TomSportsHack

Pikeville's a daily now. (As long as you don't think Monday and Tuesday are days. :lol: At any rate, the Kentucky Press Association includes the News-Express in the smallest of its three daily categories.) I believe the Floyd County Times in Prestonsburg is also an AP member, but I would be quite surprised if the sports editor there votes. There may be a few other non-daily members as well, but none that I can think of off the top of my head.

Who are you counting?

The Rock says ... SECOND TEAM DEFENSE DL;–;Ivan Lee, Belfry, 5-11, 256, Jr. LB;–;Dustin May, Belfry, DB;–;Joe Nichols, Pike Co. Central, HONORABLE MENTION: QB: Hunter Adams, Middlesboro; RB: Nathaniel Gilliam, Cumberland; Daniel Harmon, Pikeville; Rec: Chris Atkins, Shelby Valley; Brandon Helton, Evarts; K: Monte Merrick, Bell Co. DL: Phillip Hickman, Belfry.

FACT: At many newspapers (I daresay most newspapers under 100,000 circulation, for sure), if you come in for a job interview and ask for a salary equivalent to that of a first-year teacher, you will be shown the door. The back door. Oh, you parked around front? Terribly sorry. Have a nice walk. It's good for you!

Every member of the AP (TV, radio, print) is eligible to submit a ballot for the state football and basketball polls, All-State awards in those sports, and Mr. Football. Obviously, not every member votes. Some places, nobody cares. Some places, there's a guy who wants to vote but doesn't feel comfortable because he feels like he doesn't have enough information. Some places, and especially at smaller newspapers like I used to work at, the guy just doesn't have time. (Self congratulatory blather deleted. Ignore this line.) So there's three things to think about: interest, knowledge and time. And nobody's getting paid to spend time thinking about the AP ballot, other than maybe Fields and Demling --- the situations at Louisville (big staff, and guys who specialize in high school coverage) and, say, Pikeville or Middlesboro's newspapers (one- or two-man staffs trying to get everything, just about every day) are far different.. At most of Kentucky's AP members, that vote only happens if somebody's able to spend extra time to pull it together, unpaid. That's just the way it is.

The suggestion that russelldad made was most excellent --- separate teams for large and small schools. Don't like the athlete designation, however; it sounds like a stand-in for either honorable mention or "we think this guy got robbed but he's not as good as the other guy" and too often it comes off as either a copout or face-saving. That's why there are such concepts as "second team" and "honorable mention."

Nobody can say that winning the Mr. Football voting helped Evarts' Scott Russell or Lincoln County's Jeremy Simpson --- both won the award in successive years in the 1990s but neither played D1 football. Same deal for Jeff Duggins of Boyle County (2001 winner). No award is as important as talent and that intangible thing scouts call "upside" and winning this or any award will not change that. When I was working in Kentucky, that's how we did it. Voting was done in November. That has changed.

The reporters at the papers which are members of the AP ... yeah, they do. But there's one desk guy at AP Louisville who has completely bolluxed up the works, and I don't know if he thinks about high school sports one way or the other.

Coaches don't read resumes or sift through press clippings. They look at game film, they talk to other coaches and they talk to the coaches who have to oppose the recruit they are looking at. Most college football coaches already have their wish list for the next three signing days well in hand already. A December or January award announcement won't affect a recruitment process that started three years ago and has been intensifying for the past 18 months. Hopefully next year the AP will get the ballots out to the voters sooner. There's no excuse for being this late, especially when the nominating process for both All-State and Mr. Football used to get rolling in mid-November.

Nah, this is what you refer to as "abject failure on the part of the staff in the AP's Louisville bureau to do their daggoned jobs."

Yeah, but every QB in the Tony Franklin system runs up huge numbers.

That's the CJ's own all-state team, which is not the topic we're discussing --- we're talking about the AP all-state team that's voted by media members across Kentucky.

I already posted this on the other thread. The AP in Louisville only got the nomination forms out to members last week. Don't look for the awards until next month.

So here's what I've learned ... The AP in Louisville didn't even get the nomination forms out until .... oh, last week. My sources are telling me that the All-State teams and Mr. Football won't be released until over a month after the state finals.

It's not enough to be a decent player. Decent players get voted to all-county or all-area teams. Players on all-state teams should be standouts or better.

Yeah, but what percentage of coaches got to see all the players listed on the ballot? What percentage of fans? I'll give you a hint: 0%.

The final year that I voted, the AP brought in some of the state's "top" high school sports writers as a committee to sift through nominations come up with the final Mr. Football ballot and take some pressure off the sports desk at the AP-Louisville bureau. I wasn't really impressed with how they did it. Then again, I wasn't really impressed with how they started doing a lot of things at AP Louisville that year. For a non-profit allegedly owned by its member news organizations, that group of personnel didn't seem too interested in helping its membership out.

I don't remember that requirement from just a few years ago when I was actively nominating for and voting on that award. It's possible that seniors won so often that people just assumed that underclassmen weren't eligible.

Don't know, but I don't see that it makes one bit of difference.

Allegedly ... Tyler Olinger, Hazard, QB: 1,120 rush yards, 16 TD; 148-of-279, 3,401 pass yards, 39 TD, 8 INT. Matt Denham, John Hardin, RB: 161 rushes, 1,588 yards, 16 TD; 19 catches, 424 yards, 6 TD. John Cole, Somerset, WR: 78 catches, 1,623 yards, 23 TD. D.L. Moore, Bowling Green, WR: 63 catches, 1,350 yards, 13 TD; 3 INT, 52 return yards. Cory Farris, Boone County, RB: 409 rushes, 2,824 yards, 32 TD. Corey Robinson, Lone Oak, QB: 362-483, 5,631 yards, 90 TD, 4 INT. Colbey Fugate, Breathitt County, QB: 203-282, 3,152 yards, 30 TD, 3 INT. Aaron Boyd, Henry Clay, WR (thru 10/28): 49 catches, 1,037 yards, 14 TD. Alex Matthews, Shelby County, QB: 283-480, 4,296 yards, 49 TD, 10 INT.

Sorry, Pep ... Will Stein of Trinity is not on the final ballot.

Who would be on this committee? How much time would they have to put into it? Would they get some sort of renumeration for their time?

Yeah ... they have a long tradition down there going back to when it was still Virgie High School. :lol:

And, no surprise, Miami Northwestern finishes the season on top. Possibly the best high school football team in Florida history, and they're from one of the worst areas of Miami-Dade County (the Liberty City area of Miami).

And in Florida.