I didn't pick up a copy of the Weird-Harold Sunday, but I heard their wrestling preview wasn't much to talk about.

Not that this is a SURPRISE, mind you...since Stu Pospisil is back in charge of wrestling, we shouldn't be expecting much out of them this year.

They did run a full page of wrestling, which was good. I don't think wrestling got any more than that last year.

Very impressive return to the mat by the OWH.

#1 The top article was about a team from another state?

#2 No offense to the two young men in the biggest article, however a story about a couple newbies to the sport was not that interesting. This state has a lot of accomplished wrestlers that I would rather read about right now.

#3 Trenton Washington from Omaha North? I'm pretty sure he has been at Boystown for about 6 months now.

#4 Was it me or did the whole page seem to have an "anti-Skutt" slant to it?

#1 The top story was about the Millard North wrestlers. That is why they had the big picture in the middle.

#2 I thought it was a great article about some up and comers.

#3 Yea they screwed up on that one.

#4 I do not see any anti-Skutt slant at all. Just because Skutt wasnt featured doesnt make it anti-Skutt. 3 out of the 4 article mentioned Skutt in some way. All were positive in the way it mentioned their dominance and just because a team like Valentine says it wants to beat Skutt does not make it anti-Skutt.

I thought it was better than in the past because it did talk about a variety of teams (Valentine and Millard North mainly). Sesker was great but he did talk about Skutt and Millard South all the time. It is nice to see some other schools get a little press once in a while. In the future it would be nice to see some smaller C and D schools get a little press once in awhile.

quote:

Originally posted by wrestle05:
#1 The top story was about the Millard North wrestlers. That is why they had the big picture in the middle.

#2 I thought it was a great article about some up and comers.

#3 Yea they screwed up on that one.

#4 I do not see any anti-Skutt slant at all. Just because Skutt wasnt featured doesnt make it anti-Skutt. 3 out of the 4 article mentioned Skutt in some way. All were positive in the way it mentioned their dominance and just because a team like Valentine says it wants to beat Skutt does not make it anti-Skutt.

I thought it was better than in the past because it did talk about a variety of teams (Valentine and Millard North mainly). Sesker was great but he did talk about Skutt and Millard South all the time. It is nice to see some other schools get a little press once in a while. In the future it would be nice to see some smaller C and D schools get a little press once in awhile.

First off, in no way am I trying to turn this thread into a Skutt bashing. I am really not interested in that topic.

#1 I meant the article on the top of the page. This was supposed to be the OMAHA wrestling preview page, not Missouri. That article was written to point out that someone is coming to beat Skutt.

#2 I didn't say the Millard North was a bad article. Just stating my opinion that I wasn't that interested in a couple of middle of the pack wrestlers.

#3 Shows the OWH's lack of interest in wrestling.

#4 People love to whine about Millard South and Skutt getting the most attention in the press. I hate to break the news to you but Millard South and Skutt happen to be the best teams in the state. The best teams usually win the most tournaments, therefore they get the most ink. Sorry, just the facts of life. Sesker did better than a great job of covering wrestling while he was here. Again, he was forced to report on Millard South and Skutt because they were winning. Would you be happier if he reported on the 4th, 5th or 6th place teams each week?

In regards to C and D schools getting more press, you need to remember it is the OMAHA World Herald. Their readership is based primarily in Omaha. The Lincoln Journal Star probably has articles on the Lincoln schools. You don't see anyone from Omaha complaining about that. Unfortunately, if you want articles on C and D schools you need to buy their local papers.

I actually had a meeting last year with the leadership of the World Herald. At the meeting were the Editor of the entire paper, his second in command, and then the sports editor. This meeting was called because of an email I sent to the Editor.

Anyway, the meeting was very good and very productive. I was able to see their side of things and I think they had a chance to hear our side of things. They want to sell papers and they want to report on news that impacts people (and sells papers). If wrestling does this, and these folks can see the impact, then they will cover it more.

If you don't like the amount of coverage, or you have wrestling news ideas for the World Herald. They would strongly suggest that you call Thad Livingston (Sports Editor) at this number: 402-444-1021. He would be glad to field your ideas.

Most of the wrestling stories (that Sesker used to do) have been divided up among about three reporters. The one that will probably do the most work for high school, if I remember right is Rob White.

Additionally, the World Herald has at least 6 editions of the paper. The edition we get here in Omaha can be early or afternoon and usually features more Omaha area stuff. The edition that goes to Iowa usually features stuff about the area Iowa teams. The issue that goes out West will have more information dealing with the outstate teams.

Make no mistake about it, folks, if you want more coverage, you are going to have to voice your opinion. The World Herald is not a local small town paper. They try to serve a broad audience, so it is easy for wrestling to get lost in the mix. I will say, if you count all the articles so far this year, they have covered a lot of wrestling.

I think we need to be proactive here. Tearing them down won't make them do more work. We have already lost NWI, we don't need to lose more wrestling coverage.

The most frustrating thing for me is reading about Iowa high school athletics in the OWH. That takes NE HS space up and is a darn shame.

Well said, grapplinman! "You catch more wrestling articles with honey than you do with vinegar!" Give them (newspapers) more material and push for its publication (and praise them when they do publish it)! PS Good luck this season, Doug.

We love to see the Iowa coverage. The OWH does cover western Iowa and in past years we did not get the coverage that we wanted! It is a tough gig those fellas have! Lets just apreciate the coverage!

despite how much wrestling deserves coverage, it is such a pure sport because it isn't done for any sort of recogition (kind of like that poster). However, plenty of great stories out there in our sport. Grapplinman, has anyone ever offered to do any pro-bono work for OWH? I'm sure it is hard to write about something when you don't really understand it, or are not interested in it yourself. So maybe the Nebraska wrestling community could submit some articles covering both Nebraska high school and college (espeacially with how successful UNO, DANA, and UNK have been lately) and have them published in the OWH. I don't know if this would work or not, or if OWH would be interested, just a thought.

quote:

Originally posted by Mason:
We love to see the Iowa coverage. The OWH does cover western Iowa and in past years we did not get the coverage that we wanted! It is a tough gig those fellas have! Lets just apreciate the coverage!

If you want Iowa HS coverage, go buy an Iowa paper.

Hi All,

Larry.....got my fingers crossed on the season. That's about the best I can do....LOL....I do appreciate you thinking of us.

Aaron, as far as the pro bono stuff. I think you need to put in a call to their sports editor. I listed his number. I don't really know what the OWH policy is. I would bet it is pretty tight. They do have some free lance guys around, but I am not sure what you have to do to get on their list. Give the guy a call to see what we have to do.

If I am not wrong, on the Iowa coverage, these schools are covered in the Iowa edition. A few articles bleed over, but for the most part, there are separate coverage items for the high school sports.

I think the OWH is interested in doing work for wrestling and for the colleges. Certainly, they are going to look at UNO first because it is local. They will do some high school, but don't count on more than one or two stories a weekend covering major local tournaments. You will likely see the North Tourney covered this upcoming weekend.

Now, I do know, if you have interesting stories that can be covered, the OWH is listening. Send them your ideas or call them, and they usually follow up.

Make no mistake about it, they aren't going to replace NWI, and so we are facing a void. Ross is doing his best to fill in, but there is only so much he can do.

Maybe we can talk Mason into taking over for the NWI.....hehehehehehehehe....

I just don't understand the Omaha area news media as a whole. Wrestling is huge here, my god we only have the best division II wrestling programs in the country not to mention the defending naia champ in Dana. what is it gonna take for any of the news media to get on board with reporting anything on wrestling even if's on the line score at the bottom of the screen or post the high school dual scores and championship matches in the W-H scoreboard. there are tournaments every weekend and certainly with the world wide web we can get the results to the W-H as well as the news stations. maybe the t.v. stations should spend more time covering the local positive things in our area then someone getting shot, stabbed, robbed or killed.

There are so many online sites (like this one) that are all about wrestling. So why not make a state wide newspaper (kind of like what they had at the state tournaments made by huskerlandpreps) that can be sold or distributed. This would be a way for those "free-lance writers" to get their opinion in and these articles would be by someone that really does care. Stop talking about doing it and DO IT! I say that this could be made for each sport for each season and follow from pre-lims all the way to state. Good plan, cheap cost(FREE-LANCE), and as always GOOD opinions.

HardWorkCounts -- as somebody who has been on BOTH sides of the freelance issue, let me just say that if you don't PAY for the writers' efforts, you're going to GET the effort that you pay for.

And trust me when I say that starting up such an idea is NOT CHEAP. In fact, print publication costs can run into the THOUSANDS of dollars PER ISSUE when you consider time spent writing, laying out pages, setting up for prepress, printing and distribution.

Kevin and I started NWI with our own money (and some limited, much-appreciated advertising from NSWCA, UNO wrestling and others) and we lost A TON in the first few years...and that was just for an E-mail publication. I'm not even going to consider how much that dollar figure would have been for a print version of NWI. We didn't start breaking even until the third season, and even then we were making just enough to pay freelancers last year to help out (taking a ton of pressure off of my shoulders and my car's wheels).

Freelance doesn't mean FREE, trust me on this one. You'll get exactly what you pay for, and the better the pay, the better the quality of coverage.

As for getting scores on TV, best of luck...the talking heads don't want to work any harder than they have to, so don't expect them to break out of their comfort (read: basketball) zone anytime soon. About the only Omaha TV guy willing to go to the mat, literally, is J.J. Davis at Fox42. The rest of the guys show up for the "big ones" and do little else to cover the sport.

I will say one thing regarding the OWH effort this year -- ANY use of Stu Pospisil in covering the sport will be a bad decision on the sports editor's part. Pospisil is anti-wrestling and has made that opinion known many times over the years (ask me sometime about his reasoning for rating softball but not wrestling). Pospisil would be wise to let Rob, Nick and any freelancers they might hire do the work for our sport this year. In my opinion, his credibility is minimal at best.

Im not saying hire freelance writer. im saying the people who want, WRITE IT! For example, in our high school newspaper, the articles written are by the people who want it written. All over the state there could be people sending in articles to a certain base that would publish them in a small 3-4 page paper that could be bought for cost of paper, inc, editors fees, etc. if people really want the coverage of wrestling that they are asking for then they should do it themselves. all that this needs to start is a volunteer to compile and edit, (who would receive ALL profit) and send it out. i am not saying this has to be big at all, in fact it could be a small publication that could get photocopied for anyone who wants it. print 25 copies for each of the first home duals this year and that covers quite a few school with low cost. if i am still sounding stupid about my opinions than so be it but this could work with just a little HARDWORK!!!