When high school tennis wins out over college football
I spent the weekend in Wilson and had to make do with an early edition of the Sunday News & Observer. (Sorry, Melanie. I couldn't resist.) I came across a small story on page 8C reporting that Greensboro Page beat Raleigh Broughton in the state 4A tennis championship, and an even smaller story about Jamestown Ragsdale winning the state 3A tennis championship.
"I hope we gave these finals more ink," I said to myself.
We did. A package of photos, results and high school football pairings took up about half the front page of the Sports section. Inside the section was a full page of information about the high school competition. (The N&O devoted nearly a full page to the championships.)
For the record, our Sports front had stories on the N.C. State football game, an advance column on the Panthers game and a NASCAR story. It's a little difficult to compare because the Raleigh paper has two front pages in its Sports section. The first focuses solely on college football, where the N.C. State game story is. The second "front" page -- actually page 5 -- is built around a large photo of celebrating members of the Carolina Hurricane. Other stories on the page include a piece the state high school cross country championships, an advance of the Panthers game and a article piece on the Charlotte Bobcats.
Different market. Different sports. Different priorities.
I asked Joe Sirera, our sports editor, about making the choice to play the state high school championships big, rather than one of the college football games.
"I discussed the decision at some length by phone with Doug Harris, our C1 designer, once N.C. State completed its upset of Florida State. It was about 7 p.m. I asked Doug if Page and/or Ragsdale had won state tennis titles, and he said both had won. That pretty much clinched the decision. If Page and Ragsdale had lost, I would have made the switch to N.C. State-Florida State football as the main art centerpiece. But if either team won, high school tennis had to be the centerpiece.
"It came down to a choice of celebrating one or more local high school teams winning state championships, as well as giving prominent display to the high school football playoff pairings, or displaying wire art from a N.C. State football upset win or a UNC upset football win. We still made N.C. State a strong lead story and had a bold headline over the UNC victory inside. Of the two, State got the C1 play because the Wolfpack remains the only team to beat Florida State in an ACC game in Tallahassee. UNC's win was significant, but Boston College is not quite Florida State."
Playing the Carolina story on page C4 didn't make my Carolina grad wife happy, but that happens.
Comments (1)
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Many thanks on the great decision to highlight the tennis victories. Kelly Dixon's piece on the Newman sisters is wonderful and much appreciated in the Page community. It was potentially a huge weekend for Page but unfortunately the football and soccer teams were defeated. Your coverage of the second consecutive state tennis title helped take the sting out of the other disappointments.
Thanks again.
Posted on November 8, 2005 12:00 AM