Darin Hayes is a lifelong resident of Erie, Pennsylvania, where he attended high school and graduated college. Hayes always had an avid interest in sports, participating in football, soccer, basketball, baseball, and softball. As a youngster, he collected football cards reading the back of each card on the statistics of the players and their accomplishments. This interest in sports numbers became a passion when his father gave him an NFL book of records as a pre-teen, which he leafed through so much that the binding wore out!

 Darin took this love of being a part of the games to adulthood, where officiated high school football for 27 seasons and even dabbled as a softball umpire for half a decade. In the early 2000s, Hayes contributed to several athletic-based websites, including SportsCombine.com and Officiating.com. This online experience allowed him to express his interest in football history and general sports lore.

2010 photo of Darin Hayes (left) with then McDowell High School Head Coach Mark Soboleski

When his officiating journey was made, Hayes returned to his passion for preserving football history by starting the PigskinDispatch.com website and Pigskin Daily Dispatch Podcast in early 2020.

In the late summer of 2020, Darin and Pigskin Dispatch joined the Sports History Network as a partner, adding podcasts and some written content to the site. Naturally, he was drawn to the Professional Football Researchers Association and has been an active member ever since.

A photo taken July of 2021 at the PFRA Conference in Canton, Ohio at the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Picturesd are Sports History Network podcasters Dan Neumann, Tommy Phillips, Darin Hayes, and Joe Ziemba. (Photo courtesy of Carol Ziemba)

In January 2022, a second website was launched, JerseyDispatch.com, and a venture in creating/co-producing an audio drama Orville Mulligan: Sportswriter, with its OrvilleMulligan.com site in conjunction with Os Davis to create Number 80 Productions Company. The SportsJersey Dispatch Podcast soon followed, and Hayes produced/hosted over 1500 podcasts in a three-year time frame, including a continual daily podcast release for almost three years straight!

Photo of a December 2022  Zoom podcast interview of Darin with  author of multiple books and FootballArchaeology.com, Timothy P. Brown

As he continued updating the website, podcasts, and audio drama content on the respective projects in 2023, he launched the YesteryearHub.com website as a central place or “hub” for his various projects and joined the by invitation only Vintage Football Collectors forum. With future ambitions to enhance all of the projects with more content, Hayes also plans to write some books on Sports History and content for Sports-Reference websites, including Pro-Football-Reference.com and College Football-Reference.com. To be continued….