What do you guys write about during downtime?

During the holiday season (especially Christmas) not much is going on with prep sports. What do you guys do for local coverage during those times?

 

Take time off.

 

All-Area teams. Team/season wrapups. Team/season previews. Possibly a few features.

 

Always a good time for a feature on a long-time official, maybe a feature on a kid you have not gotten to.

I am one of those people who think you oughta have something local every day, so you plan for filling the time and the holes.

Kids back from college sometimes make for good stories. I try to look for non-mainstream stuff.

We tend to have holiday tournaments during the week.

 

This "downtime" is a concept which my feeble consciousness has difficulty grasping.

 

Down time? I don't know what you're talking about. From a week before Christmas until New Year's Day, every high school boys and girls basketball and soccer teams will be playing nearly every day.

 

local kid makes good in college basketball or hockey.

 

If there are some developmental teams in your area that are 501(c)(3) nonprofits or the like, take a look at their finances. Might turn up something.

 

We're a chain of weeklies, so it's pretty simple.
This week is Thanksgiving Day football wrap ups. Two teams representing three of our six papers are still playing football, so that will eat up space this week with the local college basketball team finishing the section.
Next week, the three papers that have football will be set, and then its on to previews for boys and girls basketball (which started practicing last week).
From there, it's hockey, wrestling, indoor track and, gasp, cheerleading previews, with college basketball and whatever features we have carrying us until New Years.
Then it's back into a groove with games until March, when the cycle starts all over again with spring previews, then games, then its summer and shit really gets thin.

 

What down time? Two weeks between end of flootball payoffs and start of hoops/wrestling = all-area fall sports teams and winter sports previews.
Christmas week = shitloads of basketball tournaments and huge wrestling tournament. Dec. 26- Dec. 30 are non-stop days.
Down time = Christmas Eve and Day and New Years Eve and Day.

 

I'm in Rhody's boat somewhat. I have one high school to cover, and some of the winter sports (wrestling, ice hockey) start this week. Football played on Thanksgiving, but before that, the last high school sport to finish was D-III girls soccer, which I lucked out somewhat in that they won the state championship. So, that got me to around Nov. 10 with various stories.

In the three weeks between the fall and winter sports, I tried to focus on stuff the weeklies don't touch - a middle school basketball tournament, liveblogs for some college basketball games, a weekly running column, roundups of what college athletes from Narragansett have been doing, etc. I run a Patch site, so the need for constant content is a bit more than a typical weekly news cycle though. (If anyone wants to peek: http://narragansett.patch.com/sports )

 

Cheerleading previews???

Would be nice to have downtime, actually, to do previews with some of the winter sports teams. Still have one football team and one volleyball team alive, but basketball and soccer starting this week and wrestling soon to follow. That and we're making our first venture into all-area teams. And we're about due for the bi-annual letter from the corporate offices regarding "use it or lose it" vacation time.