Do any of you remember when this site was clutchcity.com before Clutch sold the domain name to Rivals? I remember thinking that Clutch had changed the site a lot. It took a while for me to figure out that it was not his site and that the old site had changed to clutchcity.net.
I was. Clutch didn't sell the domain name to Rivals. If I remember correctly, some shady former business partner called "Frank Swindle" "stole" the domain and tried to set up his own thing on Rivals through that domain.
uh oh. your recollection of events is going to make Clutch shake his head. Dude. Do you even know what I'm talking about?
Yep, found this site back in college, 97 I think. Didn't register until 2002 because I was graduating college and joining the workforce during the time his board was started.
I can't remember all of the history in the exact order it happened, but I can tell you that I don't believe clutchcity was the first rocket's website that gained traction among fans. There was a site called launchpad that preceded it. Clutch's site was at one time dedicated to Mario Ellie. But I think that was the second iteration of the site. Before then, I can't remember what the first version of this site was called.
I remember when he changed it back in 99, there were only a few hundred of us around at that time, and it was a much more friendly place to talk basketball. DD
Clutchfans.com ate all the websites, one by one. Darkhorse...as I recall...was smart emough to hand over his members graciously. :grin: If you're going to count launchpad, why not count USENET forums, too. Actually, that's how I met Larry Coon. The most loyal and largest collection of Laker's fans were on Usenet. (Larry Coon is a diehard Laker's fan, if you haven't noticed.) But 9/11 destroyed that chat room. Christ, it went to hell for lack of having multiple forums. The terrorists certainly won.
Seriously though, Yao Ming revolutionized the GARM. Has one player ever had that big of an impact in American sports forum history? Bill Walton would agree I'm sure.
Nope. I remember going to Clutchcity.com, not realizing it was .net, while trying to find this place though. The 2001 mention in Sports Illustrated is how I finally found it.
Was Darkhorse the owner of that site? I do remember vaguely when launchpad ceased to exist. It was a good site. And somehow that a lot of those guys defected to clutch's site.
Proud 99er and triple-digit-member-IDer. In about fifteen years, I'm going to auction my account off on eBay to some young punk so they can instantaneously achieve e-street cred. cc.com REPRE$$$$$$$$ENT!!!!!1!!1
Not that it matters, but yes, I was around when the site first started as a rabid, teenaged Rockets fan. Didn't actually register until 2001 when I couldn't gain access to the BBS until doing so. Didn't start lurking the Hangout till around 2000 but was glad I did.
