Division III signings

Tough to put a blanket statement on he coverage of signings/commitments. You've got to know your market. In a few communities, a prep kid playing a sport in college is huge. In a DII or DIII town, there can be some big recruits. In the majority of places, DI is the only big deal.

 

We're a small paper (getting smaller by the day unfortunately) but my policy has always been, if you get a chance to play anywhere at the "next level", from D1 to the local JUCO, I'll take a "signing day" picture of you and your family, your coach, etc. and write a little 8-10 inch story. Yes, I know, it's a boring photo, blah blah but you're still among the elite in your sport and it's a nice pat on the back for earning the chance to play at the next level.

I usually make my story more of a feature/profile or cover an angle that I haven't written before. There have been several times i've learned some neat stuff from my 10-15 minute interview with the kid and his family that I never knew, something that makes a good story or gives me something to watch for in their upcoming season, etc.

 

Holy goodness. I wouldn't wish that task on anyone.

 

Not sure a kid playing JUCO could be called elite. Not all of those kids, anyway. I've seen some JUCO players that didn't belong anywhere near the field/court/whatever.

I agree, though, that it depends on the size of the paper, among other things. I can't imagine a paper with more than 20K circ having any reason to run a 10-inch story with an awful signing photo of a D3 athlete.

 

I'm that someone, and I love it. Finding a local kid at some college 1,500 miles away ... it makes it worth scanning all those Web sites. To me, anyway.

 

You're a crazy bastard, Shot. Crazy with a capital C.

 

It also depends on the school and sport. The St. Cloud Times in Minnesota has a circ. of probably 50,000 and they have numerous stories in the spring about players who say they are going to go play football at St. John's, which has one of the more famed football programs in the country. They don't do dorky fake signing pics, but there are 15-inch stories, blog posts, and lots of quotes from most of the kids.

 

Hey, I don't have time for D-III signings either.

 

it's been said, but if you're a d-1 community, no, lower levels probably not a big deal. but there are a ton of other communities that have a d-2 or d-3 school in town or in the area. those fans are just as rabid as the d-1s, and they'll read what you write.

 

Small Town Guy beat me to it.

Say you're in southeastern Connecticut and a kid commits to play baseball Eastern Connecticut State University, which has won multiple national titles and is maybe a bit over an hour away. Also, the local area has had a number of All-America players who played at Eastern.

Side note: Eastern and Division II University of New Haven (especially when the great Porky Vieira was coaching) were the schools of choice for instate baseball players who wanted to stay in Connecticut. UConn was the third choice.

An aside on the "What's They're Doing In College" roundups. Papers up here in upstate New York will sometimes run a half-page of them. People eat it up.

The only feature of that type that gets read more widely is the "Local Players in the Minor Leagues."

I know that's dependent on the size of your paper and coverage area and the quality of your players.

 

The good thing about all of this is the D-III colleges can't make any kind of comment on an athlete until actually enrolled. It's up to the high school/family to get the word out, and a lot of them don't realize that.

 

My guess is you don't follow much college baseball. Every year there are blue-chip recruits that sign with a junior college in case they're not drafted high enough or cannot agree to a contract.

In doing so, they can be eligible for the draft the following year.