using the old AOL dial up internet connection to find out the latest college basketball recruiting on a message board in the late 90s /early 2000s with a name that I now cannot recall. The AOL dial up was very clunky, and often hit or miss in terms of connecting to it. It wasn't an RU or SHU Message Board exclusively, but most of the content dealt with those two schools. There was a lot of discussion of recruiting by Amaker and Bannon. There was also a high school kid named Patrick Jira who actually spoke to various recruits and reported on their preferences. He actually scooped the local newspapers for recruiting information and verbal commitments.

 

[Keith - Rutgersfan.com]

I wrote tbe History of Rutgersfan.com article.

To break down the history of Rutgers message boards.

Technically the first one would have been rec.sport.football.college which was the college football board on USENET which was a a part of the internet before the world wide web even existed. It wasn't Rutgers specific but it was the first place you could talk football online.

Then there was the Exit109 website. One is the first websites for Rutgers fans. Originally it didn't have a message board.

I uploaded message board software to my site and exit109 linked to it.

That was probably the first message board. That moved to different hosts and eventually moved to the first iteration of Rivals.com.

Happy to answer any questions.

Keith

 

[e5fdny]

I wrote tbe History of Rutgersfan.com article.

To break down the history of Rutgers message boards.

Technically the first one would have been rec.sport.football.college which was the college football board on USENET which was a a part of the internet before the world wide web even existed. It wasn't Rutgers specific but it was the first place you could talk football online.

Then there was the Exit109 website. One is the first websites for Rutgers fans. Originally it didn't have a message board.

I uploaded message board software to my site and exit109 linked to it.

That was probably the first message board. That moved to different hosts and eventually moved to the first iteration of Rivals.com.

Happy to answer any questions.

Keith

Thank you, on many levels.

It will also be the 20th Anniversary of something else come September. This format and community helped me get thru the hard times which followed that.

 

[wheezer]

I recall using the old AOL dial up internet connection to find out the latest college basketball recruiting on a message board in the late 90s /early 2000s with a name that I now cannot recall. The AOL dial up was very clunky, and often hit or miss in terms of connecting to it. It wasn't an RU or SHU Message Board exclusively, but most of the content dealt with those two schools. There was a lot of discussion of recruiting by Amaker and Bannon. There was also a high school kid named Patrick Jira who actually spoke to various recruits and reported on their preferences. He actually scooped the local newspapers for recruiting information and verbal commitments.

Remember that board
My handle was RU73 at the time
A lot of interaction with SHU fans

 

[wheezer]

I wrote tbe History of Rutgersfan.com article.

To break down the history of Rutgers message boards.

Technically the first one would have been rec.sport.football.college which was the college football board on USENET which was a a part of the internet before the world wide web even existed. It wasn't Rutgers specific but it was the first place you could talk football online.

Then there was the Exit109 website. One is the first websites for Rutgers fans. Originally it didn't have a message board.

I uploaded message board software to my site and exit109 linked to it.

That was probably the first message board. That moved to different hosts and eventually moved to the first iteration of Rivals.com.

Happy to answer any questions.

Keith

Exit 109 was fun while it lasted