TSL Announces New Staff Writer, Ricky LaBlue

TechSideline.com is pleased to announce the addition of Ricky LaBlue to our writing staff. A 2016 Virginia Tech graduate in Multimedia Journalism, Ricky will be our main recruiting writer and will provide beat writing duties as well. He will focus on football, basketball, recruiting and other Virginia Tech sports.

Ricky will join TSL on June 15th as a full-time writer and employee of the site. He is the first full-time addition to our staff since Chris Coleman was hired in 2005 after working for one year as an intern.

As a junior at Virginia Tech, Ricky served as the Sports Editor of Virginia Tech’s student newspaper, the Collegiate Times. He transitioned to Managing Editor halfway through his junior year. As a senior, he served as Editor in Chief of the entire paper, managing 15 editors and approximately 60 staff members. Ricky was an accomplished student writer, covering multiple sports for the CT for the last two years, including football and men’s and women’s basketball. He will bring the background of a trained journalist to TechSideline.com’s coverage of Virginia Tech athletics.

We at TSL are very excited about adding Ricky LaBlue to the staff. He will enable us to broaden and deepen our coverage of Virginia Tech athletics and recruiting, and will help enhance TechSideline.com’s reputation as your one-stop shop for all things Hokie sports.

Expanding Our Commitment to Hokie Sports Coverage

With Ricky’s addition, TechSideline.com now boasts a roster of three full-time staffers with a total of 34 years covering Virginia Tech athletics:

• Will Stewart: 20 years (1996-2016)
• Chris Coleman: 12 years (2004-2016)
• Ricky LaBlue: 2 years (2014-2016)

Adding Ricky to our staff strengthens TechSideline.com in two ways: (1) As well-received and established as TSL has been for the last 20 years, Ricky is our first trained journalist on staff, and he will bring focus and rigor to our operations, via his Virginia Tech Multimedia Journalism degree and his experience at the Collegiate Times. (2) With another writer on staff, we’ll be able to expand and improve our coverage greatly, including our free coverage of Hokie sports.

Please follow Ricky on Twitter (and tweet a welcome to him) at @RickyLaBlue.

And now, we’ll step aside to let Ricky introduce himself.

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From Ricky LaBlue:

Talk about a whirlwind of a month!

Hello, TSL faithful … I’m Ricky LaBlue and I’ll be joining TSL as Associate Editor. I’m ecstatic about joining this team and serving you, our readers, in the best way possible.

I graduated from Virginia Tech just a couple of weeks ago, earning a degree in Multimedia Journalism. Luckily, most of my college career consisted of sports writing.

I’ve been involved with sports for most of my life. I grew up in Virginia Beach, Va., a hotbed for high school and prep sports. I played baseball growing up, even playing AAU. At Landstown High School, I was on the golf team and also was the editor of my high school paper, focusing on sports. I still have family in Virginia Beach, and in Tennessee as well, and love making trips home when I can.

At Virginia Tech, I worked at the Collegiate Times (Virginia Tech’s independent, student-run newspaper) for three years, serving as Sports Editor, Managing Editor and ultimately Editor in Chief this past school year (2015-16). I’ve been blessed to cover several Virginia Tech sports while at the CT, including football and basketball. Along the way, I also wrote for the Roanoke Times, Fansided, and Scout.com.

I’ve been an avid sports fan my entire life. I’ve been following Virginia Tech athletics since I was a kid, as well as rooting for the Washington Redskins, Baltimore Orioles and Detroit Pistons. I enjoy watching all sorts of sports. To me, it doesn’t get any better than sports journalism.

TSL is a terrific source of information and analysis of Virginia Tech athletics, and I hope to make it even better. As Associate Editor, I will assist in planning content while executing my primary duties of covering recruiting, football and other sports. It’s important to note that I won’t be replacing Chris or Will in any way; the work I do will be adding to what they already do.

It’s an exciting time at Virginia Tech. It’s the start of a new era at Lane Stadium, Virginia Tech basketball is on the come up, and multiple Tech teams are in the national spotlight. My goal is to help you follow your favorite Virginia Tech teams and hopefully I’ll even learn in the process. Follow me on Twitter at @RickyLaBlue.