Sports Editor/writer, Powell, WY

Not every sport deserves a full-blown story. And offer to have coaches write-up events.

 

If you want other people doing your work, than I guess that is a way to go. Although, I do let coaches write up middle school sports and send it in. I cover some JV and fish stuff when I have time, but no way do I cover middle school. So, I guess, I could understand you letting coaches do those stories if they want something in the paper.

 

I'm not going to kill myself to cover a cross country meet or some other sport that hardly anyone cares about except the athletes involved or their relatives. There is a reason there is an college football story on the front page of a local sports section on Saturday's in the fall instead of coverage of the local CC meet.

 

There is not a story on the college football game at a weekly or even a semi-weekly that has a larger paper near. Or at least I hope not. If you are paying for AP coverage at a weekly then FAIL.

 

Actually, a sport like cross country made filling a section a lot easier a few times. It's only about two hours of work at a meet. It's simple to get photos. You grab a quote from a kid or two right after the race so you don't have to wait around for them, and then the extra photos can take up space inside to lighten your work load on a particular week. If the weather's nice and it doesn't overlap with watching college football, then covering a cross country meet's a breeze.

Also, in smaller communities with one high school, I've found that a lot of the people in the community care about how their cross country or soccer or tennis teams are doing, even if they don't care enough to go watch in person.

Now if the local football team is one of the best in the state that season, then things are a bit different.

That said, I agree completely that not every sport merits a full-length story on every competition. And especially when it comes to middle school stuff, having the coach submit results or a short writeup is the way to go. And if a parent whines that their middle school or JV team isn't getting covered, the old line of, "I agree completely that I'd like to have your kid's team included, but I have limited hours as a one-person staff so if YOU would like to track down the results and submit them to me then I will do my best to get it included when I have space available." Putting the onus on the whiny parent has worked well for me in the past when they try to demand more out of you.

 

Powell is not in oil country. It's just east of Cody about 20 miles, so it's a little more than an hour from Yellowstone. Gorgeous country but terribly isolated.

 

My last stop was a weekly and we covered one high school. We pretty much exhausted everything we could out of it.

 

My point wasn't about using the AP. My point was that there is a reason certain sports are covered more extensively than others. Not too many people in any community are going to care about high school tennis or cross country. Some are, but not enough to justify full-blown coverage of every meet.

 

Agreed.