It's not just wrestling results in the Star, due to deadlines, they do not print statistics for teams in football either. You have scores, and in some cases scoring summary. But this is probably the only source in the NE for us to find out rushing yards, etc for football and they aren't there. And being a part of the media, a lot of it falls on the coaches in calling in the results. But then, I would be more likely to blame the Republican media for this problem. :p

vikes,

I understand the reality of comments that you have made on this issue. When I read my paper today, I see that they have an article on the front page of the sports section about how Coach Self believes that the KU basketball team lacked intensity in their Nevada game from two days ago. I thought that game was reported on pretty well the day before and how significant was it anyway? It does show how popular college basketball is locally.

If wrestling is to grow, it needs to develop some interest with the general sports public. I think that it's lack of interest with that group is the primary reason that wrestling programs are being dropped at colleges and universities. If young kids are unable to read about high school wrestling in their local sports pages, then they will lack the motivation to even consider wrestling as a potential sport to participate in. If we don't get more young kids to participate in wrestling, the interest will not grow with the general sports public. I know that is a long slow growth path, but that is how I think it will have to happen. So for that reason alone, I think it is very important that we start pushing for more local media wrestling coverage.

I may be wrong, but I think the reason is MONEY. There are very few papers sold because of wrestling. Most of the parents of wrestlers probably take the paper anyway. The Star and others will not see much increase in revenue during wrestling season to commit a person to covering these events. When my sons wrestled in the late eighties and early nineties, there was talk about money problems in the school they attended, and guess what sport they were talking about eliminating? Their reasoning was that wrestling did not bring in enough income to the school to cover the cost. I agree wrestling does not get much publicity in most areas, but to those involved, it is a great sport and should get more attention then what it gets by the area media.

It's very easy to sit on an internet chat board, send a fax or call the Metro Sports general information line and complain about our lack of coverage of the Johnson County Tournament AFTER IT'S OVER.

What is more difficult -- apparently -- is actually calling my direct line or emailing me information about the tourney BEFORE IT HAPPENS.

There are 83 high schools in the Metro Sports coverage area, and they average about a dozen sports per school. That's almost 1,000 sports in the metro area, and we have one person -- me -- to keep track of all the schedules, results, stories, etc.

I love my job, but even I can't keep up with 1,000 sports over 9 months without missing a thing or two.

For the record, Metro Sports is the only television station from the metro area to send a camera to the Kansas State Wrestling Meet, and we have done it five straight years. Metro Sports has televised the MOKAN meet each of the last four years.

We strive for excellence in coverage in everything we do, and if you have stories ideas, big-time meets we should be at, or things we should know, all you have to do is contact me.

And despite what someone else posted on this board, I respond to every single one of the 50 or so Metro Sports emails I recieve daily.

Happy Holidays,

Chad Harberts
Metro Sports
chad.harberts@twcable.com
816.222.5549

chad,

you do an excellent job and i appreciate all that metro does for high school sports.

your points are very understanding.

Thank You, Chad!
And now we all know who to speak with, what number to dial, and where to email those schedules, results, etc.! What we as coaches, or wrestling enthusiasts need to do now is portray this sport and its attributes as keenly as we can!

Hovpen and Chad have made it clear that much of the responsibility of media coverage does need to be initiated by the wrestling community itself.

This is just an idea, but it seems to me that maybe that is a lot to expect solely of the coaches. I wondered if each team could get a parent volunteer to help with this. For instance if your team is hosting the tournament or a dual meet, the parent volunteer would be responsible for contacting media with results (including individual match and placing results)or alerting them to the fact that a big meet is occurring at your high school that they might want to cover it.

Hovpen and Chad, I think everyone appreciates the coverage that your organizations give to local wrestling. It seems to me that the main message here is that the wrestling community wants more local coverage and that it is important to promoting our sport. The wrestling community needs to work hard to promote it with the media and take responsibility to do that.

One of the things we had back when i was young and still able to sit on a chair and give directions was a call coach, responsible for calling the media. Most of the time that was me. I also had a pick up after the freshmen coach, a hand out the cash for meals coach, a wash the towells coach...get the picture...all of them were me.. Sometimes coaches don't have a lot of available or think they don't have the time to do something. Thank goodness, the coaches I have to work with now that I'm on the other side of the fence are very caring about giving their kids credit for effort even when that effort falls a little short.
The parent idea is great. I have several who leave messages in my message board about how their BB teams are doing. No reason why wrestling parents can't do same.
This board here is known about by lots of wrestlers and coaches and used by them. But how many other people read it? You may feel free (any coach or call coach) to leave wrestling results on my message board any time. Not competeing with this board, just getting the word and results out to more people across the state which is what needs done. Other places have message boards also. Both Capital Journal and Wichita Eagle have message boards people can post in. This can also be delegated to parents or booster club members.
Now, for those of you attending the Augusta Invitational which will be the next wrestling tournament I shoot, bring smiles, and your A game. I don't want to catch you reading our ceiling on account I'll be shooting down from the balcony right at you most of the time.

I will use this as a forum to support USA Wrestlings Bronze level course. The course includes a fair amount of discussion on media relations. It points out the need to have someone, the coach or a designee, ACTIVELY involved in this endeavor.

There are many reasons that we don't get the coverage we would all like. I am just wondering do the people that support cross country, soccer, volleyball, track and field, swimming, gymnastics, etc. feel as we wrestling people do? Perhaps the reason that we feel as though we are being neglected is because, that�s the way we act.

Chad with Metro Sports did a great job chastising us! We scream that wrestling is being neglected with loud and clear words � after-the-fact!

The Bronze course points out the need to create the �Big Event� and to �Inform the Public.� Chad says, no one notified him before the event. It takes more than mailing out a schedule at the first of the year, it takes someone being professional, following up, accepting the responsibility, and someone who will actively WORK at media relations.

We (wrestling) are not an easy sport to cover or understand. If the press were to send a reporter to our tournaments do we have someone assigned to greet them and to be an ambassador for our sport?

As I stated on another topic, the paper in our community, the Ottawa Herald, does a great job covering our team. Why � because the stories are written for them!

Well said. I'd be more than happy to let one of the wrestling coaches or parents write my stories for me.....with reservations of course..

But I would like to see everyone work hard to get coverage at the local level, then work up. It's not just at the local level. Heck, I got my hinny chewed today because I don't like girls junior varsity basketball. Had four stories in Monday's paper, two on freshmen girls and two on varsity girls games, but the jv coach hasn't turned in anything in. Mom was mad I didn't go to the JV girls games....which are oposite the boys varsity contest....in a different gym....What can you say. I'm a jerk who selects the varsity boys over the jv girls to cover for the paper.

I used to have a fool proof solution...If a coach hadn't called in by 11:15 on a Friday night, I called the principal at home and asked him what the score was. If he wasn't home, I called the super. That got results from then on. I know, like I said above....I'm a jerk sometimes, or my mom said because I don't like her daughters team.
:p

At the end of vikes first post on this subject was this statement:

"just wait for the Sun or Neighborhood news section and you will see more coverage. Don't worry about the press anyway. it doesn't matter that much. If kids continue to win, they will have to do a story on them."

vikes you were correct about one thing. I believe there was better coverage of the event by the Star in my Shawnee Mission Neighborhood Section today. There was a two page story on it with lots of good pictures and results from all the medal matches reported. Maybe we are expecting too much of the Star. KC is a professional sports town and it is dominated by Chiefs and Royals coverage and then by college football and basketball. It seems like when I was a kid in the early sixties when my family moved here that all high school sports received more coverage in the sports page.

I would disagree though with your statement that the press coverage does not matter. I think it does matter very much. I think if that is a prevailing attitude then we need to change it and we need to take a more proactive approach to promote local wrestling that Randy, Chad and Hovpen and others have suggested.

I would like to see the Star start giving individual results to dual meets and not just team scores. Do the individual results get reported to the Star along with the team results? Another thing I would like to see from the Star is a weekly update of the top four or five individual records for Metro wrestlers in all weight classes. I know they do this for track & field or at least they used to. Maybe they do it for wrestling too and I have just not seen it yet because it is too early in the season.

First of all, kudos to former fellow Northern Iowa Panther Chad Harberts for adding his two cents � you were right on the mark.

Speaking as both a coach and a journalist, whoever it was that said that coaches in the state do a lousy job of promoting this sport was 100 percent right. For the most part we do. Some coaches do not make themselves available after the meets, and most do not even begin to try to get previews to even their local media in advance.

Face it � Kansas is a basketball state, and try as we might, wrestling will never replace it. And a few idle threats of subscription cancellations is not going to chance that anytime soon. Fact of the matter is that newspapers make little of anything on subscriptions; the real money is in advertsing.

Coaches, if you want media notice, ask for it. Call your local paper and/or radio or TV station BEFORE and immediately after every meet. And parents/fans, don't call up the local media and call them everything but a Child of God because they didn't show up at an event. Many times they have priorities over a local wrestling tournament that means they can't staff it. But if the coach or tournament director is on the stick, they will get results to the media in a timely manner and it will get published. Trust me, that's how it works!!!

And one more thing to the fans: If you aren't seeing results in a timely manner in your local media, chances are it's the coach, not the media's fault. Instead of calling the paper or the station, call the school. Many times, informing the media is either in the contract or in the job description. If they're not doing it , they could be in trouble.

Sincerely,
Jeff Holmes
Assistant Coach Atchison High School
20 years as a sports journalist
Free-lance writer

For those that didn't see the Neighborhood News section in the paper today( wednesday ), go find it and read the article by Marcus Fuller.

Thanks for the article Marcus!

A special THANKS to Chad, at Metro Sports, for reminding our Tournament Directors of the fact that they need to inform these media outlets that these events are happening!

Seems to me that there are a couple tournaments coming up on 1-10 @ Bonner Springs and Shawnee Mission South. And the Basehor-Linwood tourney on 1-17.

Jeff Broadbent

here is the article. i told you all the neighborhood news would get it done. happy holidays all.............

Posted on Wed, Dec. 24, 2003

Carrera of SM North loses first match of season
By MARCUS R. FULLER
The Kansas City Star

Out of the 14 finals in Saturday's Johnson County Classic at Blue Valley just one match featured a pair of unbeatens.

Shawnee Mission North senior Ray Carrera and Blue Valley Northwest senior Garrett Jones won a combined 28-straight matches to begin the season.

But only one would become the tournament's first 275-pound champion in two years not named Adam Venegas, who before graduating from Olathe North won titles in 2001 and 2002 over Jones, now the state's top heavyweight.

The highly anticipated meeting Saturday wasn't as competitive as Carrera had hoped for with Jones pinning him in the third period.

But Carrera (13-1) still helped SM North finish fifth with 137.5 points. Aquinas won the team title with 220 points.

"Definitely Ray wanted to do better, but he's going to see him again a few more times. They both stand alone in their class in this area. Now Raymond knows what he needs to measure up to," said SM North coach Jim Sherwood.

"Hopefully as a team, we used this as a guide to see where we are and where we need to improve. It's a tuneup, because the real season starts after Christmas."

Neil Erisman of De Soto picked up where he left off last season in completely dominating his weight class. Erisman won the 152-pound title by pinning E.J. Johansen of Mill Valley in 1 minute, 52 seconds.

Last year, Erisman wrestled at 145 and finished 33-1, losing only in the championship match of the 4A state tournament.

On Saturday, Erisman ran his record to 11-0, pinning every wrestler he took the mat against. Two of his pins took only 14 and 38 seconds.

Leif Goleman of De Soto finished fourth at 171, and Trevor Leahy of De Soto finished fourth at 119.

Justin Broadbent of Mill Valley just missed a state title at 103 pounds. He lost 6-4 in overtime to Nick Shumate of Blue Valley Northwest. Brett Yates of Mill Valley beat Leahy of De Soto 3-0 in the 119-pound third-place match. And Alex Saunders of Mill Valley won the third-place match at 189 pounds by beating Tim Townsend of SM North 4-0.

SM West finished 12th with 94 points after senior David Tindle defeated his summer practice partner senior Nick Clayton of SM South for the 145-pound title by fall in 6 minutes and 32 seconds in overtime.

Tindle (15-2) said it was difficult wrestling against Clayton (11-1), who is so knowledgeable of his techniques.

"It was a really tough match," he said. "He's usually better than me in practice. This was a lot of fun."

While Clayton lost his first match of the season his SM South teammate Kenny Aubry remained undefeated (11-0) with an 11-7 win against Olathe East's Aaron Bartels to win the 135-pound title. SM South also finished 14th overall.

"I was kind of scared at first when I fell behind, but somehow I pulled it out," Aubry said. "I didn't even make it to the second day last year."

SM Northwest junior Chaz Hill lost in the championship match at 135 pounds last season, but easily won his 140-pound final Saturday by pinning Spring Hill's Derrick Hayes in 54 seconds.

Hill, the state's top ranked wrestler in his class, hopes to improve on last year's runner-up finish in 6A.

"As an underclassmen at state last year I was a little intimidated, but finishing second really helped my confidence," said Hill, who led SM Northwest to 16th place. "I do feel a lot more pressure with a state ranking this year."

SM East, which finished 17th out of 19 teams Saturday, had Ryan Sonderegger (160) and Mark Robinson (215) both finish second in their respective weight classes.

"Justin Broadbent of Mill Valley just missed a state title at 103 pounds. He lost 6-4 in overtime to Nick Shumate of Blue Valley Northwest."

i did find this funny though. i didn't know the state tournament was Saturday?

LOL

Here is another statement vikes was right on about: "I do know that charlie redfield of the sun, who used to report for the star is a huge wretling fan and has always done a nice job covering the sport."

I read Mr. Redfield's article in the Johnson
County Sun today and I thought it was great. Some real interesting insights into most of the weight classes. He had great quotes from most of the champions. I especially like the story on the 189 pound champion Barry Smith from BVNW who was 220 last year and wrestling JV. He lost the weight and went from JV wrestling to Johnson County Classic Champion in one year. I also really liked the style and class that Dane Hammett demonstrated in complimenting his opponent Ryan Sonderegger.

Happy Holidays to everyone.

Where do you pick up the Johnson County Sun?

It gets delivered to our neighborhood. I think it is available also in front of some restaurants and such in Johnson County, but try this site it may have the article for you to read.

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsi...55725&rfi=8

Here is another article in the Sun from last week that gives a preseason analysis of a lot of the Johnson County teams.

http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsi...55725&rfi=8