Landon Young grew up a Mississippi State fan, and he always wanted to share his passion for Bulldogs sports with others.
“I loved talking about it,” Young said. “I loved writing about it.”
After transferring to MSU from a community college, Young got that chance. A professor put him in touch with Ethan Lee, the managing editor of the SB Nation MSU blog site For Whom The Cowbell Tolls.
Lee put Young in touch with managing editor Justin Strawn, who brought Young aboard in 2018 as a volunteer contributor to the site. By the end of the year, Young was the managing editor.
But his tenure will end Sept. 30, when For Whom the Cowbell Tolls shutters its doors. SB Nation told staff in an email Monday the site — along with several other college football communities — is being shut down as of that date.
Opportunities like Young’s — when it comes to Mississippi State sports, at least — will become fewer and farther between.
“It’s difficult because now it doesn’t give a platform for these people who have a passion for sports and a passion for writing,” said Collin Wilmes, who has edited and written content for the site for the past four years.
Unlike Young, Wilmes had no ties to Mississippi State. He was a student at Minnesota State when a friend began working for the USC site at SB Nation, which is owned by Vox Media. Wilmes applied to write for SB Nation, and For Whom The Cowbell Tolls got back to him first. He said he is the primary writer of previews and recaps of football, basketball and baseball games as well as breaking news stories.
Wilmes, like Young, receives a monthly stipend from SB Nation. The two will be paid through Sept. 30, when their contracts are terminated along with the site.
“I just feel like it’s definitely a loss for all Mississippi State fans,” Wilmes said. “It really is a good opportunity for fans to get involved. It was just unique in the sense that it really gave fans that ability to connect with other fans who were writing, just building that community.”
Both Lee and Strawn said they grew up reading the site — which launched in January 2009 — when they were in high school.
During their time in charge, both tried to make For Whom The Cowbell Tolls unique by acting on one “crazy idea” or another. Strawn remembers when FOX News anchor Shepard Smith — an Ole Miss graduate — railed against Mississippi State on his nationally televised show, For Whom The Cowbell Tolls encouraged people to find Smith’s Twitter and say, “Hey, Shep, Hail State!”
“It’s a very different approach,” Strawn said. “That’s what made blogging fun. You try to do serious stuff, but you also like to do fun stuff as well.”
That’s what made the site different from journalistic outlets, and once it closes, blog sites about MSU sports will be even fewer.
Lee has started his own, The Underdog Tribune, on WordPress. FanSided’s Maroon and White Nation page is currently seeking someone to run it, but both Lee and Strawn wrote for that outlet in the past.
Lee said FanSided will be one of the biggest beneficiaries of SB Nation’s cutbacks. Blog sites for Oklahoma State, the Southeastern Conference, the Big East Conference and service academy sports were also eliminated as of the end of September.
“They really stand to gain a lot of really talented writers because they’ve got so many blog vacancies over there that they’re trying to fill, and now there’s suddenly an influx of very talented writers who understand how this works,” Lee said of FanSided. “They stand to gain a lot.”
An email from SB Nation staff on Monday afternoon gave no reasoning behind the site’s closure, but Lee said he believes For Whom The Cowbell Tolls landed on the chopping block because of disappearing page views. The site’s social media following remains strong: 19,600 Twitter followers and 42,000 likes on Facebook.
Dwindling interest in the website itself led Lee to return this spring as a contributor, hoping to get his old site back on its feet.
Lee said he understood SB Nation’s choice to shut down For Whom The Cowbell Tolls and the other pages it decided to close. Doing so five days before college football seasons begin nationwide, however?
“The timing is really interesting,” Lee said. “For a college football site to be shut down right before college football season starts just seems a little short-sighted, but that’s just the way it goes.”
The people currently associated with the site — Young, Wilmes, Lee, Alex Gomez, Daniel Potts and Noah Mashburn — will have to move on.
Wilmes said he hopes SB Nation will have second thoughts about the closure. Across the now-doomed site, people like him and Young — those trying to get experience, to create their own platform — will be the ones affected.
“Not everybody has the opportunity to work for a local TV station or a local newspaper, so this really gives people who are still in school the opportunity to hone their craft and become better writers,” Wilmes said.
Theo DeRosa reports on Mississippi State sports for The Dispatch. Follow him on Twitter at @Theo_DeRosa.
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