The history of The Inside Track dates back to the spring of 1998. I was doing some private coaching and was attending a track meet. That is when I met Phil Murray of texastrack.com. He gave his card and shared some information about his website. Later that night I went to Phil's website and was amazed by its content. I thought to myself, wow, a website just for track and field. I'll tell you the really cool thing about Phil's website that got my interest...it was not the posting of results or the list of track meets...no no no, it was the fact that he could get into track meets for free. That is what I liked most about texastrack.com. To go to track meets for free. That was my motivation for starting The Inside Track. It started as a free way into track meets, but grew into something more special.

The Inside Track was born in January of 1999. It was hard to tell people about the website because the very first web address was one of those geocities website that took forever to say and even longer to type. Believe it or not the first web address for The Inside Track was...

www.geocities.com/Colosseum/Pressbox/5151/insidetrack.htm

Imagine trying to remember that address to give to someone. That's why I kept a lot of cards on hand and told everybody to bookmark the website. I remember sending information about my website to John Dye of the ever famous dyestat.com. He sent me a response telling me to buy a domain name and get rid of the long address. I took his advise and looked for a domain name. My first choice was theinsidetrack.com, but it was already taken by a go-cart company. I wanted to use the inside track in the name, so I decided to add 99 on the end. www.theinsidetrack99.com was created. A lot easier to remember. People still had trouble getting on because they would forget to put the 99 at the end. I had a lot of people come up to me and say...man your website don't work, it talks about go-carting. I also put 99 on the end so I could always remember the year I started the website. In 2001, I decided to change the website name one more time to www.insidetexastrack.com. This name, I felt told you exactly what our goal was...to bring you the inside stuff of Texas Track and Field...yeah I got the ideal from Inside the NBA, oh well.

Once I got involved with the website, it became more than just a free ticket into track meets. It was a tool to meet all the up and coming talent around the state. Texastrack.com had all of the results, track schedules, and basic information about track and field in Texas. I wanted The Inside Track to bring more to the readers. I asked myself, how could I make this website different? Interviews. I started to interviews different athletes from all over the state. My very first interviews were with Southlake Carroll's Jessica Johnson and FW Paschal Jamie Walker. Those were shoe ins because I also coached them the year before. I actually did those interviews over the phone. My first face to face interview was with Jerome and Jerrod Braziel of FW Dunbar. It was kind of odd because it was my first face to face interview and I did not want to look like I did not know what I was doing. Over the years we have featured many track and field stars on The Inside Track.

One thing I remembered from high school was that I always wanted a picture of me jumping. I have only one picture of me jumping in high school . I thought this would be a great avenue for people to get pictures of themself. From that thought, The PhotoZone was created. It was, and still is one of the best features of The Inside Track. Many people have purchased pictures from the PhotoZone. I have sent pictures to New York, Arizona, California. I thought this would be great for those relatives who live in other states.

The website was doing things different but I felt we could do more. So I added a State's Top Ten ranking. The first one to do a ranking. That brought coaches to our website. The ranking system is the hardest feature to do because it's hard to get results from high school meets. With more and more coaches becoming computer savvy, results seems to come quicker than in the past.

I guess the most popular feature today would be the infamous Message Board. We have all kinds of activity going on on the Message Board. It gives fans an opportunity to voice their opinions about their favorite high school athlete.

The Inside Track has allowed me to meet a lot of people. I remember the very first person I met who was a fan of The Inside Track. His name was Bud from Crowley. I met him at a track meet and it was cool to meet someone who appreciated what you was doing. I have had many people come up to me and say...hey your RoJo, your the Inside Track guy. I must tell you it is a wonderful feeling when someone is touched or motivated by what you are doing. It makes you feel that all the hard work is worth it.

That is a brief history of how The Inside Track started. It went from being a free ticket to a wonderful source of information that is very close to me.

RoJo