T.A.H. Reaches Watershed 500,000 Mark

Sometime yesterday afternoon, when the editorial department was shuttling children around, TodaysACCHeadlines.com was visited for the 500,000th time. YOU did this. It’s YOUR fault.

Thank you for reading six years of drivel!

T.A.H. was born on January 27, 2005 – you could look it up in Wikipedia to confirm, but we still don’t have a Wikipedia page.  (Can somebody get on that, please?)

The first T.A.H. was an email to what we now fondly refer to as CC Nation.  CC Nation was then, and is now, a hardcore group of men and women who were either alums or lifelong fans of various ACC schools. 

Remarkably this group of friends and acquaintances get along spectacularly well – most days.  The numerical core of this group represents the Commonwealth Cup (Virginia and Virginia Tech) and the Battle For Tobacco Road (Duke and North Carolina).  Toss in some Maryland, Clemson, N.C. State, Wake Forest, Florida State and only Miami and Boston College lack representation at CC Nation’s not-so-round table. 

Remarkably, even the Duke and Carolina folks are civil and Southernly polite for 362 days a year.  Note we didn’t say 361 as that would suggest that he Duke v. UNC football game had the potential to draw ire from either fan base. Alas, most years, it does not.

So on that fateful day back in January of ’05, we sent our homies this email.

Subj: Break Up VT, Date: 1/27/2005 

THE T.A.H. PROTOTYPE FROM 2005 (Click on image for a closer look)

Fear the Hokies. (Following VT’s win over UVa)

Rumor has it that there is now a University of Virginia at Waynesboro and that is where Gillen and the Hoos will be held up until they deem it safe to return to Charlottesville after last night’s catastrophic and demoralizing defeat.

Who would have bet that on 1/27/2005 the Hokies (which lost to VMI earlier in the year) would be in fourth place in the ACC ahead of Maryland, GT, NC State, UVA and Clemson...OK, maybe ahead of Clemson who hasn't had an impact player since Tree Rollins (who is older than me! Clemson class of 1977)...*

Of course, like the guys who invented Facebook (maybe Zuckerberg, maybe those robot twin crew dudes) we didn’t realize how big it would become!  Four days later, the second edition was published and, three days after that, the historic first T.A.H. that actually included headlines and the name T.A.H (pictured above - Please note the misspelled "Virginiia"...) was emailed.

THE FIRST TAH DINGBAT, AND A FAVORITE (WITH KUDOS TO
INDIAN CHARLIE). For a better look click on the image.

Some time later, the email began to include a PDF file as T.A.H. took on the form of a daily newsletter which featured customized dingbats (the graphic at the top of the page), some of which we will reprint over the next few weeks while we celebrate the Big  5-0-0-0-0-0-0!

To this day, we believe the dingbats represent some of our finest work as do some of our headlines with “Ouch, I’ve Got Blood On My Han(d)sbrough And It’s Coming From My Nose!” remaining an all-time favorite.

In March of 2007, the web page went live, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Thanks again for reading and being part of T.A.H. Nation, somewhere a few JMU journalism professors are either very proud or laughing hysterically.  Hopefully, it’s both.

To read a complete history of T.A.H. (and who wouldn’t want to?  We’ll tell you who, all those would-be -publishers who haven’t gotten around to making the T.A.H. Wikipedia page, that’s WHO!), click here. 

*In this rare case, the items in italics are true. 


Another classic from the T.A.H. Archives...