When you were in high school ...

We had four dailies then and it was extremely competitive. Great place and time to cut your teeth.

 

I was excited to see whenever our school was mentioned. We pretty much stunk.

 

... Bush was president and we were at war with Iraq ...

Wait a minute ...

 

the LB P-T was the best in fair coverage.

 

I have thought about that a lot recently. You're probably right.

 

I actually read the paper every day, too.

You wouldn't know it to look at me now, but I was a top miler (thinclad) and better than average harrier, and the local high school beat guy at the morning paper LOVED track and cross country, and the four main high schools in town, so he covered the shit out of us. I have a full scrapbook, and it was great.

My senior year, I was referred to in the season cross country preview as "the veteran harrier." I kid you not.

Unfortunately, he also covered my spectacular failures in the final qualifying meets for state extremely well both my junior and senior years. Very tough sectional -- and some choking involved, too.

 

I think the paper did OK with my school. We were smaller (Washington 2A 15 miles from a town with 8-9 3A and 4A schools) and didn't really do much for the most part when I was there. Football team made state for the first time in school history my junior year (2001) and they were there for it...besides that, mostly basketball when we played Ridgefield and that was it.

Other schools in the area? They did an OK job, but they weren't nearly as prep-centric as my shop is.

 

The rule in my house is that the kids couldn't watch TV after 9 p.m. on weekdays. This was before the internet, so I found myself reading the paper every night. The local paper covered a pretty wide area, and I never thought they did a bad job. When they covered my football team, I thought it was neat. I don't recall any of my teammates giving a damn either about how much coverage we got. We thought it a bigger deal when the radio or TV guys showed up.

 

Same here...we usually gave a damn about, you know, winning games

 

I think we were too busy trying really, really hard. And yes, winning.

I read newspapers to see the pro and college teams.

 

I always wondered if people (other than players, parents, etc) cared. now that i'm in the businees i've realized that, yes, for some reason they do. Still, one of my favorite responses when fielding complaints about coverage is "anyone who cares was at the game.They already know what happened in it."
I have yet to actually say that to anybody. but i think it everytime.

 

I e-mailed the major metro columnist every week to contest his NFL picks. Finally convinced him to let me be a guest picker, the previous 10 of which who were all celebrities of some degree. The next week, my name appeared in print for the first time other than honor roll. And the columnist included a three-inch brief explaining why a ninth-grade kid was picking NFL games that week. I think my mom still has the clip. E-mailed off and on a while after that, asking questions about the business.

Ten years later, columnist was in my town for a golf tournament and sent me an e-mail after seeing my byline.