What do the Washington Post, Beckley’s Register – Herald, The Carroll News, and the Galax Gazette have in common ?

Each newspaper has made drastic changes to how they view sports. Gone are the days when sports played a major role in the newspaper industry.

A little over two months ago, the Washington Post, one of the largest newspapers in the United States 🇺🇸 pulled the plug 🔌 on its spoits department as a whole !

The Register – Herald is a solid six day publication in a city where the population of the greater area is just over 100,000. Not all that long ago, we would have someone from the newspaper stop by our games, but they too have trained their readers to expect a different type of sports section. One full of wire reports on professional games with a few local stories that can be generated from a desk mixed in.

The story I wrote tonight was an attempt  for the newspaper to have coverage from one of our games ahead of a doubleheader tomorrow. We will see if it makes the online or print edition ?

The weekly Galax Gazette was forced to make a highly unpopular decision about its Sports department back in the fall of 2023. The newspaper parted ways with a local legend, Craig Worrell, and seriously downshifted its sports coverage.

Where does The Carroll News fit into this story? Another long-time home-grown Homer named Worrell went from being a sports editor to being the editor. Working with a skeleton crew, Allen Worrell was forced into a unique role, and it stayed that way for quite some time.

News and community first and sprinkle in sports when you can. Then, those pesky, Alyssa Ervin led juggernaut won consecutive State Championships, forcing the newspaper to provide Wall to Wall coverage.

  The one sport that was never going to lack coverage was the football team. Football is KING 🤴, even at the high school level. Beyond that, sports became an option. How did the Carroll News continue to produce a normal looking sports section for another two plus years ? The answer there was he found a partner in his Homerness ways, and the good news was the person worked for free !

The fella agreed to cover everything that could be covered and then politely step aside when a story grew. The perfect example was when Anthony Barnes and his Cavaliers made their state run, the writer switched from me to Allen. It worked really well for right at three years before Allen stepped away from the position when an opportunity presented itself.

The number of stories I created for the newspaper was well north of 250, and it included state coverage for Track and Field (3 times ) ➕️ state golf ⛳️ for Chase Reavis twice. Each time on my own dime and it was because I felt that individuals going to State were of the exact same relevance as teams.

Coaches have to adjust to coverage that comes over the phone and when it’s convenient to an already demanding job of a newspaper editor.

Going back to today, I arrived at the stadium 90 minutes prior to first pitch and then proceeded to call a ballgame that flirted with lasting four full hours. Then, the choice of spending another 90 minutes to create a story on the hopes that it will be used makes for a really, really long day. But in a season full of tough losses, these student athletes deserved a moment in the Sun 🌞.

Somewhere, in the back of my brain 🧠, I hear Danny Glover saying, “Man, I am too old for this stuff”

Now it’s 11:43 p.m., and we get to start all over here in a bit. Sports talk radio 📻, ESPN, and social media have  changed the landscape, and I promise you, it’s not going to change back.