Wednesday, April 25, 2007

SLO High Football

Gotcha!

This blog has little to do with my thoughts on San Luis Obispo High football, per se. But just go with it.

I noticed that a previous blog got pirated off course by a couple of posters who saw an opening to bring up Tigers football. It seriously seems like that's all anyone is interested in.

And since I just came off a meeting with The Tribune's Managing Editor Tad Weber today where we talked about ways to make the blog a little more fresh, I figure put "SLO High Football" in the headline — and KABOOM — the hit count numbers will soar off the charts.

And that's exactly what I want to blog about: football versus spring sports.

I know football is king, not just locally, but nationally. Basketball and hockey playoffs have begun, baseball is back in full swing, but all anyone wants to talk about is NFL Draft.

I try to write a thoughtful blog on the Tigers boys volleyball program and the only two comments are about a prep football season that's four months away.

Incidentally, those were my first two comments since March. So either I'm really boring or spring sports are. Which is it? (After speaking at C.L. Smith Elementary in February, the fourth grade class will tell you it's me. So don't ask any of them.)

I'm not buying the idea that more kids play football, therefore more parents are interested. Talk to Jordan Hasay's dad, Joe. He'll tell you that track and field's numbers dwarf those of baseball. I'd bet they're pretty close to football, too. And have you checked out a track and field story recently? Many of the stars are the same boys who played football.

So what's the deal? Should I just change this blog to an all-football-all-the-time experience?

OK, I'm not asking that seriously, but here is a topic to discus: Why doesn't anyone seem to care much about spring sports?

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's not about how many people participate in the sport. Obviously, you could have over 100 students on the track team. But football catches peoples interest. Look at attendance. At a track meet, there might be like a hundred people at the meet. Even at a major meet, the majority of the people in attendance are the athletes themselves. Then theres football where at one game there could be like 5,000 people. That's probably more than all the other sports season attendance combined(Minus basketball.) So of course people are more interested in football.

Anonymous said...

There are tons of people who care about spring sports. Most of them have no idea that this blog even exists.

I am a big softball and baseball fan and there are many others just like me all throughout the county.

As a Titan fan, I would like to point something out about the statistics you run from MaxPreps. (And I love the fact that you mention them). Some of them just might be a little distorted. I heard from a couple of disgruntled Atascadero parents that their numbers aren't really kosher. They told me that even the toughest plays are called an error because they want to make sure that their pitcher has a low ERA. The other players aren't happy about this.

I started looking around and I would like you to check AG's stats. It shows that their pitcher has 145 innings in 17 games of which she has 13 complete games. (7 x 17 = 119) When you click on her name, it says that she pitched 9 1/3 innings in 9 different games.

She pitched 14 2/3 in an 11 inning game against Atascadero. Check out the stat line on that game. The line shows that AG had 7 hits, but when you add up the individual totals listed for each AG player it adds to 9 hits. The stat line from Atascadero for their pitcher shows she gave up only 4 hits.

Check out the stats for the Atascadero-Sheldon game. Sheldon feels like they got a few more hits than Atascadero gives them credit for.

I just feel that a hit is a hit and an error is an error and that everyone should call them the same.

Anonymous said...

Football is never out of season. Right now the boys are getting ready for the May 21st combine at SLO High. Most of the football players participate in the May weight lifting tournament. Football is a year long passion/committment. There is no off season.

Anonymous said...

as a parent, watching your child run for 30 seconds in track and field events is more difficult then wathching a three hour football game,so although one's pride and interest is the same, the actual "cheering" part is easier for a sport like football.
Also, many of the locally bred parents played only in football and baseball "back in the day", when track and field other sports were not even heard of here. We still dont even have lacrosse here. SLO is slow in the evolution of sports as well as so many other things.