About Pats Pulpit

The New England Patriots Pulpit, affectionately known as Pats Pulpit, was born 9 days before the preseason at 1:36 a.m. on Wednesday, August 3, 2005, when tommasse posted his welcome to the flock. (See, originally, tommasse was going to follow this pseudo-religious theme -- "football is our religion," "the stadium is our church" -- but Rev Halofan of Halos Heaven was already practicing that shtick. Anyway.)

The mission was simple: To "explore the mysteries of the oblong pigskin" from the perspective of the average rabid Patriots fan. New England Patriots Pulpit was a place for Patriots fans to gather and discuss the exploits of the NFL's newest dynasty.

On heady ideals tommasse laid the foundation. Pats Pulpit would be a site of honor and (journalistic) ethics and a repository of reliable information and legitimate analysis. Unlike other common sports blogs, Pats Pulpit would not be a place for people to hide in the anonymity of the internet and act like spoiled adolescents. To set the example, to demonstrate that there would be no anonymous systematic intimidation, tommasse gave himself no moniker. He put his name on it.

Above all, Pats Pulpit would be a community. Heady days were they! Two days into existence, The Sporting News named named Boston the "Best Sports City" in America. Just over 2 years later, here we are: The Boston Red Sox have just won their second World Series in 4 years, and your New England Patriots are 8-0. The best sports city, indeed.

The Pulpit was lucky then to have a dozen visitors in a day. (That same site, still "active" but updated rarely and then only to direct readers here, draws more readers now [16 per day] than it did then.) Our first open thread for the Week 2 matchup featuring New England at Carolina, a 27-17 loss, garnered a big 19 comments from scsatr, mrbandw and tommmasse.

The Blogspot rendition of Pats Pulpit crawled until it learned to walk. Like Puritans claiming a stake in the New World, we fought for survival in a harsh and burgeoning world of New Media. Four weeks after Thanksgiving, we enjoyed the fruits of our labor. Deadspin.com, the second highest trafficked sports blog on the internet (launched 1 month after Pats Pulpit), named Pats Pulpit, the best Patriots blog on the web, and proposed the Pulpit was "The blog that Norm, Cliff and all the guys down at Cheers would be reading."

That sealed it. New England was on the New Media world map. After nearly 150 posts, the proprietors of Sports Blogs Nation invited tommasse to take up residence in their fast-growing national (now worldwide) network of the best sports blogs the web had to offer.

And so, at 8:15 a.m., January 7, 2006, the new Pats Pulpit open the doors to its new cathedral, and tommasse once again welcomed his flock to their new home.

The old Pats Pulpit was by then averaging about 50 unique visitors daily, and they followed tommasse to the Promised Land of Sportsblogging.

Today, Pats Pulpit attracts anywhere from 400 to 2,000 unique visitors daily and we approach the 500-post mark (not including diaries). The mission remains the same: Provide a place for Patriots fans to gather and discuss the first NFL dynasty of the Third Millennium, and to do it where fans would have a reliable repository of information, where journalistic ethics were followed, and where interlopers would not be allowed to anonymously and systematically intimidate the true members of the community.

Once again: Welcome to Pats Pulpit. May your stay here be enjoyable.

Now step up to the pulpit and say your piece!

Who is tommasse?

Tom Masse was born and raised north of Boston and has been a fan of the New England Patriots since the early 1970s.

After messing around in college a few years, he enlisted in the United States Marines. Following a brief stint, he returned to college at the State University of New York at Stony Brook where he minored in journalism where he studied under the tutelage of Bob Greene, two-time Pulitzer Prize winner and founder of Investigative Reporters and Editors, and Paul Schreiber, among others.

Tom was editor in chief of The Stony Brook Statesman and interned at Newsday. After graduation, Tom worked for newspapers in Vermont and New Hampshire; however, he was unable to marry his passions for the Patriots and his journalism career.

Tom left journalism in 2000 and returned to his original vocation, technology, where he has worked in network operations for several years. Tom also owned and operated a computer gaming and repair center for more than 3 years before closing in 2006.

Despite his moving around, Tom is back north of Boston, in the middle of Patriots Nation.