Welcome to No Bid Nation!

I was raised in a basketball family. My mom played college ball at James Madison and scored 1,000 points over her career there. My sister had a very successful high school career and had chances to play in college as well. So, I’m at best the third-most talented player in my family. My dad, a long-time high school basketball coach in Northern Virginia… well, let’s just say that his best days playing were on the intramural court in Harrisonburg.

I developed a love of sports writing young – my family got The Washington Post delivered every morning, and I read the sports page rabidly. I’ve chased that love ever since, writing for just about any publication that would let me. That’s how I end up here – continuing to follow my love of writing about sports; it’s just on my terms now.

I think this is about where I should introduce myself. For those of you all that don’t know me, I’m Brendan Doyle, I’m going to graduate from the College in May with a degree in government. When I got to Williamsburg in the fall of 2016, I did the natural thing, putting my passions to use – I started writing sports for The Flat Hat. And, of course, I tended to focus on basketball.

Through my four years here, I wrote about William and Mary sports a bunch. I also developed into a big fan.

This is my friends and I at the Gold Rush game this past season. I’m the “T” on the far left. Don’t worry, I was already done with my Flat Hat duties, so journalistic integrity was not on the line.

I don’t necessarily think that fandom precludes a writer from being critical of a team, or a program, or a department. (H/T to Russian Machine Never Breaks for teaching me that.) And so my goal with No Bid Nation, I think, is to provide quality, fair writing about men’s and women’s basketball from a fan’s point of view. And also have fun. Yeah, that.

A little about the name: yeah, it’s a little oxymoronic to imply that William and Mary has a “nation” of sports fans. But I hope to be able to cultivate a little bit of a community of people who care about Tribe hoops. (Also, the name rolls off the tongue well, so I don’t really care about semantics. And I think everybody should get the “no bid” part. Move along.)

I could write some more, go on about Nathan Knight, David Cohn, Daniel Dixon, and Marcus Thornton; Eva Hodgson, Bianca Boggs, and Kyra Kaylor. How I think the state of William and Mary basketball is quite good. How I’ve only been a real William and Mary basketball fan since I started school here but that the most gratifying sports experience for me would be making an NCAA Tournament.

But I have a feeling we’ll get into a lot of that stuff. There’ll be a lot of time to write about it – there are seven months until college basketball season rolls around again. In the meantime, follow us on Twitter @NoBidNation or hit me up at brendan@nobidnation.com.

This should be fun. Let’s dance.