I don’t know if I could have started my job at a better time for high school or junior college coverage.

My first weekend on the job was the high school football semifinals. On Friday, I went down to Cheyenne and saw East beat Gillette 35-34 in double overtime in the 5A playoffs. The next day I went to Lusk and covered Riverside’s 10-9 victory against Lusk in the 2A semifinals. The next weekend I wrote previews for the 2A and 5A finals and covered the 2A final between Big Horn and Riverside. Riverside won its first state title in a 21-20 game.

I covered three games and all decided by one point. I don’t think I could have had a better introduction to football in the state. Of course they were the best teams in the state, so they should have been good games, but I don’t think many people can say the first three games they covered were all one-point games.

A few notes about the games:

*It sounds cliché, but you win championships by taking care of the ball and not hurting yourself with penalties. Gillette was called for three penalties in double overtime. One was on offense, but the Camels still scored a touchdown. The others were on defense and gave East first downs. When you give a team extra downs inside the 10-yard line you are going to pay, and Gillette did. Riverside forced multiple turnovers in both games I saw them play and benefited from the turnovers.

*I put in close to 900 miles covering these games. I’m now pretty familiar with the eastern part of the state and I-25….  I saw a few tumbleweeds go across the highway and cracked up each time I saw one… Driving through a state with mountains is more entertaining and beautiful than driving through the cornfields of Illinois, Indiana and Missouri.

*I loved that I couldn't’t get cell phone reception in Lusk, but there were multiple wireless Internet networks I could pick up in the middle of town. I also enjoyed picking Chicago’s WBBM 780 AM while out there. 780 is the main Chicago news radio station. It was nice to hear some familiar voices from home.

*I’m a fan of a neutral site for state championships. In Illinois and Missouri, where I grew up and where I went to college, the state titles were at neutral sites (University of Illinois’s football stadium and at the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis). Both these sites allowed ample room for fans, media and gave kids a chance to experience playing at a college or pro stadium. Going to the final in Big Horn slightly changed my view though. First, Big Horn is a beautiful setting for a game. In the fourth quarter you had the sun setting behind the mountains in the background of the field. It was a breathtaking view and I wish I had more time to take it in. Fans drove their cars right up to the field and some people were sitting in truck beds instead of the stands. I hadn’t seen a game where fans could do that and where everyone lined the field. This was a big game in a small town and you could easily tell that. The pressbox, however wasn’t big enough for the scoreboard operator, two radio stations, videographers for both teams and me. A neutral site would.

The idea of covering junior colleges is new to me, but I also haven’t lived in an area where community college had sports teams, let alone good ones. It makes sense to cover Casper College and take all the phone calls that we do from other schools around the state. People need something local to cheer for besides high schools, especially in a state where UW is the only four-year school, and that’s where the junior colleges come in. The Thunderbirds’ women’s volleyball team went to the NJCAA National Tournament a few weeks ago, and we covered it. Laramie County Community College made the NJCAA soccer tournament that same week. The teams are good, so you need to cover them. It makes sense.

Last weekend I covered the UW-Colorado State football game in Fort Collins. You can read about my experiences on YouW.

Those are a few impressions from my first month of the job. I’m not sure what I’ll be blogging about next. It all depends on what I’ll be covering. I am going to be the main high school wrestling guy, so if you have any story ideas or want to talk wrestling, shoot me an e-mail at david.buck@trib.com

Dave

It’s Thanksgiving. We are all thankful for various things. Besides the typical friends, family and health, I thought I’d take a minute to post a few journalistic things that I am thankful for. You should also be thankful for these things because they help me do my job and get you news.

•    The First Amendment – It gives us free speech. Because of this journalists and anyone can question the government and public officials and hold them accountable. Enough said.
•    Coach that give open access – It sounds simple but some coaches / sports information directors (SIDs) tell reporters when they can and can’t go to practice. I understand that coaches don’t want the media printing game plans or trick plays, but it’s hard to fairly judge a team without seeing them in practice. Because of the Internet and 24-hour news cycles, readers want more and more information about college and high school athletics (especially in terms of recruiting), but without access we can’t do our job. Well, we can, just not as good as we could if we had better access. I’m new here, but from what I’ve heard UW has great access for basketball and football, at least compared to the Big 12 schools I’m used working worth.
•    Coaches and players who don’t speak in clichés, or at least, coaches / players who say clichés but who also give you great quotes. I enjoy quotes that I can’t predict someone will say before the game. That is why when I covered the Big 12 basketball tournament last year I stuck around an extra few hours to see a Bob Knight press conference. You never know what he is going to say and it’s usually something you know you want to put in your paper. Clichés are boring and that’s why I don’t like them. Coaches are known for “coach speak,” and that isn’t a good term. Coach speak usually includes such key phrases as “give credit to ______,” “Tip your to _____,”  "One game at a time" and “110 percent.”
•    Editors -- We’re all human and make mistakes. Some more than others. Without editors I wouldn’t be where I am today. Copy editors have caught many mistakes that I’ve put in stories including statistical, spelling and any other kind you can think of. My editors have also challenged me to be a better writer, allowed me to experiment with different methods of telling a story, defended me when it needs to be done, and most importantly, tell me when I’m doing something stupid and need change.
•    Working as a sports writer as a living-- Growing up I always loved sports and I enjoyed writing. I’m not talented enough to be a professional athlete, so I decided covering sports would be a good second choice. I get to go to games for a living and get paid for it. Sure, the hours are odd and while you are at a game cheering, I have to work, but it’s a great job. The sports department is often called the toy department of a newspaper and I have no problem with that. Who says you have to give up toys when you grow up. I’d rather play with toys and cover games than report on criminals or bureaucracies (though sometimes athletes make me cover crime).
•    Co-workers: Journalists in general are a different kind of folk, and that’s what makes us great. It takes a certain drive and passion to be a journalist and I’ve be lucky to have some great co-workers in college, at internships and now here at the Star-Tribune. I’ve found sports desks are often the most fun and entertaining places to hang around in an office and that’s because of the people. Sports people know how to have fun and don’t take themselves as serious as others. It makes for a great environment and a lot laughs that makes work seem like you’re a toy department. Special thanks to my current sports-department cronies who have saved my butt multiple times in my first few weeks on the job.

I’m also thankful for food and football. The Packers-Lions game is back on from halftime, so I should get back to my mashed potatoes and start paying attention to the game. Happy Thanksgiving and safe travels to all.

Dave

I’m Dave Buck, the (somewhat) new guy on the Star-Tribune’s sports staff. I’ll start my blog off in style by giving you a glimpse of my first few weeks on the job and what I think about the local sports scene so far.

My first reporting assignment was covering a “major announcement” by the Casper Rockies on Halloween. It was my second day on the job and I didn’t know much about the team besides it having a terrible record  (22-53) last year. My coworkers told me the word on the streets was the team was either going to change its name and / or the affiliation with a major-league club. The press conference, only the second the team besides announcing the team was coming to town, was at the Wonder Bar.

An hour or so before the conference I was doing some research on the Casper Rockies’ Web site.  I was looking at the bios of team officials to figure out who I might need to talk to and I decided to look at the “contacts” section. That is where things getting interesting. The top of the Web site said “Casper Rockies” but all the e-mail addresses said (name)@ghostsbaseball.com. So much for a big surprise and major announcement. The team was changing its name from Rockies to Ghosts. The Casper Ghosts, just like the cartoon. The team still could change affiliations. Were they that ashamed of the Rockies in the World Series just a few days earlier?

I get to the press conference and meet team owner Kevin Haughian and General Manager / Director of Fun Matt Warneke. I tell Warneke that I noticed the new e-mail address and he said that was a glitch in the site. It wasn’t supposed to be changed until after the press conference. Warneke also says there will be some shock value with the announcement.

The press conference was a typical announcement. There was an intro hyping the team and then the new logos were unveiled, including two with the cartoon character, Casper the Friendly Ghost dressed as a cowboy. The shock value came with Casper Ghosts logo with fierce “mystical baseball logo.” Also, the new hats are glow in the dark.

Glow-in-the-dark hats are pretty shocking. The Ghosts are the first team to utilize the thread with New Era, the makers of the hats.

Changing the team name to Ghosts on Halloween could have made for a lot of clichés and cheesiness. Thankfully none of the team officials dressed up in costumes for the press conference (thought they did later, see below) and there weren’t any terrible puns about a “spooky announcement,” the team’s “ghastly performance last year” or “having tricks and treats for fans.” Haughian said this about the date of the announcement:

“We thought it was fitting. … It just made way too much sense if we are going with the name Casper Ghosts not to announce it on Halloween.”

I went back to the Wonder Bar after work to have a beer and ran into Warneke and a few other team officials. They were dressed as Ghostbusters. Cool costumes, but don’t Ghostbusters get rid of ghosts? Interesting way to promote the new product.

Journalists, and most people, should think that clichés are bad. With that in mind I decided not to make Halloween a big part of my story. I did think about it though.

This was a joke lead I came up with:

The Casper Rockies gave fans a treat on Halloween, but the team’s Web site played a trick on team officials.
The team had a spooktacular press conference on Wednesday announcing the team is changing names to the Ghosts.
Ghosts’ officials said the change has noting to do with last summer’s ghastly season or the Red Sox haunting sweep of the parent Rockies in the World Series.
Despite treating fans, the Ghosts were tricked by the team’s Web site. E-mail addresses under the “contacts” section said “(name)@ghostsbaseball.com” a few hours before the official announcements, so some people already knew the team’s “major announcement.”…

I also pondered this lead, but because I didn’t cover the team I didn’t think I had the authority to write this, especially as my first article:

Fans now have a new reason to boo the minor-league baseball team in Casper.
The Casper Rockies changed its name to the Ghosts on Wednesday at a press conference at the Wonder Bar.
“I’d like to see it where when we do something good or the team is announced where everyone in the stands is ‘booing,’” said team owner Kevin Haughian. “I think we can have so much fun with this. We are only going to be limited by our imagination and the name itself will be a springboard to a lot of crazy things.” …

Here are links to the online and print stories I did:

http://www.trib.com/articles/2007/10/31/news/top_story/0ba5da8f8605835d87257385006cfe35.txt (Online update, has photo of some of new logos)

http://www.trib.com/articles/2007/11/02/sports/pro/91242b5f48a813f3872573850080404e.txt (print version)

My take on the name change: It makes sense to me as someone who just moved here that the team would want to be named the Ghosts. Haughian said when he moved the team here from Butte, Mont., that he wanted it named the Ghosts, but Rockies officials wanted all minor-league affiliates to have the same name. I didn’t know much about Casper before apply for my job than it was in Wyoming, but I did know who Casper the Friendly Ghost is. One good aspect about the name change, Warneke said, is when people google or search “Casper and Ghost” they will learn about the baseball team, along with the cartoon.

This move was made for economic reasons and I respect that. Sports more and more is about making money. Fans were not buying Casper Rockies gear because if they wanted something that said Rockies they would buy Colorado gear, Haughian said. The change was about creating a new identity for the team and it certainly achieved that. Of the 159 teams in the minors 124 have unique names and identities. The majority of the teams who have same names as the parent club are owned by the major-league franchise.

The glow-in-the-dark hats should sell well and the line of clothing with Casper the Friendly Ghost is creative and should also make the team some money. I know if I had kids or had some cousins who were young I’d buy them some of the Ghosts gears with the cartoon on it. Having a unique hat with New Era means the team’s hats might be sold across the country or world at hat stores in malls. Making more money with merchandise sales could mean good things for local fans. That extra money might mean the cost of going to games could be cheaper.

Covering the team’s press conference was a great first story for me. It allowed me to meet team officials and get a feel for how they operate in a low-key, fun setting. I look forward to working with those guys again.

Thanks you if you made it this far. I’ll try to keep future posts shorter.

Coming soon: Welcoming to Wyo part II, High School football