How did you first hear about the Boneyard?

[OviedoFLHusky]

I have been around since the Courant message board days. I think it was the Husky Howl or Husky Hardcores or something and I'd have to guess it was around 1995-96. The administrators of that board changed the format, people complained, they said "too bad" and Tom and Fishy basically went off built their own board and the Yard was the result. We bounced from server to server as we crashed sites every other week. It's funny to think of how, back then, we'd all email each other with the new link and over time, everyone would eventually find the new home and stagger back into the fold.

1995-96??? Geez. I really have spent a lot of time hanging around with you s.

Yep, that sounds about right for me too. Very longtime lurker; only recently a member. Those were the days -- the days before companies got wise to their employees spending all their time surfing sites like the Boneyard (and its various incarnations) . . . it certainly rescued me from many a boring afternoon back then.

 

[David 76]

Short-timer hear. 17 months ago finally decided to check it out. Guess I knew of it from newspaper mentions.

 

[B1GEast]

while searching for recruiting news, stumbled upon the other site, and the other other site and had lots of fun with the football look alike threads

 

[Walker11]

I began on the rivals main board and rivals UCONN board. Eventually, Dominicfrank and FrankIvy drove me crazy and I had to find a new home. I still remember rcatalan absolutely sh___ing on my first post. Funny that two of them ended up some of my favorite posters.

 

[noeynox]

I stumbled upon it when the football team went 1A. Guessing it was around the time the BC FB player Garay said the bakery was closed and that uconn was no longer a cup cake.

 

[RichZ]

I have been around since the Courant message board days. I think it was the Husky Howl or Husky Hardcores or something and I'd have to guess it was around 1995-96. The administrators of that board changed the format, people complained, they said "too bad" and Tom and Fishy basically went off built their own board and the Yard was the result. We bounced from server to server as we crashed sites every other week. It's funny to think of how, back then, we'd all email each other with the new link and over time, everyone would eventually find the new home and stagger back into the fold.

1995-96??? Geez. I really have spent a lot of time hanging around with you s.

I think I came in about 15 minutes after Tom and Fishy went rogue and took on the responsibility of keeping this place alive. Growth was slow in the beginning, but we just became a server crashing machine the 99 NCAA tourney progressed, and the place kind of exploded after 77-74.

 

[Deepster]

Cool story. Started lurking around '98, probably through McD's site. Anywho, in 2000 my daughter was taking skating lessons at ISCC in Simsbury and I became pals with some of the parents hangin' around. One day after skating, me and another skating Dad head over to get the girls some pizza at the joint across the street. When we're done we get out to the parking lot and I see he has a 77-74 sticker on his car. Stopped me dead in my tracks. I say "Boneyard?". He sticks out his hand and says "Aussie Cuz". We're still friends. It was like a secret society back then.
View attachment 9002

And we coincidentally had Civic Center season tickets in back to back rows, right?

 

[8893]

You know....I can't even remember how I found this crazy place, But I know it was a few months after 77-74 and immediately thinking, "Man...how great would it have been to have found this place BEFORE we beat Dook and be able to share in all that craziness".

Through McD's site, literally days after 3/29/99.

So I've been struggling to remember, but I know my timing is similar to alexd, except I think it was a few months before 77-74 for me, and thanks to nomar I now remember that it was absolutely through McD's site that I found this place. Thanks for that, McD. Where y@?

I do remember that this was my first message board experience, and my original handle was Hungry Husky--yes, 15 years before Shabazz made it famous. I was simply hungry at the time I registered to post.

I attended the Final Four that year and was so exuberant after my prior 15 years experience as a Husky fan that I made one of those overly optimistic posts about our prospects for the next season--especially after having attended the vaunted FF practice at which Ajou looked like the best we'd ever had--and my premise was immediately attacked by Zymurg, who employed a combination of elderly wisdom and confusing vocabulary that befuddled me. I tried to fight back, but I was basically a blubbering baby seal in a sea of sharks. I believe I signed off with some parting shot to the effect that this place being a circle jerk of friends, and I disappeared for a while.

I came back under my current handle at some point the following season. Zymurg may have been the first person to enlighten me to the "progress is not linear" mantra that I now preach. I've dropped out for weeks, months and years since, after varying degrees of frustration with how precipitously the level of discourse has dropped, but I like talking about some my life's greatest passions with some of the folks who post here, so I keep coming back.

 

[jleves]

I was originally on a e-mail listserv for years - I forget the name but somebody here has to remember it. Basically you would send and e-mail to a server and it would distribute your message to everyone who was signed up - or if you got an e-mail from the listserv and replied it would go to everyone. The list started to die as people began migrating to a much more friendly message board format and I followed. I found the Boneyard sometime before the 99 championship because I remember timing it so that my 1000th post was 'We just won the National Championship'. At some point when we were crushing servers, I had access to extra memory modules that I either attempted to or was told it was too late to send to Tom to help his overtaxed server. Any idea what that year would have been? Based on my post rate, I would imagine I found it sometime between 95 and 97.

 

[Hankster]

It was a few years ago. I was hanging on the ESPN Message Board. Of course I always talked up our dogs. Started to talk with a poster with Uconn in his nic, He said I should go to the Boneyard. So, I did. I recall CTO always being on of course Fishy, Tom, Nan, IdahoHusky. Mau, Deep. I can go on. As boards started to change, my new nic was HersheyHusky. As more changes came, it was difficult to follow along. However, that did not keep me from taking a peek often. The only way to get news on the pups. Found myself spending much reading time this year. It was an interesting year. Glad I did. Although I missed being in the yard, I will never forget, Fort he ead. something like that. That was hilarious.
Have plans in the making for Atlantis in November. It is going to be a special team next year.

 

[FfldCntyFan]

I was doing quite a bit of business travelling in the fall of '98 so I spent a good amount of time searching Connecticut online newspapers to read different things about the basketball team. There I stumbled onto the Courant forum, which while far from great, helped a lot when we won it all in late March. It wasn't until ~ 2001 (on the suggestion of one of the Courant regulars) that I started posting Boneyard (about three or four incarnations ago). I've been a regular since ~ 2003.

 

[HuskyNan]

Bret or one of the Kervicks mentioned the Boneyard on her mail list. I checked it out and the first post I saw was some UMass idiot talking trash.

My first handle was GoUConn. At the time, the board allowed multiple similar handles and a guy who called himself GOUCONN came along, with his semi-profane but infinitely hilarious rants. I didn't want people to think I only used adjectives that started with the letter F so I changed my handle.

 

[Uconnrick]

I started on the Courant board. I think it was called Husky Hardcores. From that point on, I went along for the ride in all its variations..

Same for me. After moving to Ohio, I needed a way to stay connected with the program.

 

[Dove]

@8893 I remember Hungry Husky. That guy was an idiot!

 

[8893]

My first handle was GoUConn. At the time, the board allowed multiple similar handles and a guy who called himself GOUCONN came along, with his semi-profane but infinitely hilarious rants. I didn't want people to think I only used adjectives that started with the letter F so I changed my handle.

Tremendous. Remember well GOUCONN's "Observations." Had no idea that was your original handle.

 

[Da_Aisijimo_Gou]

Earlier than the Courant mess ... mid/late 90s ... some low tech online gizmo just after the then incredible Husky B&W paper. Names of forums and such changed, the technology itself was not so good then, but discussion quality ...

Edit: Yup, uconn-toto mailing list, McD, HuskyHoops, etc. all good along with discussions on earlier versions of the Boneyard regardless of technological evolutions good and sometimes not so great.

 

[Vuce]

I first jumped on board on the AOL site. Dialed in and argued with Umass fans back in the mid 90s. I subscribed to Husky Blue and White and remember hoping we would sign Kevin Garnett as a recruit. I used to follow recruiting a LOT closer then and go to some local camps to "scout" then report back on the board. Anyone remember "JKUL" I think his name was Jeff Kulas and he really was into recruiting too. Followed the group through the many boards/servers over the years. The Boneyard has gotten me through many work days!

 

[FfldCntyFan]

I want to add that while (sixteen and a half years ago) I found out about online sports forums and eventually stumbled upon this place (with its unique cast of characters) due to need to satisfy a UConn basketball fix, I became a regular here shortly before the Rent opened due to a need to find someway to have conversations about the football program.

 

[jrazz12]

From a buddy, I believe it was the first day of the Big East tourney 2011. We've been #winning ever since.

(Disclaimer: In no way connected to Maker'sMuppet, I promise)

 

[zymurg]

So I've been struggling to remember, but I know my timing is similar to alexd, except I think it was a few months before 77-74 for me, and thanks to nomar I now remember that it was absolutely through McD's site that I found this place. Thanks for that, McD. Where y@?

I do remember that this was my first message board experience, and my original handle was Hungry Husky--yes, 15 years before Shabazz made it famous. I was simply hungry at the time I registered to post.

I attended the Final Four that year and was so exuberant after my prior 15 years experience as a Husky fan that I made one of those overly optimistic posts about our prospects for the next season--especially after having attended the vaunted FF practice at which Ajou looked like the best we'd ever had--and my premise was immediately attacked by Zymurg, who employed a combination of elderly wisdom and confusing vocabulary that befuddled me. I tried to fight back, but I was basically a blubbering baby seal in a sea of sharks. I believe I signed off with some parting shot to the effect that this place being a circle jerk of friends, and I disappeared for a while.

I came back under my current handle at some point the following season. Zymurg may have been the first person to enlighten me to the "progress is not linear" mantra that I now preach. I've dropped out for weeks, months and years since, after varying degrees of frustration with how precipitously the level of discourse has dropped, but I like talking about some my life's greatest passions with some of the folks who post here, so I keep coming back.

I'm not exactly sure how I found the board, but it was in 97-98 I think. Wow, the 'Yard was a revelation. What ever happened to the Duke
poster who had a dancing skeleton as a giff. Back in the day we had some interesting posters who supported other teams beakumhawks was probably the longest lasting resident alien. Today the board is pretty xenophobic. The women's board still has regular posters from
other schools. I used to read a number of other boards every day. I still visit a few semi-regularly. I posted on a few others: Vandy, ND,
Rutgers, SJU, and PC. I haven't posted on another board for at least two or three years. The 'Cuse board was the first I stopped posting and reading. It became too confrontational. Back in the day I had a couple of sources; I tried to impart several pieces of information about s couple of players 'Cuse really wanted and took a lot of heat.

Now I mostly lurk, but I still spend a couple of hours a day during the season reading the 'Yard. I suppose I could do something more productive with the time, but at my age, why.

ps zymurg is lower case, and it comes from zymurgy, but that is a story for another day.

 

[Fishy]

One time zymurg sent me a case of beer in the mail and it made it to the last mile before the post office accidentally smashed it.

And then threatened to fine or otherwise prosecute me for having booze delivered via USPS.

 

[HomeKing93]

I've been lurking since the Courant days in 1996 or so.

 

[Frank06830]

If RabidHusky is still alive, (he is), he's the poster with the longest tenure. If he's not, I might be.

The Courant had a site called the Husky Howl - it was threaded style message board. There were days in the offseason where you could go an entire weekend without a post because most folks had computer access from work and not home. I remember Deepster, Suzy, Deadrody from back in those days...I can probably think up some others with a lil time.

At some point, they switched the format and the growing mass of posters rebelled. They complained, the administrator said "suck it" and we left in mass. We went to a College Insider UConn message board and crushed their servers. We then went to another site and crushed their servers. And so on.

Then, guy named Frank, who still posts here, thought up the name Boneyard and the original URL, uconnfan.com. He set up a server, set up a board and we all migrated there. And all was well. But Frank had a job and a life and eventually morons other than the ones the board was intended for found the site and started to spoof poster's handles and post nonsense.

At some point thereafter, I got an email from someone I didn't know named Tom who said that he had set up a version of the board on his personal site and would I take a look at it. It was on a Pair Networks home page. Frank was nice enough to give us the name Boneyard and the URL. The two of us posted on it for a while and then sent word for the rest...and that worked for a while.

At some point, Pair became alerted to the massive traffic going to one of their customer's home pages and we were booted. We then went to an Earthlink server account. And then Net-something or other. And then someone else. We crushed servers along the way.

Then, in 2000, we received an email from the original nitwits at Rivals. Tom and I met them at HCC one afternoon before a UConn-Syracuse game and I marveled at Tom's ability to ask for the most ridiculous s--- without blushing and equally marveled at the Rivals' nitwit's ability to say yes without thinking about it. That was an early hint as to the ultimate viability of Rivals as a business. (Another hint...right after we signed, they were having a convention in Vegas and were willing to fly Tom and I out there and put us up at the Venetian for three or four days. Neither of us went because we are models of integrity.)

So, given the rising servers costs and general headaches, we went with Rivals. I think that lasted 18 months until they went bankrupt. Then we were on our own. And then back with Rivals. And then with Scout. And then not.

The bumper sticker version of the story is - I heard about the Boneyard a really long time ago.

Thanks for the recognition Fishy...I can't believe it was 16 years ago we told the Courant to stuff it...courtesy of Wayback Machine...see uconnfan.com circa 1998 below

 

[Fishy]

So from that page....

Deadrody is still around. SuzyQ is still around. Swami is still around. Prankster is still around. "x" is still around, but his handle is "pj" now and he sticks to the realignment board. DrDos is still around.

I'm sure some of the other names on that board are still here under different names.

 

[Fishy]

I first jumped on board on the AOL site. Dialed in and argued with Umass fans back in the mid 90s. I subscribed to Husky Blue and White and remember hoping we would sign Kevin Garnett as a recruit. I used to follow recruiting a LOT closer then and go to some local camps to "scout" then report back on the board. Anyone remember "JKUL" I think his name was Jeff Kulas and he really was into recruiting too. Followed the group through the many boards/servers over the years. The Boneyard has gotten me through many work days!

Jeff Kulas became Jeff K and then JK and then kind of faded away.