U of Kansas beat in Kansas City?

I know a few who have been contacted, basically informally, but this isn't exactly the time when people are being brought in for jobs. What I heard was that they're not likely to move on this until after hoops season.

As I was told years ago, 90 percent of Sports hires are made between April and September. Every job I ever had in this business fell into that category.

 

Rustin Dodd got the gig—he's currently covering preps for the KC Star. A KU graduate and wrote for the Daily Kansan.

 

I really like Rustin...but they recently announced they were cutting jobs and this job likely got cut.

They've promoted everyone within the newspaper and killed jobs. They've basically abandoned preps.

Terez Paylor (Preps/SportingKC) took over for Mike DeArmond (Mizzou)
Sam Mellinger (Baseball/Royals) took over for Whitlock/Posnanski (Columns)
Rustin Dodd (Preps/Royals) took over for Brady McCullough (Kansas)

 

Terez Paylor is taking over for DeArmond. If they don't fill Brady McCollough's spot, would Blair Kerkoff become the Kansas beat writer?

 

They also lost Candace Buckner, at least temporarily, to book leave.

 

The Star isn't abandoning the KU beat.

This is from Rustin's twitter: Thanks so much for the tweets, follows, etc. Feel honored to tackle this new job. Won't start for a while, tho, and beat is in good hands.

Dodd won't take over until the season is over. I know Blair doesn't want to cover the beat. He says he's too old for it (even though he's 52 I believe). He says its should be for a younger person who can travel and doesn't have a family.


If anything, The Star cutting down its preps coverage, but I don't know about that.

 

I'd find it hard to believe the Star's cutting down its prep coverage. Is it online more than in print? This would suggest yes.

http://varsity.kansascity.com/

 

Does the Star travel for every KU hoops game? I don't mean most, I mean, every single one...

 

You got me interested, so I went sleuthing.

The Jayhawks made it really easy on the Star this year by making only three non-conference trips, all against marquee opponents. Quick Google searches show Brady McCollough covered the trips to the Maui Invitational, where Kansas played Georgetown, UCLA and Duke; the Champions Classic in Madison Square Garden, where Kansas played Kentucky; and a game at Southern California.

Kansas State also kept its non-conference travel simple: one true road game, one game in Wichita and three games in Honolulu as part of the Diamond Head Classic. Kellis Robinett covered the Hawaii tournament, which Kansas State won. But it appears the Star used a Wichita Eagle staff writer to fill in for Robinett for Kansas State's win at Virginia Tech.

It appears the Eagle used McCollough's coverage of the Maui Invitational. Both papers are McClatchy Co.-owned, so it makes sense they would split things up to some degree. I'd guess that one of the two papers would be at every Kansas and Kansas State game. Edit: Apparently the Star employs the Kansas writer and the Eagle employs the Kansas State writer, and they swap coverage. (Thanks, Jake_Taylor. I was a Roger Dorn guy, myself.)

Missouri made things similarly easy on the Star, playing five non-conference road or neutral-site games: the Border War against Illinois in St. Louis, two CBE Classic games in Kansas City, a Jimmy V Classic game against Villanova in Madison Square Garden and a road game against Old Dominion. But for some reason, the Star skipped the game against Villanova and had the New York Post's Jay Greenberg, a Missouri alumnus, cover it as "Special to The Star." Terez Paylor covered the game at Old Dominion, though. I don't understand the line of thinking, but I'm sure the editors had their reasons.

There's no telling what the Star would do if any of the teams were to play more strenuous road schedules, though there's not much pressure on the teams to do so. But for this season, the Star has covered every Jayhawks game and Wildcats game while missing one Tigers game. The Big 12 Conference's current setup makes travel ridiculously easy. It will be interesting to see if things change when Gainesville, Fla., and Morgantown, W.Va., become league games for these teams.

 

KU's basketball schedule is going to be like that almost every year. Games in Allen Fieldhouse are too big a money maker to go out on the road if it isn't for a marquee game.

The Star and the Eagle share KU and K-State beat writers. I believe the K-State beat writer is technically an Eagle employee and the KU belongs to KC. I wonder if using a stringer for Mizzou at Villanova had anything to do with the transition during DeArmond's retirement?

 

Thanks for clarifying. I edited my post to reflect that. I'm guessing that's why Robinett and McCollough are listed as staff writers for both papers but the Star used "The Wichita Eagle" to credit Nathan Waters for the Virginia Tech game.

That could be it, but DeArmond wrote the preview for that game. And Paylor hadn't taken over full-time for the Old Dominion game.