Stilian Shishkov

By DAVID HAYS
Lander Sports Information

Stilian Shishkov is the all-time leading scorer in the history of Lander men's soccer. Fourteen years after graduating Lander, he is back on top as founder and Chief Executive Officer of the largest online media company in his native Bulgaria.

Shishkov has succeeded ever since leaving Lander with a degree in Business Administration.

He played professional soccer for five years in Virginia Beach and Atlanta, became executive director of that Atlanta squad for several years, and when that team took a hiatus, he went back home to southeastern Europe.

"I started an online media company four years ago called MSK Group (www.msk.bg)," Shishkov, now 38, said. "Today we are the largest online media company in Bulgaria. The most popular portal we have is Sportal.bg which is similar to ESPN.com. Currently we own and operate 40 internet portals."

According to the MSK Group home page, the www.sportal.bg web site is the main source for sports information of all the Bulgarian media. The sportal.bg team of more than 30 journalists provides sports news for bTV, the first private-owned national television channel in Bulgaria and reportedly the channel with the largest audience.

Not bad for an idea just started between friends.

"It was basically a fun project that turned out very big," said Shishkov, who has been living in the Bulgarian capitol city of Sofia since 2008. "We started getting a lot of traffic."

Despite playing just three years at Lander, Shishkov smashed Maurice Alibey's school record of 72 career goals, with 93 goals from 1993-95. Shishkov owns the top three single seasons of scoring with 32 goals in both 1993 and '94, and 29 more in 1995. In fact, the next highest total is Ashton Payne's 24 goals in 1990.

Shishkov was a three-time Peach Belt Conference Player of the Year and three-time All-American at Lander. His school career scoring record is probably untouchable. A player would have to average more than 23 goals over a four-year career to surpass Shishkov's total of 93.

Shishkov also created scoring opportunities for teammates, collecting 15 assists in 1994 to give him a single-season school record of 79 points (two points for a goal, one per assist). He has the school record for career points with 210 to 181 for second-place Alibey, who played four years.

More importantly, Lander was successful when Shishkov was here. The then Senators posted records of 18-3, 17-3 and 16-4-1 for a total of 51 wins, 10 losses and a tie. But they were eliminated from the Peach Belt Tournament all three years by USC Spartanburg (now USC Upstate), even though Lander beat the Rifles during the regular season two of those three seasons.

Shishkov did not agonize over his college choice.

"I sent a few letters to a few colleges and got some responses," he remembers. "When I talked on the phone with Coach (Van) Taylor, one phone call with him basically made me want to come to Lander and put all the others aside. It was the best choice for me to come to Lander."

Taylor has posted a 352-142-26 record over his 26 years at the school.

"He was very straight forward. He sounded like a very honest man. He sounded very trustworthy," Shishkov said of Taylor, who enters his 27th year as head coach in 2011. "There weren't any promises or anything. I just got good vibes and good feelings about him and everything he said."

"Stilian was an outstanding player who represented Lander University with distinction both on and off the field," Taylor said. "Stilian has always been a very hard worker who today through his efforts has been a highly successful business man. I look forward to tracking his future accomplishments."

Shishkov was the first Bulgarian soccer player at Lander but would be followed by countrymen Marian Goranov and Milen Gaganelov (1997), Ivaylo Iontchev (1999), Martin Petrov (2004) and more recently the high-scoring Ivan Stoykov (2006-2009).

Upon his arrival to Lander more than 17 years ago, Shishkov was impressed with the campus. The Finis Horne Arena, which is adjacent to the soccer field, had just opened.

"It was my first time in the States," he said. "Lander had very nice facilities. They had just built the new athletic facility and gym. It was very appealing. I liked it very much."

Lander won 82 percent of its games while Shishkov was here. But what he remembers most was the camaraderie.

"I enjoyed being with my friends and teammates, winning games with them, playing USC Spartanburg and the other colleges. I was very fortunate to have them as teammates for three years. We were a very good team, we were good friends, and we enjoyed every game we played, every practice, we had a great time."

After graduating Lander in 1997, Shishkov signed a professional soccer contract with the Hampton Roads Mariners of the United Soccer Leagues A-League, which was the second division in the professional soccer hierarchy.

The team was located in Virginia Beach, Va., and in his one year there (1996) Shishkov was able to receive his U.S. citizenship.

Shishkov then joined the Atlanta Ruckus, who in 1998 would change their name to the Atlanta Silverbacks in honor of a silverback gorilla named Willie B., who was a main attraction at Zoo Atlanta until his death.

Shishkov played in Atlanta from 1997-2001 and team writer Josh Bagriansky referred to him as the "Bulgarian Bomber." He briefly played with Temoc Suarez, a University of North Carolina All-American and Olympian who once played at Cambridge Academy in Greenwood as a child.

Shishkov was approached about moving from the playing field to the front office for the Silverbacks.

"The owners of the team came to me and offered me the job as a general manager," he recalls. "I wanted to get into the business of soccer. So I decided to stop playing although I was only in my 20's at the time. I wanted to transition from a player to a manager. So when they offered the job, it was an easy decision for me."

But the Silverbacks took a hiatus in 2009 and 2010 as ownership assessed the overall landscape of professional soccer. They resume play in April 2011 as members of the North American Soccer League.

While the Silverbacks were taking a break, Shishkov was launching his online media company which would receive startling success.

Written in the Bulgarian language with the Cyrillic alphabet which is common to southeastern Europe, the web pages are not readable for the average American. The www.sportal.bg web site features a lot of soccer, tennis and some other sports, with many pictures and videos.

The leader in the development, management and marketing of entertainment and news on the Bulgarian internet market, the MSK Group's portals also include Data.bg, Woman.bg, Hotnews.bg, Profit.bg, Top.bg, Insurance.bg, Men.bg, Topcars.bg, GSM.bg, etc.

They have more than 550,000 absolute unique visitors per day according to Google Analytics, more than 3.9 million unique visitors per month, and an active e-mail database of more than 1.8 million.

Profit.bg, for instance, was recognized as the best business website in Bulgaria for 2009. The acknowledgment came from the Bulgarian Stock Exchange, which selected the website as the electronic media that covered most accurately and professionally the news from the capital market that year.

Shishkov is happy to be back in his home city of Sofia, the largest city in the country with approximately 1.4 million people.

"Bulgaria joined the European Union a few years ago and has a population of around 8.5 million people," he said when asked to describe his home country. "A lot of tourists come to Bulgaria. We have very nice ski resorts and very nice beach resorts (on the Black Sea) in Bulgaria.

"The internet is very developed in Bulgaria. There are a lot of internet companies here. Some of the top web sites in the world have started in Bulgaria. There are a lot of Americans in Bulgaria as well. It's much better than when I left Bulgaria (in 1993)."

Shishkov's personal life is also going well. His girlfriend is having a baby in April and "we are very happy about that," he said.

Shishkov has been able to do a lot of traveling around Europe and some tropical locales, and often comes back to Atlanta. Meanwhile, Lander is never far from his mind.

"I am still in touch with my (Lander) teammates and my friends," he said. "We see each other once or twice a year when I come to the States. I still have a house in Atlanta. We still have good relationships."