I thought I would throw this out to all BGPers out there...

Has anyone ever thought about or tried to start a weekly publication covering high school football in the state of KY? It seems to me with the growing popularity of high school football that someone would step up and make this kind of thing happen.

I, for one, believe that it could be done. Personally, Im not happy with the coverage the Courier-Journal gives to HS football. You only see a page per week spotlighting high school teams and accomplishments and usually the predictions are very limited to the games that involve X, Male, Trinity and occassionally Ballard, Central and and a few others.

I would think that there would be a big interest in a publication (either paper or online) that people would love to read spotlighting each district with even just snippets of information from each team and each week, a different team could be highlighted from each district.

Yes, it would take some time to do this, but surely there are enough people out there who could provide some information on schools out the state.

I do not like that each week, you have to wait until Thursday to find out whats going on.

Im sure there is some format that could be used to keep it entertaining and informative, especially when it comes to recruiting. I find that if I want to find out whats going on out in the state, I have to come here (not that this is entirely a bad thing) to get insight and input on state & county schools.

Anyone else have some thoughts on this idea?

Sounds like a great idea........what about it 'Ru? Could BGP use it's base of knowledgeable fans/reporters/creative writers to implement a weekly high school sports publication a la the BGP newsletter style?

There was a publication of this sort at one time a couple years back. For the life of me I can't remember the name of it.

The thing that is tough about this it is very expensive to put together if it is going to be a quality piece.

There was a publication of this sort at one time a couple years back. For the life of me I can't remember the name of it.

The thing that is tough about this it is very expensive to put together if it is going to be a quality piece.

:thumb:

It'd have to be regional to be comprehensive, and even regionally you'd need several full time people to make it worthwhile.

I've thought that a website would be better than a newspaper format. You would probably get more readers and a large following on the Internet. Look at this site from Texas; might be a good model.

 

http://www.texashsfootball.com/

To my knowledge there have been many attempts to do variations of this and they have all failed. A project like this would be big time work and cost very big bucks.

Theres a monthly publication in Tn called "On the Ball" magazine which features all the area HS teams in various sports, but mainly football this time of the year...Its really a good magazine that gives alot of insight on teams , players and coaches...

Having actually attempted this type of project before, I agree whole-heartedly with Guru about the amount of time, effort and money needed to put together a hard-copy publication. Unless one has the time to devote to the effort as one would with a full-time job, it is virtually impossible. From past experience, one of the hardest things to accomplish is finding reliable, competant individuals to work in advertising and distribution...both of which are critical in making this type of project fly. Also, printing costs are out-of-this-world expensive...unless one is willing to publish a cheap-looking product.

 

However, I would say that a virtual publication is something that would be much more feasible.

I think it does go without saying that an online publication may be better suited, especially since so many colleges and recruiters get a lot of their information from the net anyway.

 

Depending on certain sites, you could probably host a website for a reasonable amount (in some cases, I guess you could even get people to sign up for it a very reasonable fee.

 

As I was thinking more about this, I would think the most difficult part would be finding people out in the state who could set aside their "preference" teams and be fair about reporting on all teams in their areas.

 

But I do believe that it would be nice for the following reasons:

1. Its a great way to get some comprehensive insights to teams all over the state

2. Its a good way to assist and promote athletes who otherwise might not get much exposure

3. It can assist with getting recruiters (even from small colleges) to notice players through out the state.

4. It would be a good way to promote and highlight teams that usually get slighted in other publications because they are consistently "non-performing" teams that routinely go 1-9, 0-10, 2-8, etc. Surely these teams have something to promote.

I think it would be important to do all we (we being fans and followers of Kentucky HS Football) to get our athletes an opportunity to play college ball somewhere. We have a lot of talent that goes unnoticed and too many good players are getting overlooked.

Plus (not to slight Lafayette by any means) but I would think a 1st round playoff loss to a 4 seed would be worth reporting on, but all you saw in Louisville was the score. If you didnt know any better, you probably wouldnt know that Lafayette was 10-0 going into the playoffs. To me...THATS WORTHY NEWS at least for the little guys.

Likewise, there are far to many unknown programs that have some success out there that never get reported (except maybe by the local county pubs.)

Since I follow R2D4, I give you an example....take Iroquois. Here is a team that went 4-6 this year but started out the year 4-1. There were some great highlights that went un-noticed for this team despite a 5 game slide against a tough district. For example, DB Marquise MacAffey had an interception return for a TD against Butler that went for what had to be about 104 yards (I know he intercepted it in the back of the end zone and ran it all the way back). There was no mention of this anywhere and surely this has to be some type of state record or at least up there.

These are the types of things that get missed across the entire state. Good highlights and performances from mid to sub par performing teams that never get recognized unless they are in a "powerhouse" program.

They were also ranked in the top 10 in the state after the 1st 5 games in scoring defense, scoring offense, rushing and QB/RB Raydale Williams was one of the states leading scorers at one time. Sure they finished 4-6 after district play, but it would have been nice if their accomplishments before-hand had been spotlighted.

At least this would be my thoughts for the pub. Dont make it just about the usual top teams and players...make it for EVERYONE!

In The Loop. You can never have enough cowbell. Great avitar

I agree with the online type publication....hard copy is too labor intensive to compile and publish, as well as too expensive to be profitable.

 

An online version, while taking several "reporters" to assemble and an "editor" to organize into a format, would be an achievable sort of project. It could be done similar to the BGP newsletters and preview editions, just in a more frequent fashion.

 

I'm not saying that BGP should do it (even though I think they're the leaders in high school sports reporting in KY), but I think that would be a good named organization to start with!!

Wasen't there a Hacks magazine a couple of years ago that covered hs sports? What happened to it?

Wasen't there a Hacks magazine a couple of years ago that covered hs sports? What happened to it?

 

Yes there was a Hack's magazine that covered H.S. sports in NKY. I'm not sure if it still exists or not. It was a very good publication.