Minnesota couple turned hobby into must-read blog

                    

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	Ted and Sara Sampsell-Jones, with their daughter, Evelyn, operate what has become the most influential women's hoops blog in the country. Steve Wewerka/SI

Ted Sampsell-Jones knows that his curriculum vitae does not exactly scream "sports blogger." A Yale Law graduate, Sampsell-Jones works as a visiting professor at the University of Minnesota Law School and is a practicing attorney in both California and Minnesota.

He also writes what is likely the most influential women's basketball blog in the country.

Three years ago, Ted and his wife, Sara, a first-year law student at Minnesota, started Ted and Sara's Women's Hoops Blog as an outlet for the couple's favorite sport. It has since morphed into a daily fix for thousands of college basketball and WNBA fans, especially during the NCAA tournament. The site is a terrific example of how über-fans of a niche sport -- especially those with a dearth of national coverage on the Internet -- can develop a following by starting a blog.

"The political and legal space seemed pretty well filled already, so I thought a sports blog might be a good way to go," said Ted, 31. "I really don't think of us as being journalists. We're fans who write about the sport. You look at political bloggers like Josh Marshall or Andrew Sullivan, people who would either have limited influence or be limited to writing for a political magazine -- it's the same type of phenomenon. For years, I'd thought it'd be cool to do some sportswriting about women's hoops for an independent magazine. Then the whole blogging thing started, and that seemed like a good way to go."

The blog has its roots on the court. Sara played point guard both at Edina (Minn.) High and as a freshman at Dartmouth, where she and Ted began dating. While Ted was in law school at Yale, the couple became devoted followers of UConn's women's basketball program. But after they married and moved to San Francisco in 2002, they suffered from women's basketball withdrawal. To fill the void, and to satisfy Ted's desire to write, they started the blog in February 2003. At first the audience rarely broke 100 unique visitors a week. "At the beginning our friends and parents were the only people who read it," said Sara, 30. "We'd post silly things like the score of my rec-league games."

They've come a long way from rec-league scores. The number of unique visitors has grown to 1,500-2,000 daily, strictly through word of mouth. Some of the regulars include the principals of the sport. Said LSU assistant coach Bob Starkey, who visits the blog every morning: "It's one-stop shopping, and they have a great feel for the game. There may be an article in there about Title IX or on a Division II program. Or there may be something on the WNBA draft."

Sampsell-Jones said he spends more than two hours every morning at his Minneapolis home scanning newspaper Web sites, message boards and other sources. The blog offers links to newspaper stories on the previous night's top games, but just as important also offers pungent analysis and commentary. It is updated frequently throughout the day, with postings from an equally well-educated bunch of contributors: Regular posters include a poetry professor at Macalester College in St. Paul, a lawyer from Phoenix who advises the WNBA's Mercury, a history professor at NYU and a former Penn State athletic department official.

"We couldn't do what we do without the print media," Ted said. "A lot of what we do is obviously derivative of their work. Our bread and butter is compiling bylined stories from papers around the country covering their local teams. On the flip side, I think reporters also read our site to keep in touch with the game around the country. It makes their jobs a little easier."

As the site has grown, the couple has had to negotiate some of the treacherous terrain traditional media outlets deal with on a daily basis. "We get some anonymous tips," said Ted. "In fact, people e-mail us pretty regularly with various rumors and so forth. Lots of it we don't post. We don't really have any fixed policy about posting rumors -- we just try to assess the source, whether the item is really newsworthy, and also whether it's cruel or inappropriate in some way to a player or coach."

While the cost is minimal to run the site -- Ted said that he has had offers from advertisers but doesn't want to give up any editorial independence -- time is becoming a more expensive commodity since the arrival the couple's of 9-month-old daughter, Evelyn, and Ted's increased teaching responsibilities. Still, the Sampsell-Joneses say they plan to keep the blog around indefinitely.

"I don't think a lot of our friends even know about the blog," said Sara. "It's like a different world we are a part of. I guess you kind of have an image in your head of who bloggers are and I'm not sure we fit the bill. We're more like 'the little blogging family next door.'"