TCZ’s Chris Person Moving to CardinalSports.com

Mark BlankenbakerFebruary 2, 2017

A little website news to report now that National Signing Day is over. Our recruiting guru, Chris Person…and really creator of recruiting news on TheCrunchZone.com has accepted a position with Howie Lindsey at CardinalSports.com.

We are very sad to see Chris leave TCZ, but we are THRILLED that Chris was able to land this opportunity with CardinalSports.com & the Rivals.com network. Chris came to us 15 months ago and wanted to bring recruiting information to TheCrunchZone.com. He had about 30 followers (he has 2375 now) and no experience.

Prior to that TCZ released news of a commitment and left recruiting to the networks. We just didn’t have the resources yet to really cover it adequately. But Chris Person pulled up his bootstraps and went to work. With very little input & direction from myself, Mike Lindsay or anyone else at TCZ Chris networked himself in with the coaching staff, called prospects, their families, their coaches and developed recruiting information on TheCrunchZone.com on his own. TCZ may not have been a source of recruiting news prior to Person’s arrival, but it is today. “The Scoop”, the Recruiting Pages and Profiles regularly draw large readership. Chris did that on his own and that’s why he has that opportunity today. It reminds me of a high school classmate that paid his own way to recruiting events and wrote for hours for several outlets on his own dime…. Evan Daniels.

Chris Person is innovative, persistent, impatient (in a good way) and this was the goal. Get a job with a network to cover recruiting. With Howie & CardinalSports.com Chris will have access to other school’s experts, camp information, interview opportunties, Howie’s radio show on 790 AM and this will really aid Chris career…and quite frankly Louisville’s recruiting coverage for the program overall.

What Does It Mean?

TheCrunchZone.com will continue to deliver recruiting information to our readers. We have some moves in the works that will have us up and running in a few weeks.

Chris Person will continue to be a friend of the site as we are indebted to him and he is working for a great outlet. We imagine that the public may see CardinalSports.com & other outlets as separate and competing entities for Cardinal Athletics eyeballs…and while that is somewhat true, we really see ourselves as one of several great areas of Louisville Cardinal storytelling. Chris is simply going to have more resources than ever to do that for you. And we’ll create an opportunity here at TCZ for the next storyteller.

Other TCZ alumni working in media

Chris Person now joins an evolving alumni of TheCrunchZone.com contributors who have extended their reach beyond TCZ. Conner (Galle) Hughes is a producer for Good Morning Kentuckiana with Terry Meiners on WHAS11, Mike Lindsey has a regular spot with Drew Deener on ESPN Louisville, Daryl Foust hosts Kentucky Women Talks Sports on 970 AM, Dave Lackford publishes FlaVarsity.com and writes for KentuckyPreps.com, Seth Bloom now does Social Media for Eastbay athletic gear in Wisconsin, Adam Creech is one of the best photographers in the city and has shot for just about every local outlet. It’s just a matter of time before someone comes calling for ThatBoysGood (Joe Kelly) and our current photographer William Caudill.

Mike & I are incredibly proud of Chris and all of the folks who have contributed to TheCrunchZone.com over the years. It’s proven to be a place where people can come in with a self-starting attitude and really work on their craft and turn it into the next step in their career. Other outlets are watching and that’s very flattering and encouraging of the environment that we have here at TheCrunchZone.com.

We’d like to congratulate Chris Person on his move and we can’t wait to see what’s next!