The Bulls Pen Celebrates 23 Years

By Brad Meyer | Published 08/31/2022 | USF Fans Site News

Today marks the beginning of the 24th season of TheBullsPen.com.  It's amazing to me, so I write this post.

We started up with "TheBullsPen" being the message board for the SouthFloridaBulls.com site.  The site's beginning in 1999 was launched just before the Bulls first game of their third season. 

SFB was a blast, I started it when I lived in Tampa and could attend USF press conferences, media days, games and host watch parties.  As I moved out west, it became harder to maintain but the message board was booming - and so were the Bulls!  So around 2008, SFB became DOA and The Bulls Pen emerged as it's own entity.

There have been thousands of fans that have come through the login of The Bulls Pen.  Several fans are still engaged, an entire generation later (note: my kids are 24 and 22, TBP became the middle child).  Others have moved on to create other Bulls  sites or simply disconnected from the site and/or the Bulls.  There was a real shakeout in 2010 with the termination of Jim Leavitt that rocked the program and our membership.

Still, through the bad times as well as the good times, The Bulls Pen survived and continued in its goal to find, invite and engage other Bulls fans into our online community and build fan support for the Bulls year round.

I'm very thankful for our robust membership and that the site still plays a role in growing the fan base and facilitating discussion.  

The members here have been terrific over time, frequently lending their time and money to building the site, supporting the Bulls or even sending students to away games.  Recent membership involvement has seen the site host the Bulls Block Party again, contribute to the IPF and establish a NIL fund for USF student-athletes among other things.

When The Bulls Pen was too big to remain on a web hosting account, we moved it to a member's server.  In 2007, when that server took a beating we had to upgrade further.  Today we are hosted in a spot that allows for unlimited growth.  Now it's just up to us to grow!

Thank you all for being members of The Bulls Pen.  It means a lot to see names familiar to me from the days of the Carraba's watch parties or the new names popping up weekly of new fans to our board that want to talk some Bull.

A toast to The Bulls Pen and it's members!