Davey and Kyle Chadwick are William & Mary sports fanatics, describing themselves as the college’s biggest sports fans.
And during their time at the school, they made a name for themselves in the athletic realm with their popular website, The William & Mary Sports Blog.
The siblings started the blog in 2014, getting the idea from a alumni-run sports blog at James Madison University. At the time Davey Chadwick was a junior and Kyle Chadwick had just started at William & Mary.
“We just thought that the William & Mary coverage you get is bare bones,” Davey Chadwick said. “For us, we wanted to provide something extra that students and alum could connect with.”
In the past, the brothers had written for their high school newspapers and both were doing marketing internships with the athletics department at William & Mary so writing came naturally to them.
They said their blog took off quickly after they started tweeting and posting to Facebook about it. Now, they have had more than 170,000 page views and have been given press passes by the college for games.
“For us it has been really cool and a bit surprising for things in terms of the response we’ve gotten,” Kyle Chadwick said. “It showed us that there was really a need for this kind of platform, that we were filling a void.”
Pete Clawson, senior assistant athletics director, as well as the brothers made it clear they have no official affiliation with the college.
But Kyle Chadwick said they are proud whenever they see retweets from leaders at the college’s athletic department.
The Chadwicks only report on football and men’s basketball because those are the two most popular sports and the ones they are most interested in, they said.
Since graduating from William & Mary, Davey Chadwick, class of 2015, has moved to Manhattan and is earning a master’s degree in sports management at Columbia University. Kyle Chadwick, class of 2017, has moved to Washington, D.C. to work as a federal contractor.
The blog still keeps them connected not only to their favorite pastime but to each other.
“William & Mary sports are such a big part of our lives,” Davey Chadwick said. “We talk to each other about it at least once a week, if not daily. It’s one of the things that brings us together.”
Davey Chadwick said the passion for William & Mary doesn’t just stop with the brothers, their parents have even retired from Ashburn to Williamsburg recently and attend as many games as possible.
With all of that devotion to the college’s sports, the siblings decided recently to step up their outreach and start a podcast.
“[The podcast] adds another aspect to the ways people are consuming sports media now and it allows us to connect to our fans,” Kyle Chadwick said. “We’re building out our voice and bringing out the way the readers see us.”
The first episode of the podcast launched Thursday and the brothers said while it was a learning curve to understand the editing process, they’re really positive about where the podcast will take their brand.
Looking toward the future, the Chadwicks haven’t set a designated schedule for the episodes but they plan for them to most likely be weekly during football and basketball season and bi-weekly during the off-season.
The podcasts offer not only a different way to share information about William & Mary sports but also the chance to connect with fans on a new level. In future episodes, the brothers plan to feature fan questions and interviews that will bring a new perspective on the sports realm.
“We love sports and we love William & Mary,” Davey Chadwick said. “We just want to reach as many people as possible and share that.”
The blog’s podcast can be accessed through The William & Mary Sports Blog website.
