A few thoughts & thank you on our SIXTH ANNIVERSARY

By Jerry Ratcliffe

I humbly come to you today, first to thank you for your support over the years and also to ask for your continued support of our website and podcasts.

Today is the sixth anniversary of our official launch of JerryRatcliffe.com, first starting with a paywall and subscribers, then eventually switching over to a free site that depends solely on advertising. After more than 40 years in sports journalism at various newspapers in the Commonwealth, we were urged to go independent with a website, leaning on 36 years of covering University of Virginia athletics, the ACC and much more.

The past six years haven’t been easy, particularly as an independent that has no national affiliation with the backing of a national recruiting company such as 247Sports, Rivals, On3, etc.

Instead, it’s the “eat what you kill” mentality in terms of survival, and going out and beating the bushes for advertisers isn’t my strength. It’s not what I was trained to do. Thusly, we depend heavily on advertisers to survive and thrive, which includes mounting travel expenses to enhance our coverage. We are always seeking advertising help, and would love to make a deal with any businesses.

We have a wide reach to Virginia’s fan base and beyond, and believe we can help your business. Please contact me (jratcliffe7000@gmail.com) if you would like to explore advertising with us.

We’ve had millions of page views during our existence and rely on a familiar brand name with tons of experience and institutional knowledge of UVA and the ACC. We also feature podcasts and a weekly internet show, “The Jerry & Jerry Show,” which is coming up on its one-year anniversary and is quite popular with Virginia fans and beyond.

I came to Charlottesville in 1982 to cover the beginning of the George Welsh football era, in the middle of the Ralph Sampson era (although I had covered UVA and the ACC elsewhere before arriving in C’Ville). I liked it so much, I never left, although I had offers from much larger newspapers.

Anyways, when I went out on my own, I decided to name the site after yours truly due to the brand I had built over that span of time. Name recognition never hurts, right?

Since starting this business, we’ve battled through the Covid pandemic and some national economic shortcomings, which has presented us challenges.

Covid nearly caused us to close down. Advertisers were hit hard because the country was shut down. Many had to stop advertising altogether.

Don’t know how many times I prayed for answers to keep us in business, to ride out the wave. Do I believe in prayer? Darn right. How do I know?

Just when things were at their worst, debating on whether or not to shut things down and move on to something else, out of the blue came two men of faith to the rescue. I had not reached out to either, didn’t even know one of them, but they expressed interest in advertising their great businesses on our site and spreading the word of their business via JerryRatcliffe.com

Jonathan Cotton of “The Good Feet Store,” and Michael Gutherie of “Howard Hanna Real Estate” reached out and have been with us ever since. We are so grateful for our association with them, along with other longtime sponsors such as the Aberdeen Barn, Blue Ridge Beverage, Phirst & Lassing Doors, The Villa Diner, Ragged Mountain Running & Walking Shop, Foster Well & Pump.

Without the sponsorships, we couldn’t bring you free content, so please thank them if you’re in their businesses.

None of this would have been possible without the great help of Chris and Crystal Graham from the Augusta Free Press. They were some of the pioneers in online newspapers and have developed a thriving business in Waynesboro and beyond. When Chris first learned of what happened to me, he was the first to reach out and wanted to help. He called it “paying it forward,” because he had always admired the reputation I had carved out in the newspaper business and had offered a helping hand to so many young journalists. Rather than calling it paying it forward, I just thought it was a completely incredible display of caring and generosity, helping rebuild my website, giving me great advice on how to start and maintain a business, Crystal helping with advertising expertise and the billing areas that I had no knowledge of.

To this day, they continue to give me support and there’s no way I will ever be ever to repay their kindness.

Since we’ve opened business — our first official story was the very first story written about Kyle Guy using the UMBC loss to motivate him, and we are reposting that story today in Guy’s honor — Virginia has won that national championship (we wrote a book about it), UVA has been to the pinnacle of various sports and ol’ Hootie was graciously honored to be inducted into the state of Virginia Sports Hall of Fame (Class of 2023 with two players he covered, Shawn Moore and Ryan Zimmerman).

We love our job and love bringing you free content, and hope you will continue to honor us as your favorite UVA sports site. It means the world to us. Thank you.