[NEohioPAL]B-J Cuts

[Tom Burnett]

Anastasia:

In an ideal world, yes, I agree. When I see those signs at various  
city boundaries, "Home of the State soccer champions" or whatever,  
I'm thinking, "What about the kids with the 4.0+ averages, the  
National Merit scholars, the science fair winners, the musicians, the  
actors, etc.?" You never hear business owners complaining about a  
shortage of trained wrestlers or football players, so why are they  
celebrated and not the students who excel in other areas? In an ideal  
world, Lebron James would not be getting paid as much as 200  
teachers, because a good teacher is worth 200 basketball stars.

Saying that, if you publish a daily newspaper and forgo prep sports  
coverage, you better be planning your next career. If your decisions  
about coverage are based on what should be instead of what the  
readers want, your paper won't last very long. At the same time, I do  
think the PD could do far more in covering the accomplishments of the  
non-athletes at our schools, without affecting its (very popular)  
sports coverage.

Tom

On Aug 30, 2006, at 11:50 AM, Pantsios, Anastasia wrote:

> I know I'll be in a minority here but I think high school sports  
> should abolsutely NOT be covered by big city dailies. It adds to  
> the mystique that sports are the single most important thing for a  
> kid to focus on and the sure path to riches, acclaim, popularity  
> and success. The kid who aces the SATs, is a National Merit scholar  
> and gets into Harvard gets their little paragraph in the special  
> education issue or a mention buried in the metro section but the  
> kid who excels at sports is on the front page of the sports section  
> every week and it gives totally the wrong message. When columnists  
> wring their hands about how many more inner city kids want to be  
> basketball players than accountants or doctors, I always think "Go  
> look at your own paper's coverage and you'll see one of the big  
> reasons why." Community and high school papers are the proper place  
> for this ongoing coverage.