Suggestion box

The great thing about the internet is that it allows you, the reader, to express your displeasure of me, the sports editor, whenever we may disagree. And it allows me to answer any questions you may have about our coverage in the paper.

Take for example, our prep basketball tab which ran this week. I was able to let you know how and why it came out a day later than expected.

After hearing about some discussion at another site, I'll answer some of those questions as well and be happy to answer any more comments here.

Too much Bluff? Actually, no. Too little space.

In years past we've run a 16-page section with the back page taken by an ad, leaving 14 pages for 30 teams in our coverage area. In a slower economy, there are fewer ads. Fewer ads, fewer pages to work with. We had a 12-page section this year (Tabs run in pages of fours, so a preview section could be 4, 8, 12, 16 or 20 pages) but nobody purchased the back page.

Considering half of our papers sold are in the city of Poplar Bluff, the Mules and Lady Mules get a preview story. We've always run a 'Meet the Mules' section with head shots for both boys and girls teams. This year we ran it on the back page in color to free up space inside.

The cover shot went to the PB seniors this year because the Lady Mules won a district title last season and return three starters, two of which are seniors, while the Mules return three starters and five seniors from a team that reached the district title game last season.

Last year we ran head shots of the seniors for all the area teams, but with a week less to put this year together, that wasn't an option. Each team got the same amount of space with a preview, roster and schedule.

The difference between this year and years past is that we had less space for our feature stories on the Ozark Foothills Conference boys and girls race as well as the top area themes to watch. Instead, those stories ran in the daily edition Monday (OFC boys), Tuesday (OFC girls) and Wednesday (Dexter girls, which won a district title last season).

In a perfect world, we'd be able to do preview stories on every team with photos, rosters and schedules, but we're outnumbered 30 to 3 and we still have to produce a daily sports section with the TRCC teams in full swing and football playoff teams. Thankfully, we have a group of coaches that are very helpful (this was the first time in my seven years here that we didn't have to wait until the last minute to get a roster or find a coach).

Hopefully, that's a sign that things will go well this winter and we'll be able to get calls from every coach and track down every score for every game. If we miss your team, it's nothing personal and there's probably a good reason why. Feel free to ask me here or with an email (sports@darnews.com) and I'll be happy to respond.

Consider this your suggestion box.