Here's what ProJo's coverage of high school sports will look like this spring
Spring has sprung.
While it’s hard not to remain overly suspicious of the shift of seasons — any Rhode Islander knows there’s at least one more crazy weather day on the way — the end of the hockey championships meant the official end of the winter sports season. Last Monday, teams began practicing for the final season of the academic year and, before you know it, it’ll be 75 degrees outside and we’ll wonder why winter exists in the first place.
The warm weather makes covering games a delight and The Providence Journal will continue to try to bring the most complete coverage of Rhode Island high school sports this spring.
How is this possible? And why do two writers cover 10 sports and (don’t check my math) 658 teams at the same time? Because we care.
It’s one thing to just show up to a game and write a soulless story or put something generic out on social media because that’s what the job entails. That’s not how we do things.
We want you, the reader, to be as interested as we are in what we’re covering. The stories we tell are more than just about putting a name in the paper. It’s about telling you about a player, team or trend and letting you know why it matters to us.
Journal staff will be out and about
The enthusiasm toward covering the state’s high school athletes is authentic. While I won’t proclaim to know everything about every sport — still don’t know much about lacrosse other than it’s awesome to watch — our story-telling and analysis is built on our ability to go out and see teams, talk to coaches and pay attention to what’s going on.
Much like a student would in a classroom, we try to bring what we’ve learned onto the pages of The Providence Journal and our website.
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Preview season is a refresher course for Bill Koch and myself. We have to refamiliarize ourselves with players and teams and try to give you a glimpse of what we see so you’ll know what to look for.
Once previews are rolled out — we’ll start this week with boys tennis, boys volleyball and track — we’ll start heading out to various fields and courts to see the athletes in person and tell their stories.
By the time playoffs hit, our hope is that we’ve told the big stories of the season and, if not, we’re about to.
So, what will spring coverage look like this season?
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This academic year has been the most successful year for The Providence Journal’s high school sports coverage. People are excited about the Journal’s coverage more than they have ever been and we want to keep that momentum going.
The basic coverage will be there. We’ll be popping into random games throughout the season and how we pick where we are comes down to our crazy formula. Sometimes we’re looking for a story on a player, sometimes it’s a story on a team or a big game, sometimes it’s geographical convenience and sometimes it’s because I need to get out of the house and do something.
But coverage isn’t all about games.
We had tremendous success with Player of the Week features in the fall with football and soccer and in winter with basketball. This spring, we plan to do that with baseball and softball and, because of an unbelievable response from the coaches last fall, we’ll add boys volleyball to the mix.
One big series we have planned for the spring centers around Hendricken pitcher Alex Clemmey, who is perhaps the best pitching prospect the state has ever seen. No one is better suited to handle this than Bill Koch — he was covering the Red Sox the last time they won the World Series, after all — and it’s something we think our readers will enjoy.
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What’s will be my big plan this spring? Don’t know yet.
My brain is currently mush as I attempt to get previews done, prep our winter All-State stuff and try to avoid panicking about my kids’ youth sports adventures — the youngest is somehow partaking in three this spring. I know I’ll be at a million games this spring and I know something will eventually hit.
And, of course, we can't forget about our ace photographers — Kris Craig and Dave Del Poio — so if you see them show up at a game with cameras in hand, be sure to smile, and say hello. Chances are if The Journal photographers are at a game, it's for more than just a couple of shots. Be sure to check our website, providencejournal.com/sports, for stories and photo galleries.
Coaches are key elements in spring sports coverage
As for day-to-day, we’re still figuring out the details. Numbers are instrumental in content creation and we want to package results in a way that benefit the readers and are efficient to produce. Fall and winter both have anchor sports; there isn’t that luxury in the spring, so we’re still experimenting to see what works.
To do this, we lean heavily on the coaches. Whatever results are sent in — whether by phone (401-277-7340) or email (pjsports@providencejournal.com), but preferably email — we will wrap them up and have a listing on the website. Box scores are not coming back and, while that’s disappointing to some, the reality is sports aren’t covered that way anymore. There are a million ways to get scores from a game and the last one on the list is a box score.
Recaps will be our lifeblood. It might just be one or two sentences on a game, but those one or two sentences matter more to the athletes than a box score ever will. Recaps are more efficient and an easier way to disseminate information, so we will continue to use them as an asset in our coverage.
Ultimately, the goal this spring is simple — be better every single day. Thanks to you, the reader, interest in The Providence Journal’s high school coverage has never been higher. Media of the past would settle there, but we’re more interested in continuing to reach this growing market and bring you content in a way no medium has done before.
It will be real. It will be authentic. It will be fun. It just better not take place during some ridiculous April snowstorm.
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: What the coverage of RI high school sports will look like this spring
