The TDS Eulogies: Robert Steeg

Like so many other SB Nation team sites over the past few years, the Daily Stampede website as you know it is going bye bye. We’ve anticipated this coming for long time now and have shifted our content towards our YouTube, Twitch, and Discord channels in recent months. While our staff still irons out the details over where to find us in the future, they offer a proper eulogy for our beloved “HATEBLOG.” First up: Steeg!

In 2017, as a recent graduate of the now pre-eminent and AAU University of South Florida, I was working odd jobs doing sales and working as a marketing director for a notable chicken sandwich place that’s closed on Sunday. I was missing the direction and passion in life, so I reached out to Collin Sherwin at The Daily Stampede to inquire about helping write for USF football since I had such a strong passion for college football (at the time).

Now, a little background about my writing career up to that point:

• I hated writing
• I had no formal writing experience
• I never took a professional writing class, communications course, and was notably bad at writing essays throughout high school and college

Clearly, I was ready for the big leagues of writing for a Division 1 university football program. Thus, he told me to start writing in 2017 independently, doing pre-game previews, post-game wrap ups, key moments, etc. for the entire season to see what my stories looked like. After a full season of writing 26 different stories, I reached back out to Collin (who quickly passed me off to Nate) to express my interest in writing for this beloved university. I did everything I could to convince him to bring me on, showcasing my knowledge about college football offenses, mentioning I have a camera and can do photography, expressed my desire to learn more about other sports that I don’t have as much familiarity with (I still don’t quite understand baseball terminology). I could tell he could see the passion I had for the university, that many of us share, and he decided to bring me on.

Now six years later, countless articles have been written, numerous photographs captured, a myriad of minutes recording podcasts completed, but most importantly an endless number of memories and more friends I could ever ask for are things I can hang my hat on. I wanted to pride myself on describing my writing and being a member of the media as “approachable”. Always keeping my DMs open, painting things in a positive light, acting a fool on the podcast, and recently being the voice of hope and reason that things can turn around. I had hardly considered myself a professional member of the media (clearly) and being the comedic relief (read: idiot) of the group became my schtick.

While this chapter of The Daily Stampede is closing, the dream will not die. We didn’t give up after the “Were we not 7-0?” moment, we didn’t give up after USF basketball left two players at an airport, we didn’t give up after Steve Masiello was USF’s head basketball coach for 20 minutes before discovering that he didn’t actually graduate from college, and we certainly didn’t give up after the lows of the Jeff Scott era. The highs were always around the corner. Watching generational athletes like Evelyne Viens, Quinton Flowers, Georgina Corrick, Shane McClanahan compete, but remembering that these are 18-22 year old kids who are chasing their own dreams. Chatting with coaches at local bars and putting them in the Pippa Harness. Interacting with fellow fans of the program and having fun sharing memories both new and old.

RIP TDS, long live H A T E B L O G