T     he year was 2003: I was a sleepy 7^th grader who had never heard of apps, iPhones, or Thuuz. I loved Monday Night Football and spent every Tuesday talking with my friends about the craziness of the NFL. It was three years after Y2K; Priest Holmes was dominating in Kansas City, Brett Favre was still a member of the Green Bay Packers and Aaron Rodgers was a California Golden Bear.

Phones and technology were also drastically different. The world’s most popular phone, the Nokia 1100, was already in everyone’s pocket and people had yet to dream about an iPhone 5 or Galaxy S3. Microsoft offered to merge with Google, but was turned down.  This was a time some iPhone users may be too young to remember, when iPods still had those four buttons above the wheel that were phased out in 2003. Time’s 2003 Invention of the Year was the Apple iTunes Music Store, humbly beginning with a legal way to download music. It was a time before the technology that we take for granted, a time that was past my bedtime on a late October night.
 
It was after midnight on the east coast on October 6, 2003. Peyton Manning led his Indianapolis Colts against the defending Super Bowl champion Tampa Bay Buccaneers on Monday night. I, along with everyone else, was excited to watch Peyton’s explosive offense against a suffocating Tampa defense. Sadly, there wasn’t much of a game to watch as Tampa Bay went into halftime leading 21-0. Undefeated Indianapolis looked unprepared, and, when interviewed, Peyton Manning said, “I wanted to know what time the plane was leaving.” The second half started, and as the Colts comeback looked done as Tampa corner Ronde Barber returned an interception for a touchdown with 9:51 left in the game.

I dropped my head, turned my TV off, and eventually fell asleep. According to Peyton Manning, I wasn’t the only one.
 

Nobody stayed up, I mean besides our parents, families, wives. No friends. I had voicemails going, ‘What happened? How’d you let Tampa do that to you in Dungy’s hometown.

 
I arrived at school the next day to see everyone gathering, discussing one of the greatest comebacks in NFL history, and quoting Peyton on how everyone went to bed.

After Tony Dungy pulled his starters, the Colts returned a kick-off 90 yards to start a jaw-dropping Peyton Manning comeback. Dungy put the starters back in and Peyton led his team down the field in overtime to give kicker Mike Vangerjagt a chance to win the game. His first attempt missed, but after an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on Bucs Simeon Rice, the Colts got one more chance and ended one of the most exciting Monday night games ever. The Colts remain the only team in NFL history to win a game from 21 points behind with less than 4 minutes to go.
 
This all happened when I was sound asleep, and Thuuz is here to make sure that never happens again.
 
We’ve all had this experience, we’ve turned the game off a little too early and had to suffer as everyone talks about watching history happen live. Honestly, it’s quite frustrating, and Thuuz is here to fix that.

Thuuz allows users to get scores and updates from favorite teams, and offers two features which are particularly useful to the out of town sports fan. It allows users to enter their zip code and network provider to find the channel of their game. If the games not shown locally there’s a “Find a local sports bar” feature that will open up your map and get you to the game ASAP.

Fantasy fans also have an easy way to track multiple teams. It has an easy upload feature that can import your team from CBS, ESPN, FleaFlicker, NFL.com and Yahoo. It has matchups, standings, scores, and even a Smack Talk feature.
 
All in all it’s a pretty complete sports app. It is similar to others but allows some great customization with finding what channel your game is on and importing any fantasy team, but my favorite feature that places Thuuz above the rest is the Exciting Game alert. I’ll no longer have to hear about amazing games in the morning.
 
Last night as I was doing laundry, seeing as how it’s not 2003 and I’m not in 7^th grade anymore. My phone went off and alerted me: “Exciting Game: Texans at Jets. 23-17, 08:31 4^th. Jets won’t go quietly.” 

I ran to my TV to see a Monday Night Football game that wasn’t quite as exciting as the Colts and Bucs in 2003. With 1:51 remaining in the game Mark Sanchez threw a game ending interception that stopped any hope for a Jets comeback. After that I went to sleep happy knowing if Peyton Manning leads any more 4^th quarter comebacks, Thuuz will make sure I’m the first to know.