Since Cat Scratches launched in the early months of 2009, the official blog of UK Athletics has sought to give readers an insider’s look into the athletic department. With added staff and a rethought approach to covering UK’s 22 varsity teams, we believe Cat Scratches has never been better positioned to do so.I, Guy Ramsey, have been primarily responsible for producing and overseeing content on the blog since Eric Lindsey left to take over CoachCal.com last August. Over that time, there have been some other familiar names pitching in with posts and feature stories during a memorable season in UK Athletics.Cat Scratches will be more structured in 2012-13, with two new full-time writers joining our staff in addition to undertaking other responsibilities in the media relations department. I am pleased to officially welcome Ryan Suckow and Cory Weigel to the UK Athletics family and I can’t wait to see what they bring to the blog.Ryan has been with Cat Scratches on a part-time basis since this spring, but his duties will be expanding greatly with this latest move. He brings a strong writing background and knowledge of UK Athletics to our team. Cory joins us from the University of Louisiana, where he worked with the women’s basketball, softball and women’s soccer teams. He is eager for the chance to work at UK and in the nation’s best conference, and I know he’ll do great work.Our added manpower is going to allow us to do some exciting new things and those things will all start with our new structure. I will continue to serve as the editor of Cat Scratches, but each of our teams – especially those that compete in Olympic sports – will be getting a significant boost in coverage.All of our 22 teams will now have dedicated lead writers who work closely with players, coaches and staff to tell the best stories about each, both on and off the field. While each sport is in-season, we will be using feature stories, live blogs, videos and shorter-form blog posts to help provide fans an up-close perspective on the Wildcats, no matter the sport. Here is the breakdown for which of us will serve as the lead writer for each sport. Of course, we will still be sharing the work for each sport among the three of us, particularly for sports like football and men’s basketball, but the listings below will serve as guidelines for which of us will be covering each sport.Guy Ramsey: Baseball, football, men’s basketball, men’s tennis, women’s basketball, women’s soccerRyan Suckow: Gymnastics, men’s golf, rifle, swimming and diving, volleyball, women’s golf, women’s tennisCory Weigel: Cross country, men’s soccer, softball, track and fieldAlso, Cat Scratches finally has its very own URL. Bookmark CatScratchesBlog.com for the latest on UK Athletics.We are excited about the growth of this blog and new media as a whole here at UK, and we have you to thank for all of it. It’s the passion of the Big Blue Nation and the support you show for your teams that make it possible for us to do what we do. As always, we appreciate your continual feedback. Please email questions or comments to CatScratches@uky.edu or tweet @UKAthleticsNews.We can’t wait to see what the 2012-13 season holds and we look forward to having you, the fans, with us every step of the way.
