The Jackson Sun's Preview of Region 7-3A

[Purple & Gold Standard]

OK.....I just bought the August 16th edition of The Jackson Sun....It had the Region 7-3A preview in it this morning...I was particularly interested in this edition because the Rebels of Obion County Central are in Region 7-3A...Or at least I thought they were...You really can't tell by Joshua Parrott's 3 paragraphs on the Rebels...Let me first share with the world known as CoachT the predictions for the region..It has the Rebels 6th...Now that doesn't really bother me,cause that could happen...Of course with the right bounces they could end up 1st or at the very least in the top 4..But what it said out beside it let me know real quick this reporter had not done any research on the Rebels...."Little is known about the Rebels this season."..WHAT?!?!?!?...Top 10 players to watch in the region??...You guessed it...None from Obion Central....Games of the week???...You guessed it...None involving the Rebels.....

Joshua,I don't know if you tried to call the coaches office at OC or tried to call the office at OC and got the number for the coaches office..I don't know if you tried to call coach Bowling at home...I don't know if you tried to call the Union City Daily Messenger...But from that shoddy little junior high effort you gave toward the Rebels,I highly doubt you did...You know,you could have read ON THE BALL magazine's write-up on the Rebels....It was very good work...Well laid out and thought out....Heck,you could have even gone on CoachT and found out a great deal more about the Rebels than what you did on them....To all the CoachTers out there..If you want to know a little about the Rebels,read On The Ball for August or get a copy of Thursday's edition of The Messenger in Union City...Mike Hutchens will have all the info you need on the Rebels in his award winning football preview tab....

I continue to be amazed by The Jackson Sun's lack of coverage of teams in Obion County..Yet they still hound people in Obion County to subscribe to their paper..Why should people in Obion County subscribe when this is all we get???..I wish all the sports fans in Obion County would boycott the Sun...

The young men at Obion Co. Central deserve much more than that little effort..You know,if you don't have enough help..Hire somebody...If you don't know...Ask somebody...But to put in your newspaper what you did,is well,amateurish...

I figured I would stand up for the kids that play at Obion Central..If nobody else does that's their problem...But I know I feel better now.....

Josh,before you say that I'm hiding behind a screenname...Go to my profile..You'll see who I am..If you would like to try and justify your "story"..E-mail me...We'll chat....

[bigwes68]

OK.....I just bought the August 16th edition of The Jackson Sun....It had the Region 7-3A preview in it this morning...I was particularly interested in this edition because the Rebels of Obion County Central are in Region 7-3A...Or at least I thought they were...You really can't tell by Joshua Parrott's 3 paragraphs on the Rebels...Let me first share with the world known as CoachT the predictions for the region..It has the Rebels 6th...Now that doesn't really bother me,cause that could happen...Of course with the right bounces they could end up 1st or at the very least in the top 4..But what it said out beside it let me know real quick this reporter had not done any research on the Rebels...."Little is known about the Rebels this season."..WHAT?!?!?!?...Top 10 players to watch in the region??...You guessed it...None from Obion Central....Games of the week???...You guessed it...None involving the Rebels.....

Joshua,I don't know if you tried to call the coaches office at OC or tried to call the office at OC and got the number for the coaches office..I don't know if you tried to call coach Bowling at home...I don't know if you tried to call the Union City Daily Messenger...But from that shoddy little junior high effort you gave toward the Rebels,I highly doubt you did...You know,you could have read ON THE BALL magazine's write-up on the Rebels....It was very good work...Well laid out and thought out....Heck,you could have even gone on CoachT and found out a great deal more about the Rebels than what you did on them....To all the CoachTers out there..If you want to know a little about the Rebels,read On The Ball for August or get a copy of Thursday's edition of The Messenger in Union City...Mike Hutchens will have all the info you need on the Rebels in his award winning football preview tab....

I continue to be amazed by The Jackson Sun's lack of coverage of teams in Obion County..Yet they still hound people in Obion County to subscribe to their paper..Why should people in Obion County subscribe when this is all we get???..I wish all the sports fans in Obion County would boycott the Sun...

The young men at Obion Co. Central deserve much more than that little effort..You know,if you don't have enough help..Hire somebody...If you don't know...Ask somebody...But to put in your newspaper what you did,is well,amateurish...

I figured I would stand up for the kids that play at Obion Central..If nobody else does that's their problem...But I know I feel better now.....

Josh,before you say that I'm hiding behind a screenname...Go to my profile..You'll see who I am..If you would like to try and justify your "story"..E-mail me...We'll chat....

 

 

Don't feel bad. Most of the time, the Jackson Sun refuses to even acknowledge the very existence of Lake County. But I will say this -- oftentimes, high school coaches are difficult to get in contact with. It took repeated efforts to get the coach at Byhalia to talk to me, or to even find out if they had a football team. As many teams as the Sun has to do a preview on, if they make several attempts to get a hold of the coach and he doesn't call them back, they've done all they can do and they have to move on. It's not like our paper where we put together one sports page every week, or even the Messenger where Hutchens does one or two sports pages Monday-Friday, about half of which is AP stuff. Parrott pretty much has to put together an entire sports section every day, more or less by himself. I don't know how he does it.

 

And even though my award-winning tab has no information on OC (LC doesn't play them, why should it?), it will be on newsstands in Lake County next Wednesday.

[mg]

i am sure that coach bowling is right where he and any other coach would want to be and that is under the "radar"...

 

notice who was on the front page of the preview...... crockett county......notice who had all the "ink"....crockett county.....but who was the coaches pick for #1?

 

dyersburg..... and dyersburg had a little ole paragraph almost as small as oc's.......

 

oc has my respect and i fully expect that game 9 (dburg vs oc) will decide the region championship...and that game will be a slugfest.......

 

oc will get their chance when CROCKETT COUNTY comes knocking.....and let me be the first to say if oc can limit their turnovers and win the clock battle, then oc can win this ballgame...........

 

when dburg comes knocking in crockett county, it will be as the reigning region 7 champs and not the jax sun front page poster children.......

Edited August 16, 2006 by mg

[TheBoredGuy]

You know,you could have read ON THE BALL magazine's write-up on the Rebels....It was very good work...Well laid out and thought out....Heck,you could have even gone on CoachT and found out a great deal more about the Rebels than what you did on them....To all the CoachTers out there..If you want to know a little about the Rebels,read On The Ball for August or get a copy of Thursday's edition of The Messenger in Union City...Mike Hutchens will have all the info you need on the Rebels in his award winning football preview tab....

 

Thanks for the compliments on our coverage, backinthaoc. I'm glad that someone as close to the Rebel program as you are felt that our preview article was well done. Coach Bowling was very gracious in giving me information during our visit. And that fieldhouse and practice facility...VERY nice.

 

I picked them to finish 4th in the region, but I could see them finishing as high as 2nd if everything goes well. It doesn't take long after talking with Bowling to realize this guy knows his stuff. That region is just so loaded top to bottom, it's ridiculous.

 

Obion Central is definitely my "sleeper" team in 3A, and Bowling is without a doubt one of the most underrated coaches in WTN. I expect that the Rebels will end up surprising a lot of people this year.

[TheBoredGuy]

But I will say this -- oftentimes, high school coaches are difficult to get in contact with. It took repeated efforts to get the coach at Byhalia to talk to me, or to even find out if they had a football team. As many teams as the Sun has to do a preview on, if they make several attempts to get a hold of the coach and he doesn't call them back, they've done all they can do and they have to move on.

 

I'll disagree with this to an extent. We have full-page previews on all 44 WTN teams. We visited every school and sat down with every coach from every program. Sometimes we did have to call multiple times before we got them, but for an issue (or tab as the case may be) as popular as the football preview, you've got to do what it takes.

[Lions4ever]

I'll disagree with this to an extent. We have full-page previews on all 44 WTN teams. We visited every school and sat down with every coach from every program. Sometimes we did have to call multiple times before we got them, but for an issue (or tab as the case may be) as popular as the football preview, you've got to do what it takes.

And you do a great job...I've read it front to back twice already

[bigwes68]

I'll disagree with this to an extent. We have full-page previews on all 44 WTN teams. We visited every school and sat down with every coach from every program. Sometimes we did have to call multiple times before we got them, but for an issue (or tab as the case may be) as popular as the football preview, you've got to do what it takes.

 

I called Byhalia at least 10 times. On about the fifth try, I finally got the coach to call me back. I asked them 3 times to send me a schedule, and they still haven't. This thing goes to press Friday, and I still don't have Byhalia's schedule. I'm still wondering if there will even be a game in Byhalia next Friday. And I still had two other coaches that never called me back before I had to leave to come back to Knoxville.

 

The difference between what you were doing and what I was doing -- your one focus at the time was putting together a football preview. We still had a newspaper to get out every week, and with a staff of only 5 people (and only 3 computers), that isn't always easy -- especially at election time.

 

My point in making the statement that coaches didn't always call back is that the folks at the Jackson Sun have to worry about putting out a newspaper EVERY day, and their focus in putting out a daily sports section is not limited to high school football. If they make repeated attempts to get someone to talk to them and they simply won't do it, and with deadlines such as they are for a daily newspaper, they have to go with what they've got. In your case -- and I haven't seen this year's On The Ball but last year's was great -- your single focus was putting together a football preview that I would assume had a fairly flexible deadline.

Edited August 17, 2006 by bigwes68

[TheBoredGuy]

I called Byhalia at least 10 times. On about the fifth try, I finally got the coach to call me back. I asked them 3 times to send me a schedule, and they still haven't. This thing goes to press Friday, and I still don't have Byhalia's schedule. I'm still wondering if there will even be a game in Byhalia next Friday. And I still had two other coaches that never called me back before I had to leave to come back to Knoxville.

 

The difference between what you were doing and what I was doing -- your one focus at the time was putting together a football preview. We still had a newspaper to get out every week, and with a staff of only 5 people (and only 3 computers), that isn't always easy -- especially at election time.

 

My point in making the statement that coaches didn't always call back is that the folks at the Jackson Sun have to worry about putting out a newspaper EVERY day, and their focus in putting out a daily sports section is not limited to high school football. If they make repeated attempts to get someone to talk to them and they simply won't do it, and with deadlines such as they are for a daily newspaper, they have to go with what they've got. In your case -- and I haven't seen this year's On The Ball but last year's was great -- your single focus was putting together a football preview that I would assume had a fairly flexible deadline.

 

No doubt, there's a difference in putting together a daily and a monthly. That's part of the reason we are able to go into much greater depth and detail on our football preview. The point I was trying to make is, if you know you're going to have to put together a football tab, what's stopping you from getting the ball rolling on it in June? We really had only 3 weeks where we dedicated 100% of our time to the football preview due to work on other issues, but we were making contact with coaches and gathering information before that.

 

Byhalia is a difficult comparison as it's not in-state and they probably don't give a crap whether or not a TN paper has any information on them. I would certainly assume, however, that every coach in WTN would care enough to be included. That's not to say they are easy to get in touch with, because I know from experience that's not always the case.

 

Unfortunately, we did not have a flexible deadline. The TNean does our printing, and we have to fit into their schedule, not the other way around. I wish it were the other way around, it would make life a little easier.

[NWTennSports]

OK, back ... or, as I sometimes refer to you: Big Bro. ..... I'm gonna tell ya this for the last time. .... The Jax Sun doesn't do much Obion County coverage b/c they know they can't compete with the product on the newsstands up there. .... Yes, yes, yes, they claim to be West Tennessee's complete news source, but why get in a get into a dog fight with a Pit Bull when you're nothing more than a wiener dog???

 

So, be happy that you have what you have locally as well as On The Ball (fantastic, by the way), and don't worry yourself about Josh and the Jackson Gang.

 

I can't tell you how many times I would get upset hearing someone say to me "Why can't the Sun come up here and cover us?" Some would even try to put stock in the Appeal. JEEZ, GIMME A BREAK!!!!! I WAS THERE, DANG-GUM IT!!! You didn't need the Sun there!!!!!

 

I really wish some of y'all would get over the notion that bigger (in terms of newspapers) is better.

 

Screw the Sun. Read your Mess. And, get on with your lives.

[diablo]

OK, back ... or, as I sometimes refer to you: Big Bro. ..... I'm gonna tell ya this for the last time. .... The Jax Sun doesn't do much Obion County coverage b/c they know they can't compete with the product on the newsstands up there. .... Yes, yes, yes, they claim to be West Tennessee's complete news source, but why get in a get into a dog fight with a Pit Bull when you're nothing more than a wiener dog???

 

So, be happy that you have what you have locally as well as On The Ball (fantastic, by the way), and don't worry yourself about Josh and the Jackson Gang.

 

I can't tell you how many times I would get upset hearing someone say to me "Why can't the Sun come up here and cover us?" Some would even try to put stock in the Appeal. JEEZ, GIMME A BREAK!!!!! I WAS THERE, DANG-GUM IT!!! You didn't need the Sun there!!!!!

 

I really wish some of y'all would get over the notion that bigger (in terms of newspapers) is better.

 

Screw the Sun. Read your Mess. And, get on with your lives.

[cav-o]

The only thing that matters is when they print the score and whose number comes out on top.

[jj420]

Get your own news papper!

 

 

 

 

 

GO EAGLES!