Well, hello.
Yes, as you’ve no doubt noticed, there’s been a bit of a change around here, and Go Iowa Awesome is your new Iowa site on the Rivals.com network. We are beyond excited for the opportunity to write for one of the best communities in all of college sports, and we know that we have some sensationally large shoes to fill.
OUR MISSION STATEMENT
Our mission is simple: to be the best, most engaging Iowa Hawkeye fan community on the internet. Your subscriptions are what make this operation run; they are a privilege to us, and we will honor that privilege by giving you something noteworthy and interesting every time you log on.
For existing Rivals readers and subscribers, the names and signs out front are changing, but we’re committed to keeping the same high standards of coverage that you’ve been used to. We’ll be reporting on recruiting, thanks to the unparalleled resources and reputation of the Rivals.com network, and we’re excited to add credentialed beat reporting to our coverage as well.
Most importantly for the existing members and subscribers: we're keeping what's been built here. The message boards are staying intact. We love the sense of community that's already in place, and we intend to honor and build upon it.
And for Go Iowa Awesome readers who might not know their way around Rivals: first of all, welcome to our new home! Seriously, you should see the forums around here. Sign up for an account if you don’t already have one — signup’s even easier than at the old place and you’ll still get plenty of the tremendous free content you’re used to. And if you use promo code GOIOWA, you can get your first thirty-day premium subscription free!
Second, even notwithstanding the visual changes, you’re probably in for a bigger adjustment in your reading experience than the Rivals faithful. In the coming months, we’re rolling out more podcasts, special feature stories and other cool stuff that we’ve now got the means to do. Also, probably fewer swear words on the social medias. Sorry if any of your kids or grandparents read those.
Speaking of social media — and also swear words — longtime BHGP/GIA readers know we’ve never shied away from leading with a passionate, fearless editorial voice, and yes: to a degree, that will continue. We don’t do hot takes, we don’t troll or offer bad-faith opinions with a straight face, but we do recognize that sports are entertaining, and we’ve always been happy to partake in that entertainment. And really, how much can you say you love something if you’re never cracking jokes or overreacting about it?
Rest assured, though: our reporting will inform our editorial voice, and never the other way around. Our journalistic standards extend past basic accuracy; we expect our writers to be fair, honest and thorough as well. We understand that in college sports, facts can often age like milk in your car’s backseat in the summer, but both our paying subscribers and our free readers should never feel misled by what we report. And if you do — please, as your publisher, let me know! I will never be a difficult person to get a hold of.
HISTORY
We started Black Heart Gold Pants on the SB Nation network 15 years ago, at the onset of the mainstream blog era, and we’re happy to see that it remains in the same faithful stewardship as when we left to create our owned site, Go Iowa Awesome, in the summer of 2016.
At BHGP, we coordinated the donations of nearly $100,000 to the construction of the UI Children’s Hospital through the Iowa Touchdowns For Kids program. For that reason — plus our personal experiences with the miracles that NICUs provide — we are especially devoted to The Wave and any philanthropic endeavors that benefit the UICH.
The phrase “Go Iowa Awesome” started as a throwaway joke in a BHGP post about painting the field at Kinnick. Then it became a mantra, and then an identity we were proud to bring forward.
To that end, we created Go Iowa Awesome in 2015 with the help of our dear friends at Eleven Warriors, as the opportunity to create and own a project was too great to pass up. Our staff of writers continued to grow in those years, and we’re proud to bring them with us to this new destination.
You can count on specialized coverage in football, men’s and women’s basketball, men’s and women’s wrestling, baseball, softball and the full spectrum of Olympic sports. If they’re putting on the black and gold, they matter to us.
We’re going to have a lot of fun. We sure hope you do too.
GO IOWA AWESOME.
