Publishing football rosters only a small part of the game
Q: What do Alex Lincoln, Joshua Schaffer and Conner Yearian have in common?
a. All play on the Neuqua Valley High School varsity football team.
b. All are mentioned by prep sportswriter extraordinaire Joe Aguilar in his video preview of the season, which kicks off this evening.
c. All had their names personally entered onto a spreadsheet by yours truly for inclusion in a new feature on dailyherald.com that includes the names, numbers and vital stats of the players for the scores of high schools in the Daily Herald's coverage area.
d. All of the above.
The answer, of course, is "d."
Why, you may ask, is the DuPage editor taking on a typist's duties? Well, it's always a good idea to brush up on one's typing skills, but the truth is we got in a little bit of a bind here. The Web site presentation is part of our new Football Focus 2008, which premieres online today. It's also a one-time, stand-alone section in print, and next week will be followed up by Sports Monthly, which will appear the first Friday of each month. We wanted to have the rosters ready to post by today but did not have them until just a couple of days earlier. So, it was all hands on deck to get the names inputted. (And for the record, boss, I also did the Addison Trail roster, in case you were wondering whether I'm pulling my weight around this place.)
On our Web site, we'll include schedules, and as the season progresses, post previous feature and game stories as well as build on our existing photo galleries of game action and feature shots.
Joe's video was posted earlier this week. In it, he previews today's big games - Fremd vs. Lake Zurich, Neuqua vs. Naperville North and St. Charles East vs. Batavia, among others. Throughout the year, other prep sportswriters will be appearing in front of our video cameras.
That's not all.
Another member of our crack prep sportswriting team, Marty Maciaszek, will be appearing at 10:45 p.m. every Friday - through football season and beyond - on WBBM Newsradio 780 AM to discuss the day's sporting events that occurred in our backyards.
And, for those of you living in Naperville, check out NCTV17, Naperville's community television station, where we're a sponsor for the first time of Naperville Sports Weekly, the station's popular show. DuPage County prep sportswriters Dave Oberhelman and Kevin Schmit will take turns discussing the big games with host Jeff Maloney. The first appearance is Sept. 14.
We celebrate the successes of our prep gridironers after the season, too. The Daily Herald honors its all-area teams (the top players, in the opinions of our sportswriters and editors) for each of the four major geographic zones of the newspaper: Cook, DuPage and Lake counties and the Fox Valley area. That takes place at various banquet halls and always has been described as a "feel good evening" by our legendary host, Bob Frisk.
Yet the banquets won't be quite the same after this year. For the first time since their institution two decades ago, Bob won't be running the show. After this season's football banquests, he's retiring with 56 distinguished years at the Daily Herald.
Heck, we ought to have a sports banquet just for Bob, for all he's meant to and done to promote the prep sports scene.
In the meantime, though, check out those rosters - each school has its own page - and if you see any problems with the ones from Neuqua Valley or Addison Trail, send your complaints to ... jdavis@dailyherald.com.