Column: Winter sports are here
It seems like last week I was putting the finishing touches on the annual high school football tab. It seems like yesterday I was crisscrossing the state watching fall sports wrap up in tournaments and playoffs.
Time flies in the sports realm. That's why it's hard to believe winter is here with basketball, wrestling, swimming and bowling in full swing now.
I just spent the last half hour looking ahead to all the high school events on the calendar for December, searching for interesting matchups, while trying to spread the wealth between sports as well as specific programs.
My plan is to see every Marion County girls and boys basketball team at least once and hopefully much more than that. I also want to see the good Morrow County squads as well as Buckeye Valley and North Union. With that said, I'm not in the business of covering games just because they are on the schedule. Cross-county matchups will be looked on favorably as will games between good programs. I try to avoid covering the one-sided games, and I'm not looking to watch a lot of bad basketball.
To the coaches and players who want to see a little pub in The Star, I say make me cover you. How does that happen? String some wins together and create a little buzz and excitement. The metrics show us that folks don't read about bad teams and lopsided games, and I can't believe the readers of the print product are devouring those stories either.
Because of our early print deadlines, with the exception of Friday nights, the coverage will tend to be nontraditional. I can post a couple of paragraphs online the night of the game, so those interested can know the outcome. The challenge will be to come up with forward-spinning columns and features on the games I attend through the week or on Saturdays. No one wants to read a two-day old game story, and I certainly don't want to write one.
While I'm admittedly a basketball guy, I feel there is plenty of room in the sports section for wrestling, swimming and bowling. There will be some sort of presence at the major local wrestling meets this winter I promise. As for swimming and bowling, I'm hoping to do at least a couple of features on the deserving programs and athletes and shoot photos of some of the meets and matches leading into late January and February.
Whenever I am at an event, my hope is to come up with a short highlights package that fans can see on our website at MarionStar.com and on our digital app. This won't happen every time, but it will happen enough that readers will want to stay turned online to see their favorite athletes and teams so their thing.
One project I wrote about last spring is a look back at the Marion County League. I don't know how many stories I will do and how frequently they will run, but start looking for those after the holidays.
Ahh, the holidays.
There is no more disjointed time of the year in high school sports. I hated it when I played because it took me out of my routine and rhythm by staying up late, sleeping in and eating junk nonstop. No wonder I saved my worst practices and games for the last two weeks of the year.
As a sports writer, I'm not a fan either. The crowds are smaller, the games duller and frankly there's just a lot of diversions with the family. There are vacation days to sneak in and holidays to take off, so like in high school I am still out of my routine and rhythm.
After the first of the year, I will begin running weekly stats packages and standings for girls and boys basketball. I am also kicking around some sort of stats package for wrestling, too. We'll see if the area coaches are willing to participate.
Got an interesting story about an athlete or coach? Know of a milestone that's about to topple or a record that has been broken? Think I'm missing out on something? Let me know. My contact info is at the bottom of this column and is in the paper almost daily. Don't suffer in silence. Let me know if you've got news.
Finally, if you are not seeing your favorite team's game or match or meet roundups in the paper or online, get on your coach. They all got letters from me detailing how to send their stuff in. If they forgot, it's really easy: Send it to sports@marionstar.com. If it makes it there, it will see the light of day. If not, it won't. And if they need a refresher, they need to get with me as soon as possible.
Have a good winter sports season as well as holiday season.
Rob McCurdy is the sports writer at The Marion Star and can be reached at rmccurdy@gannett.com, work 740-375-5158, cell 419-610-0998 or Twitter @McMotorsport.