Rewind the Tape

How the concept came about, the inspiration, what went wrong, and more.

Shea Serrano has been a creative inspiration to me. He's good people, makes fun stuff, and he's a marketing genius.

He also treats people extraordinarily well, and is always helping people who are in a tough spot.

There are three mottos that he has that I live by:

1). You can't win Game 7 without losing three games first. Fuck it, keep going.

2). Someone is going to get paid to make the thing you want to do. Fuck it, it might as well be you.

3). I just want to make cool shit with cool people.

And those last two especially are what led to the creation of my latest WNBA-focused project.

As an avid reader of FanGraphs, I'm a big fan when they put out a piece of a player reacting to their FanGraphs scouting report.

So, I started thinking – why not do something like this for the WNBA, but make it into a video?

I did what all good creative people do – I developed a plan.

I reached out to one of the senior members of Winsidr, and I pitched the idea.

"Oh, I like where this is going already," he said, even though I only mentioned the FanGraphs part.

I told him that what I wanted to do was talk to players about their high school scouting reports, get their reactions, see how they improved from high school to now, and get them to react to an old photo of them.

And shoutout to Myles Ehrlich, man, as he had the great idea of including a quote from their high school coach or a quote from them when they were in high school.

Not only would this be captivating and engaging, but it would help me accomplish my mission of covering the W. I want to tell as many stories as I can. There are 156 players in the WNBA, and while the cover is improving, we continue to see the same 10 to 15 players get the coverage and their stories (which are important!) told.

With this format, we are able to look at players around the league who may not always be in the limelight.

After getting the green light on the project, I started building out a calendar of who I wanted to start with, and trying to find as many scouting reports as I could.

See, while players like Paige Bueckers and Caitlin Clark may have scouting reports at the ready, it was harder finding high school scouting reports for players such as Tina Charles and Brittney Griner.

The fact is that the coverage wasn't there when they were in high school, despite high school boys scouting reports being accessible for every player in the league.

There was one concern that we had before we put these out – we didn't want another organization catching wind of this idea and doing something like it first.

And the organizations included WNBA teams. Because let's face it – this shit is social media gold.

When I pitched the ideas, the teams loved it. The players loved it, and on more than one occasion, I had a player say, "This was the best media thing I've done."

Luckily, we kept it under wraps enough that we were able to put out the official teaser video of Rewind the Tape Sunday afternoon.

And the feedback has been fantastic.

Just wait until you all see the first episode.

But for now, take a look at the teaser video:

First off, shoutout to our video manager Melissa Triebwasser for the amazing editing job on this. I told her what my vision was for this, and she was able to not only bring it to life, but exceed my expectation.

Trust me, when the first one drops with Brittney Sykes, you'll see what I mean.

Here are some quick notes on the series:

• The players in the teaser are Brittney Sykes, Courtney Williams, Shakira Austin, Gabby Williams, Ty Harris, Myisha Hines-Allen, Naz Hillmon, Allisha Gray, and Kayla McBride.
• We have more in the queue, as well as others scheduled to chat with us.
• We have two players whose interviews were fantastic, but we had audio issues. Olivia Nelson-Ododa's chat was great. She had a fantastic reaction when I showed her a picture of herself from 11th grade. But with the Atlanta Dream arena being SO FUCKING LOUD ALL OF THE TIME, I was unable to have usable audio from her interview. So yeah, I had to buy some microphones to drown out the audio.
• I also had a fantastic session with Natasha Cloud. Tash was amazing, and she said how much doing this reminded her of why she loves the game. She gave me a big hug after. While the footage is great, there is no audio. Still, to this day, I have no idea what happened. I'm going to try to get Tash on her way back to Atlanta, as well as some other Liberty players.
• There was only one team that didn't want to participate. They were fully focused on the game ahead of time, and their PR person didn't want to set it up. I'm hoping that they come around on it.
• It's starting with me doing the interviews, but I want to open it up to the rest of our team who are in market. We are going to have 170 players in the WNBA next year, so I'll need the help.
• My three favorite moments so far are:
  • The Brittney Sykes discussion. There's a quote from her coach that you'll want to hear
  • Courtney Williams' reaction to a photo from her in high school
  • Allisha Gray being Allisha Gray

We'll be dropping them on Winsidr, so be sure to follow their accounts @Winsidr.

Bite Back: Poems

Speaking of people making cool shit, allow me to wax poetically about my partner. Blayne has their first book coming out October 9.

I've seen the work that it took to get here. From good poem day, gang, to the self-doubt, and everything in between.

It's been a lifelong goal of theirs to have a book published, and I am so proud of them for achieving it.

Blayne hired a fantastic artist to do the cover art, and I can't wait to see it in the flesh.

Pre-order a copy of the book or go to hell.

Until Next Time

We'll be back on Friday. The Dream are back in town, so I'm hoping to get some good material for a feature that I'm working on for Winsidr as well as Walking Bucket.

May your week be more successful than the penalties in the Euros.

I love you awesome nerds.