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St. Cloud State University
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Sports section cuts
By Andy Rennecke
Published:
Thursday, May 1, 2003
Another school year is almost over and so is the University Chronicle's coverage for this year's SCSU sports teams.
A couple of these squads surprised us this year with their play (football and men's basketball teams to be exact), while others disappointed with lackluster efforts (are you reading this men's hockey players?). But one point always remained clear with the Chronicle's coverage of these teams: our writers always tried to be fair and give the most honest opinions in columns and interesting game recaps as possible in every edition.
There is nothing I would take back that went into the sports pages this year. As Sports Editor, I wanted to give every team as much coverage as possible, but that's difficult with the limited space we have in the paper.
If I wanted to do five pages for every edition, I probably wouldn't be graduating at all this semester. So instead it came down to three pages. The higher profile sports such as men's hockey and men's basketball will always take up most of the space that fills these pages. That's just the way it is and always will be. Whatever sport draws the most interest will get the greater coverage.
We did, however, give great attention to the women's hockey, soccer, softball and volleyball teams. This is something that hasn't happened in a while here at the paper. The teams that suffered because of this were the women's basketball team, both tennis teams, track and field and other minor sports.
Part of the less than stellar coverage for the women's basketball team was because I never could get one writer to maintain it as a beat, and their less than stellar record also had an impact.
For all of this, I apologize.
As an editor you do what your gut instincts tell you and go with which team is having the most success. That's why you'd always see the football and men's basketball teams dominating the sports pages, because those were the teams that warranted it. If the women's basketball team had been headed toward the NCAA's, you would have seen a different variety of articles instead of the proverbial preview and game recap on them.
As for the men's hockey team, that's another story. I had an excellent writer, Bobby Hart, out covering them this season. While they didn't lead off every edition, they were always present in some fashion.
But again, it comes back to which team is having the most success, and in the winter, the men's basketball team was having more. In addition, while this campus is hockey-crazy, it was time for a change of pace in the section. This was all my decision and my decision alone.
The columns we wrote were also an addition to the section that made us more credible. Offering up the writer's opinions is what every newspaper does, and we weren't going to be any different. While some stirred up some controversy, it's always nice to stir the pot every now and then. If you didn't, what fun would reading a sports section be?
When you write a column that will be controversial, the writer hopes to light a fire under whomever he/she is talking about. Harsh comments or not, it keeps the reader intrigued and that's our main objective whether the player, team or coach likes it or not.
Next year, the Sports Editor reins will be handed over to Bobby. He'll be a great editor and will no doubt continue the tradition of a quality sports section in the Chronicle. In addition to him, we'll also have experienced reporters returning in Ben Birnell, Drew Herron, Ben Dunsmoor, Ryan Dale and Adam Czech.
It doesn't matter if you read it or not, but the sports section will never be dull and will always try to be cutting edge.
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