Riherds.com football scoreboard celebrating 10^th year

© Bluegrasspreps.com

 

 

Imagine driving home from a high school football game and waiting until the next morning to find out the score of a game on the other side of the state.

 

Imagine wanting to look up the schedule of your next opponent and having to tabulate their scores and wins on a separate piece of paper.

 

For the past decade, that hasn’t been the case as the Riherds.com/KHSAA scoreboards has been providing scores, schedules, and stats for the major high school team sports in Kentucky.

 

While other websites (such as Bluegrasspreps.com) also provide scores and schedules, the Riherds.com scoreboard is recognized as the first. When the football season begins next week, the scoreboard will celebrate its 10^th birthday.

 

The scoreboard was the brainchild of Frank T. Riherd, who began the scoreboard as a way to drive business to his family’s sporting goods store in Glasgow.

 

“During a conversation with my father, I used the examples of sports scores to illustrate the point of how useful web sites could be for presenting and organizing large amounts of data,” Riherd said. “We sort of looked at each other and said ‘Why not do a web site presenting schedule and score data from Kentucky high school sports?’

 

The Riherds.com scoreboard was born.

 

In the fall of 1997, Frank launched a trial site with football scores from south central Kentucky, utilizing local radio stations to call in the scores of the games they covered.

 

“The feedback was so positive that by the time basketball season came around, we decided to do boys' basketball for the entire state.”

 

Of course, designing the web sites come as second nature to Riherd, an engineer by training.

 

“My nature is to try and find applications for cool technology. I’m sort of like a kid with a new hammer going around for nails to hit,” he said.

 

After launching the new statewide basketball scoreboard, Riherd wanted to expand the scoreboards to include more sports and felt like the Kentucky High School Athletic Association was the perfect partner.

 

“My assumption was that the KHSAA had that information already, and it was just a question of making an arrangement with them to put that online. But we learned that with the exception of football, they had no database of scores except for the post season tournaments,” Riherd said. “They published basketball schedules in printed form, but they were often not 100-percent complete.”

 

Riherd got to work creating a branch of the scoreboard database that allowed schools to enter the schedules and scores of their teams.

 

“That is the backbone of the scoreboard,” he said.

 

Butch Cope, director of media relations for the KHSAA, calls the scoreboards “a great service enjoyed by the fans.”

 

“People are looking strictly for scores, schedules, and stats (through the site), and we are only a handful of state athletic associations that have taken on such a task,” added Cope.

 

Since it’s inception a decade ago, there are now specific scoreboards for eight sports in the state. In addition, Riherd has built databases to keep track of statistics and schedules for each sport, and specific school information for the KHSAA website.

 

“We have used Mr. Riherd's services with regard to databases and with our files, developed online entry of rosters, uploading team photos, and a number of other projects. He has a great love of the computer side of operations, as well as being from Kentucky a great pride in high school athletics,” said Cope, who added that he and interns help staff the scoreboard each night to enter scores in a timely matter for the website.

 

That job used to fall on Riherd and made for long days. Riherd created and still runs the scoreboard websites from his home in France.

 

“Many times in the early days, I'd get up at 3am (France time) to listen to voicemails and enter scores in the database. Now, the KHSAA has some help from interns to do that on game nights so I don't do that so often,” he said.

 

Riherd moved to Europe in 1985 to work for a semiconductor company that was based in California. When the contract expired, he decided to stay in France.

 

Despite the seven-hour time difference to Kentucky, Riherd said being halfway around the world has its advantages.

 

“So much of what I do is behind-the-scenes technical support and development work, and that makes it very convenient to do that at night in Kentucky when everyone's sleeping. It's not good to take a server down in the middle of the day, but no one matters when it's 3am there, but 10am in France,” he said.

 

Last school year, Cope said the various scoreboard sites generated over 15-million hits, or requests for files.

 

“In the early days, I was thrilled when there were 300 page views per game night. Now, during peak periods, it isn't unusual to have that many page views in a 60-second interval,” said Riherd, who added that web traffic to the scoreboards in the last six years has increased ten-fold. That has caused him to get a web server just for the scoreboard to handle all the traffic.

 

In addition to the KHSAA and the fans, the biggest benefactor of the scoreboards has been Riherds.com Sporting Goods.

 

“I think it's been instrumental to the success of Riherds.com. We went from a retail business that sold trophies as a side business to one that sells only trophies and awards where the large majority of our customers come to us via the Internet,” Riherd said. “I credit the Scoreboard with generating a lot of traffic to Riherds.com. Of course, some of it comes from links to Riherds.com on the Scoreboard but a lot has come from raising the visibility and name recognition of Riherds.com.”

 

Despite the success enjoyed by the Riherds.com scoreboards, the number of hits to the scoreboard and hits to the family business don’t faze Riherd when asked if he knew ten years ago that the scoreboard would enjoy the success it has across the state.

 

“I knew it would happen. We weren't copying anyone. We were doing something completely new, and there was no other way to get the information the Scoreboard provides in one place.”

 

Click here for the Riherds.com/KHSAA/Bluegrasspreps.com football scoreboard

Terrific! I don't know what I would do without the scoreboard. I love it!

France?!? I'm glad he had the spare time on his hands. I can't imagine waiting for the scores like it used to be.

I, for one, think the Riherds.com scoreboard is fantastic and I am thrilled we are able to partner with Riherds.com and the KHSAA on the scoreboard.

Sports existed before the scoreboard?

 

No, seriously, the scoreboard is wonderful.

Sports existed before the scoreboard?

 

No, seriously, the scoreboard is wonderful.

 

I agree. It really hits you when you go to most other states and realize Riherds.com is way superior to what they have.

I have stayed up late into the night on many friday's just for Riherds. Thanks guys.

My only wish is that it had been done sooner. I certainly could not imagine not having it.

I remember the scoreboard back in the days of 'dial up'.

 

You knew it was there....just couldn't quite reach it. I would be up very late waiting for the eastern time zone to go to bed so I could gain access.

 

 

In Bowling Green we used to depend on the "Dixie Creme Scoreboard Show" brought to you be Dixie Creme Donuts.

 

They were making donuts while the show was on AM.

Thank you Riherds!