One hell of a coverage area

[Greg Rajan]

So Jerome Solomon of the Houston Chronicle did a Big Lead podcast (http://www.thebiglead.com/index.php/2013/07/16/the-jason-mcintyre-show-jerome-solomon-of-the-houston-chronicle/) and the website claims he covered Johnny Manziel in high school (Kerrville Tivy).

I know Texas is big, but I can't think of a paper that would cover a high school 250 miles away.

 

[da man]

Re: That's one hell of a coverage area

Might he be saying he covered a HS game Manziel played in rather than saying he covered Manziel's team on a regular basis?

 

[Southwinds]

Or perhaps he worked at another paper?

 

[Charlie Brown]

Might he be saying he covered a HS game Manziel played in rather than saying he covered Manziel's team on a regular basis?

This is what I'm thinking ... a HS game or two (or five) ... and probably having occasion to pay more attention to him than other HS quarterbacks in the state. Maybe blogged about him. I didn't get the impression he was saying it was his regular beat.

 

[Steak Snabler]

Or perhaps he worked at another paper?

Nah, Solomon's been at the Houston Chronicle for years. According to their schedule on MaxPreps.com, Tivy didn't play any games east of Austin in Manziel's senior year, though they did play Austin-Lake Travis twice, and that's theoretically the kind of big state-wide game the Chron could have staffed.

http://www.maxpreps.com/high-schools/tivy-antlers-%28kerrville,tx%29/football-fall-10/schedule.htm

 

[Greg Rajan]

Very true, Snake. As a Texas sports editor, it'd be great to be able to cover marquee out-of-area games like that. I'm jealous of those who get to do that.

 

[LongTimeListener]

Didn't they go to state? I imagine a paper like the Houston Chronicle would cover an event like the state football championship.

 

[Steak Snabler]

Didn't they go to state? I imagine a paper like the Houston Chronicle would cover an event like the state football championship.

I don't think so (at least not his senior year), but he set all kinds of individual records, so he's the kind of player reporters from all over the state would probably come cover at some point.

 

[TheSportsPredictor]

Plenty of people define covering a player as sitting in a press box at a game or two the guy played in.

 

[Football_Bat]

Maybe he dialed long distance.

 

[SpeedTchr]

Just bored enough to do a pretty extensive database search, and I couldn't find any Solomon pieces mentioning Kerrville Tivy during the time Manziel was there.

 

[Armchair_QB]

Maybe he "covered" him for another outlet, like a recruiting mag or Dave Campbell's Texas Football.

 

[Greg Rajan]

I finally got a chance to listen to the podcast today. It appears to be a big misunderstanding on the Big Lead's part. The guy apparently took one comment that Solomon made about Manziel's time in high school and interpreted that to mean he "covered him in high school." In fact, later on in the podcast, Solomon even mentioned how he expected A&M to be good last year without having seen Manziel play a game. That makes perfect sense since Houston is three-plus hours from Manziel's hometown.

Basically, much ado about nothing.