D9SPORTS.COM

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

D9Sports.com is a web site devoted to covering recognized high school sports in the PIAA’s ninth District, which consists of 35 high schools (32 public and 3 private) in the following 11 Pennsylvania counties: Butler (parts), Cameron, Clarion, Clearfield (parts), Elk, Forest (excluding Abraxas), Jefferson, McKean, Potter, Warren (parts) and Venango (parts). School’s located in those counties that are not part of the PIAA will not be covered. The web site is not affiliated with the PIAA or with District 9.

The web site is a mainly voluntarily run site with no money being charged at this time to view the site. We have recently started to find sponsors for various aspects of the web site so that we can continue to provide and expand coverage of the great student-athletes and teams in District 9. 

The goal of the site is to cover as many sports as possible, but because time constraints of the fact that the site is still primarily volunteer in nature may not be possible to give equal coverage to each sport or to give coverage to all sports at all times. Volunteers to help cover sports are always welcome and encouraged.

D9sports.com was formed at the start of the 2000-2001 school year and is starting its 13th season of covering District 9 sports in 2012-2013.

Rosters and schedules can be submitted for every sport. We also accept stories and statistics for football and boys’ and girls’ basketball at this time. Information can be e-mailed to us at sports@d9sports.com. If you have any questions about what kind of information we are looking for, we encourage you to send us an e-mail.

Right now e-mail is the best way to submit information to us. If you can't e-mail, please call 814-221-8015 and we will try to find a different way to have you submit the information. 

If your team’s information is not posted it means one of a couple of things. Either we aren’t currently posting information for that sport (ie. no other team’s information for a particular sport is posted either) or your coach hasn’t submitted the information to us. Fans are welcome to submit information for sports that coaches have failed to do so in by e-mailing us at sports@d9sports.com.

D9Sports.com was an extension of a KSAC boys’ basketball web site that was formed for the 1999-2000 season by Chris Rossetti and Jonathan Shaffer that was found on GeoCities. In the spring of 2000, Rich Rhoades, then the Sports Editor of the DuBois Courier Express/Tri-County Sunday approached Rossetti, who was the assistant Sports Information Director at Clarion University, the former Sports Editor at the Clarion News and a part-time writer at both the Clarion News and DuBois Courier Express/Tri-County Sunday, and Shaffer, who was a part-time sports writer for the Clarion News and the DuBois Courier-Express and a student worker in the Clarion University Sports Information Office, and suggested forming a web site covering all of District 9.

The idea for D9Sports.com was hatched at Clarion’s County Seat Restaurant in April of 2000 and work on the site began almost immediately with the site going into operation in June of 2000.

Rossetti, Rhoades, Andy Close and Dustin Kifer run D9Sports.com today.

Rossetti dabbles in just about everything to do with local sports and says ones of his favorites was the four years (2006-2009) he served as the host of the All American Awards & Engraving Monday Evening Quarterback Show live from the RRR Roadhouse in Clarion Mall on Monday's during football season He also picking up additional newspaper and some radio work and has been writing for the last few years.for the national high school web site MaxPreps.com, which is owned by CBS, and thinks it is pretty cool to be a writer for a national media outlet. He is a 1998 graduate of Indiana University of Pennsylvania with degrees in Political Science and Journalism. He is married to the Shenessa a West Forest graduate who has since traded in her West Forest blue and gold for East Forest orange and black as the school nurse at the Marienville-based East Forest, where she spent a year as the assistant coach/junior varsity coach of the Forest Area girls' volleyball team.

Rhoades, who spent over a half a decade away from the newspaper business working at WDBA Radio in DuBois, has returned to his newspaper roots as the Sports Editor of the Jeffersonian Democrat, a weekly newspaper in Brookville. He is a graduate of Grove City College with degree in Journalism and Political Science. He was born in Hawaii but hasn't been back since he was a baby. Rich and his wife Kim have one son, Jamison.

Kifer originally came on board as a contributing writer to D9Sports.com while a student at nearby Union High School. His involvement took a break when he went away to Grove City College, where he graduated with a degree in Secondary Education/Math in December 2007. He is  math teacher  at Keystone High School and is responsible for making sure the two "real" journalists in the group keep their math straight. In addition to his work on the web site and at Keystone, he is also employed part-time by Clarion Broadcasting working both on-air and off-air shifts at C-93, 92.7 FM and 1300 AM in Clarion. He and Rossetti team up to do high school baseball and softball on Radio 13 in the Spring and Summer, and he will join Rossetti as the co-host of the All American Award & Engraving Monday Evening Quarterback show in the Fall of 2008 after serving as the producer and part-time co-host in 2007. Dustin's radio work also includes doing some of the C-93 basketball and football games, and he recently married the former Kelli Wiseman. The couple has twins - Andrew and Emma.

Close, who is originally from Warren, joined the D9Sports.com team as a writer while a student at Clarion University. He has been the assistant sports editor at the Bradford Era since the Summer of 2010. A starting wide receiver on the Warren football team while in high school, Close was selected for the Big 30 game but declined. 

In 2001, Shaffer decided because of other commitments to tone down some of his involvement with the web site but remained a part of the site before moving to Nashville, Tenn., in late July 2004. He remains in close contact with the staff at D9Sports.com and continues to check the web site regularly. He was a sports radio personality/producer for ESPN Radio in Nashville and hosted a Tennessee Titans pre-game show in the fall while also hosting a Titans player's show on Mondays during the football season among a host of other radio responsibilities. He currently works for Grand Ole Opry Radio and is doing high school football on Friday night's in Tennessee.. 

No one knows what is in store for D9Sports.com in the future, but the goal is to continue to provide District 9 sports fans with the best possible Internet coverage in not only the district but in the state. New ideas are constantly being discussed and implemented to improve the site.