Straight from the Sports Desk

Not having sufficient time to write a good game story is possibly my least favorite thing about being a sports reporter. Because so many events occur in the evening, sports reporters accept the reality that — depending on the starting time and length of the game — there may not be enough time to write a crisp, creative story. The process of writing the story, having it reviewed by an editor, making any necessary changes, and then finally giving the finished product to the layout & design maestro (who is saving space on a page for the story) in time to beat the newspaper's deadline — this can be challenging and frantic. This last-minute creative effort greatly differs than writing a weekly column, or researching and interviewing an ongoing story. Friday night — the opening night of the Crabs' Tri-State Western Tournament at the Arcata Ball Park — was a good example. Plan A was to type on my laptop during the Crabs vs. Nevada Bighorns game, but I could not find a good connection to the Internet, so I went to plan B: writing game notes while keeping a batter-by-batter scorebook and talking with friends and fans in the first-base section. Multi-tasking at its finest. The end result: (A) the game started 15 minutes late at 8:30 p.m. and ended at 11:08 p.m. (B) with no time to interview coaches and players, I hustled out of ballpark to my truck and drove safely south along U.S. 101, arriving at my desk back in Eureka at 11:22 p.m. (C) wrote my story!! ... handed it to the editor at 11:38 (D) made changes, gave to layout & design person by 11:45 p.m. (E) left the building at 12:05 a.m. (F) at home, decompressed from adrenaline rush and got to sleep by 2:15 a.m. (G) took dogs out at 7:25 a.m. (H) read the sports pages, hoping that I had not made major mistakes in my story (noticed one extra word) at 7:45 a.m.; (I) went back to bed for more sleep. Deadlines. Wow!

Posted by Neil Tarpey at 03:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBacks (0)

Maybe it's the economy. Let's hope that's what it is. HSU raised $190K at the sports auction on Saturday and that won't be near enough to raise the total number of schollys that the football team can give out.
At least not for this year.
For all the excitement HSU generated when Rob Smith was hired, the community hardly responded. Don't get me wrong. $190K is tremendous, but compared to last year, and with all the importance placed on this upcoming football season, the Jacks could have used a little more dough to put in to its scholarship fund.
If, as Dan Collen suggested last year, the community is "tapped out" and HSU cannot raise more money, then where does that leave HSU football? Collen and Smith basically stepped onto the rooftop and proclaimed to the world that HSU would have 11 or 12 scholarships by next year.
They know better than anyone how much money it takes to do that and at least Collen seems to have known they were at or near their threshold.
So then the question becomes, was he pitching us all a line about getting a dozen scholarships?
Or was that what he told Smith when he was wooing him for the job?

Posted by Sean Quincey at 11:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)