Welcome to the Brand New Reign of Troy

We like to try to keep up with the times here at Reign of Troy. So, with the Trojans defense new and improved with a schematic change, and Andy Enfield bringing new blood to the basketball program, it was fitting that we’d give ourselves a facelift too.

Welcome to the new Reign of Troy.

Yeah, yeah, we’ve heard everyone hates change. But today’s a new era in the history of Reign of Troy that we hope will help the site continue to be the No. 1 USC blog on the planet. Jupiter has a killer tumblr-equivalent dedicated to Scott Starr’s hair, but let’s not go there.

So, you’re probably noticing all of the fresh paint in here, along with all of that new site smell.

This is what we call this FanSided 4.0.

It’s a major change but we feel it gives the site a sleeker, more modern look, and it’s slowly being rolled out throughout the FanSided network.

The site was designed with you, the reader, in mind. Here’s some of the main features that you’ll want to check out.

• We now have bigger feature areas to help make it easier for you find the RoT content you love.
• We have also worked to get more USC content in front of you than ever before! If you look on the left side of the page when you are on the main page and the right side of the page when you are inside a story, you will see other trending USC stories from around the FanSided Network.That means if Saturday Blitz, LA Sports Hub, Busting Brackets or FanSided.com has a new story on the Trojans up, you are probably going to see it on Reign of Troy, right at your finger tips.
• Another really cool aspect of the new site is that after you are done reading an article and leaving comments, all you need to do is scroll down and the front page stories are there for you to continue exploring. No more hitting the back button on your browser to check out that other story that looked interesting when you arrived. Just scroll down past the comments and keep checking out the rest of Reign of Troy.
• Finally, the page is now set up with infinite scroll. You can scroll down and keep getting content without having to click next and waiting forever for another page to load. This should help speed up your navigation around the site and help you find more content faster.

But wait, there’s more.

In order to truly make today the beginning of the next chapter at Reign of Troy, it’s important to pass the torch.

RoT was founded in 2010 by two USC students, Danny Savitzky and Alejandro Madrid. They named the site after words written upon Tommy Trojan and thus, it was born here at FanSided.

The site steadily moved along until 2011, when Savitzky and Madrid moved on to bigger, better opportunities at school and at other writing publications.

After a period as quiet as the Ted Tollner era, USC student Trenise Ferreira took the reigns in October 2011 when Joey Kaufman’s old roost So Cal Sports Hub, then led by Derek Hart, joined with FanSided. Not long after that, another USC student, Michael Castillo joined Trenise as the second set of co-editors here at RoT.

Together, Michael and Trenise took Reign of Troy to new heights in 2012, along with the addition of a strong staff including Charles Gilmore and Alicia De Artola. The site was featured across a smattering of mainstream media sites and a social media presence was took flight, highlighted by a rather ironic appearance on SportsCenter via one of the most retweeted tweets from the sports blogosphere ever.

So far in 2013, the site has continued to grow, along with the presence of the student voice of USC sports, Evan Budrovich.

But alas, real life came calling and other opportunities arose, just like with RoT’s original founders, Savitzky and Madrid.

Now graduated, Michael scored a full-time position as a designer and marketing coordinator with FanSided. Trenise, now a grad student at Cal, has been named as the lead USC pundit over at Bleacher Report. And Evan, after becoming a fan favorite on Twitter for his reporting, has been given the keys to his own empire over at Conquest Chronicles.

And so with the growth and new-found opportunities at hand, Reign of Troy needed a few new hands at the wheel. It’s only fitting we’ve found two more USC alums as the next set of co-editors at RoT, keeping the lineage alive and signalling yet another “Destined Reign of Troy”.

Meet our newest editors: Alicia De Artola and Andie Hagemann.

Alicia, a USC alum from the Valley, isn’t new around here. In fact, she’s been with RoT for over a year as mentioned earlier, and you’ve probably crossed paths with her on Twitter under the name Penguin of Troy. She’s loves tight end touchdowns, Liverpool, Castle and brings an objective fan perspective to the editorship at Reign of Troy.

Andie, another USC alum living in Los Angeles, you probably know from Twitter and her video work over at USCFootball.com. She’s covered the Trojans for the last four years and spent time at the Daily Trojan while at USC. She brings plenty of experience and insight on the Trojans to RoT.

A new era at Reign of Troy begins…now.

We hope you enjoy the new RoT. Take some time to look around and explore the new format, and don’t forget to give our new editors a welcome in the comments.

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