If you are a student athlete who plays in the Hockomock division, there is a strong chance you have visited HockomockSports.com. Despite its popularity among student athletes and their parents, not many people think about how it became so popular or the man behind the creation.
Ryan Lanigan, a Brockton High graduate, was 22 years old when he created HockomockSports.com in November 2011. Lanigan says he found out sports journalism was the career for him when he was a student at Bridgewater State University.
“I decided in college it was something I wanted to do. I’ve always loved sports, I grew up reading box scores in the newspaper and online on Yahoo! Sports.” Lanigan later goes on to talk about his experiences in college. “When I got to college, I decided to pursue journalism. I did some news and feature writing when I was at Saint Michael’s but it wasn’t until Bridgewater State and joined the student newspaper there that I really knew I was going to get into sports journalism.”
HockomockSports.com has gained a lot of traction and attention in recent years. Lanigan says he didn’t think it would be as popular as it is today.
“To be honest, I had no clue what the end game was when I started the website so I think it’s fair to say I didn’t have any expectations it would be what it is today.” Lanigan attributes the site’s popularity gain to the athletes that he covers.
“We definitely had more traction with the student-athletes early on compared to parents. We were new- a blog was still a bit of a foreign concept for some adults- so I think the kids were able to find us easier. Lanigan says social media has been a valuable tool used to promote the website. “Twitter was just taking off then so I think it was special for kids to see their names in tweets and recaps. Hopefully over the past 15 years, we’ve become a reliable source people can trust with what we report and I think that’s helped grow our popularity.”
With how much of a success HockomockSports.com has become, Lanigan says it is important to stick to his main objective when he first started the site, especially with how the sports journalism industry has changed over the years.
“From the very beginning, our goal has always been to promote the student-athletes. There are people in the industry, maybe more so now than ever, that are about themselves and being a talking head. But I never wanted people to know me- I wanted them to know my work. If they didn’t know Ryan Lanigan but they knew HockomockSports, that was perfect.”
