About AlmanacSports.com
AlmanacSports.com is the collaboration of two brothers, Dan and Joe Engler, who love and have an interest in the promotion and history of Indiana high school sports. The site is owned and operated by Almanac Sports, LLC.
About Dan and Joe
The brothers, who both live in Evansville, Ind., have been actively involved in youth sports for many years, whether playing, coaching or refereeing.
Joe, a computer science engineer with a degree from Purdue Univeresity, has coached soccer for several years. While in North Carolina, he lead his team to two state championships. He played soccer for Reitz High School and gradudated in 1997. Joe and his wife, Jen, have three children.
Dan, a WWE referee, has coached, refereed and covered football since 1994, when he was on the staff at the Reitz Mirror high school newspaper. Dan, who also played football for the Panthers, was nicknamed 'Rudy' by his teammates. Dan and his wife, Melissa, have two children.
History of the Site
The site's beginnings go back to the fall of 1996, when on Dan's Reitz Football website, he began covering the football standings for schools in the Big Eight, Pocket Athletic Conference and Southern Indiana Athletic Conference.
In late 1996, this section was separated into its own site, called "District 5 Football." (At the time, the IHSAA divided Indiana into five districts, the fifth covering the southern portion of the state.) The site was renamed "Southern Indiana High School Football" in September 1998.
In November 1999, Dan was courted by the Rivals Sports Network to cover football and several other sports throughout Indiana. After agreeing to join, Dan created the name "Hoosier Preps" and HoosierPreps.com became a part of Rivals' national network of pro, college and high school sports websites.
The original incarnation of Rivals folded in April 2001, and, as the national network fell apart, Dan's site again became independent. At that time, the original version of AlmanacSports.com was started and became the home page for the Almanac Sports Network, which consisted of a redesigned "Hoosier Preps" (focusing only on football) and ReitzFootball.com.
In 2002, "Hoosier Preps" was subdivided and became "Southwestern Indiana High School Football" and "Statewide Football."
In 2003, "Statewide Football" was renamed "Hoosier Prep Football;" both it and "Southwestern Indiana High School Football" saw major redesigns.
Toward the end of 2004, Joe had begun to work on a soccer site that would cover area schools. It was then that he and Dan decided to combine their efforts and merge their sites into one, building a brand new AlmanacSports.com, covering football and soccer.
On July 1, 2005, the new site went online. While we have covered basketball and wrestling in the past, for now we are focusing our efforts as Joe covers Southwestern Indiana High School Soccer and Dan covers football across the state.
|