For you to truly understand why the BSO Intern position is a very decision to me, I have to tell you a story (I know I have a story for everything).
Back in 2007 BSO had been around for about two years and you have to understand that independent sports sites and blogs were not taking very serious in regards to being “real journalists”. I always equated it to rap music in the early 80’s it was more underground than mainstream, but if you had vision you could see it was also the future was bright for the genre.
I had some success with BSO back then and I had a full staff of people helping me. About 10-15 doing various things for the site.
I’ve always considered myself “the talent” I am not good with administrative duties or even being “boss like”. So back then I gave the people working for me a lot of rope. I didn’t even require approval for other writers to post their stories.
I had a guy writing for me
Zeferino Jackson
Nice enough guy said he was fan of the site and was trying to kick start his writing career. He wanted to focus on writing boxing articles which I thought was great. He wrote several articles and then he wrote this article:
Inside The Training Camps of Oscar De La Hoya & Floyd Mayweather
In that article Jackson claims to have spent six weeks following around Oscar De La Hoya and reported on some unusual training techniques:
Freddie Roach performs the full nude body greasedown massage technique on Oscar de la Hoya while fight strategy is discussed. The full nude body greasedown is a well documented boxing training tool used mostly before the 1970’s by fighters like Joe Louis and Willie Pep. It has been hailed by fighters like Demarcus Corley, Lennox Lewis, and Archie Moore. It is making resurgence among today’s trainers and currently trainer Joe Goossen is considered the most adept at it. In my opinion, Freddie Roach is the least adept as his Parkinson’s affected hands don’t seem to allow him to perform the gentlest massage. For those not familiar with the deeper fundamentals of boxing training, the full nude body greasedown consists of the trainer rubbing a combination of oil, vinegar, and sometimes salt over the completely nude body of a boxer. This seems to increase concentration and cause a bond between the fighter and the trainer.
Unknown to me the story caught fire even getting a response from Freddie Roach:
“I have never met anyone by the name of Zeferino Jackson, all of these crazy claims that he is talking about is very bizarre, and this guy has something wrong with him. All of these training methods that this guy is talking about is just not true. This guy is dreaming, and we have not spent one second with him,” Roach told Philboxing.com.
I received an email from Golden Boy Promotions threatening a lawsuit, so I try to contact Zeferino Jackson because I wanted to stand behind my writer but he went MIA (haven’t heard from him since). Leaving me to deal with some high price lawyers threatening to take my house and car. I am not an idiot so I knew they were just trying to scare me, but that wasn’t the point. The points that became crystal clear were:
A- The site had a bit more juice than I thought.
B- It is my name on the site, so anything that is posted on BSO potentially could damage both my professional and personal reputation even if I didn’t write it or work on it.
Since that day I have systematically closed ranks almost to the point I would say I am a 97% one man operation taking care of all the day to day activities of my various projects. Similar to a person who has been cheated on you, you can say I have trust issues in regards to anything that is associated with me. No one quite understands what I am trying to do better than me. I have a clear vision of what my brand is and unless you are in my brain very hard to explain.
Back in 2007 all I had is BSO but as we fast forward to 2010, BSO is 10x bigger, I am running three websites, contributing to another site, two magazines, doing consulting work for a TV show, several radio spots, three twitter accounts & facebook fan page.
So I need an intern. Someone who is interested in learning the ins and outs on social media, blogging and marketing independent web sites. I’ve been in this game for about five years now. BSO was open months before MySpace to give you a perspective. I learned the hard way by screwing up a lot. Blogs were barely around why I started I designed the 1st version of BSO using straight HTML code. Now everyone has a blog and everyone thinks they are going to blow up (just like the rap game), but I can help you get to that point.
Here are the specific job duties for the Intern:
1- Find Stories
Comb the internet (forums, blogs, major sites) looking for interesting and unusual stories for the three main sites that I am running (BSO, BreakLamps.com & MySpaceModelsOnline.com). That would be your number one job duty.
2- Answering email
I get anywhere from 50-100 emails a day, so it is hard for me to reply to some of fan mail that comes in.
3- Promotion
Submitting articles to various forums, Digg, BallHype, google buzz & etc.
4- Editor
It would greatly increase your chances if you have some editorial skills.
There will be various other projects and some added perks for being part of the BSO empire.
Definitely not a full time gig, but something that I would expect someone to be working on daily. More details will be giving. If you are interested send an email to [email protected] . Please explain what you think can contribute to the BSO empire. Doesn’t need to be formal, I am looking for someone who reminds me of myself 5 years ago.