Preseason, no more

For the last three weeks, I've been more stressed than usual in putting out my sports section. You see, for three weeks, I had no local sports to cover, really. Teams were practicing, but games didn't start until this week.

Each week I normally have a minimum of four, but preferably five or six articles in my sports pages. My mission became seeking out more human interest stories instead of play-by-play, and that can make for good reading, but it's hard to dig those stories up, especially for three weeks straight.

But I've made it through, and our next paper will be full of sports action. In the meantime, though, I did stories such as one about a local college student transferring from one college to another to improve his draft prospects for baseball, how players prepare for football, and how coaches prepare for football.

And this week, I put out a 16-page insert section about the upcoming fall season for the two schools in our coverage area and their five sports. I wrote everything, took all the photos, identified all the kids, and layed out the pages. That was done last week, since there's no working ahead on that. The coaches often don't have but two weeks of practice by that time, and getting rosters from them can be tough.

But when all the work is done, it sure is nice to hold the finished product in my hands and get some of the newsprint on my fingers as I peruse the pages.

Posted by JRC at August 31, 2005 11:30 PM | TrackBack