Story length at 10,000 daily?

Haha. Not Tom Metters, but what makes you think that? I do work with him.

 

Don't forget about Cheetos.

 

How many readers do you guys even have in the Trimble or Nelsonville-York areas? If you're only 10K, I'd think you'd have even less interest in HS sports than you think b/c most of your readers are gonna be in the Athens or Alexander school districts.

And I feel for you if you must endure more than a single Alexander football game this year.

 

I don't ever remember any of the area teams being good at anything when I was there. N-Y (where KP thinks of when he hears the word Podunk) made the playoffs but was one or two and done. God, I love me some Trimble Tomcat talk.

 

Dude, I found an Trimble Tomcat t-shirt when I was cleaning my stuff out of mom's attic in July

 

The Alexander parents always knew you liked Trimble more.

 

After the shampoo bottle incident, I had no choice

 

12-15 is PLENTY for high school anything. But to impose a hard cap of XX inch count is just moronic. What does that guy do if something comes in at 14? Automatically start cutting from the bottom? "I'll show them to exceed 12!"

 

Metters was a sportswriting genius. He would still be writing recaps from Friday games (there was no Saturday edition) on Monday night.

And I'd guess people care more about OU sports. They always draw at the top of the MAC in football and basketball, and there were always about 40 pct townies. HS football is popular, do they still do the package show on Friday nights at WOUB?, but it's not nearly as important as DI football.

 

Now that I live far away, I run a few times in a week in an Alexander volleyball T-shirt. Bought it before I left. Just a souvenir.

Can't believe Tom Metters is still hanging around. No, actually, I can. He has his faults, but he enjoys what he does.

As for the original question, ouipa, don't write too long. When I was at The Mess, I wrote high school game stories that were far too long. Some stories just don't need to be that long. Period. There is no set-in-stone figure, be it 25 inches or 12. But as you're watching a game, you should be able to figure out just how much a game deserves (and how much you can squeeze out).

 

I believe that's a big yes on Friday Night Frenzy. My brother-in-law teaches at Thornville Sheridan in Perry County and he and my sister watch WOUB most every Friday night rather than the Columbus news. They also watch WHIZ to see how bad their presentation can get, and it gets bad.
Good old Tom. I did a column about him at the state Legion baseball tournament two years ago, and let me say what an experience it was following him for an entire day. The man knows everyone and vice-versa, plus the Legion tournament is his favorite event of the year hands-down. How the management at the paper busted him down a few years back was a disgrace that didn't go unnoticed. He takes some getting used to but he's a fountain of information.
Ouipa, if you get a chance tell him Dave (formerly worked at Lancaster and Newark; I'm now down in Houston) says hello.