Breathing a sigh of relief with all of my hair intact

Now that The Standard Democrat's prep football preview section for 2007 has been released, I can breathe a sigh of relief. As a result of it, my column -- Speaking of Sports -- took a one-week hiatus.

As a sports journalist, there is only one thing you can expect while working on special editions like 2007 Football. And that is to prepare for the unexpected.

So many things could go wrong. In some cases, they have!

I knew Football 2007 would be a challenge for me, personally, because I am so new to the Bootheel region. I had to track down coaches with whom I had never seen, let alone met. Then, throw in the fact that four of the six schools in The Standard Democrat's coverage area has brand-new football coaches for the 2007 season.

Luckily for me, the coaches that I have dealt with, so far, have been helpful and have provided everything that I have asked of them.

When you're dealing with a vast amount of information -- such as schedules, results, rosters, mug shots of players, pictures containing 35-60 people, etc. -- you have no idea how easy it can be to misspell a word or, worse, someone's name. And all of that comes in addition to the six preview stories that appear in the section.

There have been times in the past when I have, as a sports journalist, received bad information. Schedules have contained the wrong dates, game times or opponents. Rosters have had names that are misspelled or contain jersey numbers, heights, weights or a player's year in school that are incorrect.

I have even seen rosters that don't list jersey numbers at all. That kind of makes it hard to identify players in a photograph.

With that aside, problems could occur from the use of computers. Thankfully, this did not happen to me this year, but I have seen computers crash. If that occurs, anywhere between one word or even a whole section could be entirely lost, gone forever.

Even though I normally control myself in a patient manner, the stress of losing work that I have already completed makes my blood boil. Especially, when the section HAS to be done by a set deadline.

There are factors outside the control of the sports department that can cause the section to become haywire. Before the section is designed, I am given a layout sheet that contains the placement of the ads.

Sometimes, after I receive this sheet, the ads can be increased (in size or number), decreased (in size or number) or even moved from one page to another.

Even though I know how much space I have to fill, it's really a rough estimate because it could be changed in a flash. And that wreaks HAVOC on whether or not I have too much or too little information to put in the section.

Of course, if that's not enough, the regular daily sports section has to be produced simultaneously.

Like I said, I can now breath a HUGE sigh of relief.

One of the ways that I have found to cover athletes who are formally from the area, but have moved on to sports at the collegiate level is to write about them in a column forum.

That is why I would like to develop something called, "On Campus Report." This column will keep up on the athletic careers of former area athletes who are currently away attending colleges and universities.

It works like this.

Since the fall season is upon us, readers should submit the names of athletes they would like to follow in the sports of football, volleyball, cross country, soccer, tennis, etc. At the college level, softball is a spring sport, so let's save those names for that time.

The Standard Democrat's coverage area of schools include Sikeston, Bell City, Charleston, Dexter, East Prairie, Kelly, New Madrid County Central, Oran, Portageville, Richland, Risco and Scott Central.

Athletes who are formerly of this listing of schools will be included. If you submit the name of an athlete that you would like to follow, I need a few pieces of information. Include the name of the athlete, the college or university the athlete attends, the athlete's year in school and the sport the athlete plays.

Names of collegiate-level athletes can be submitted by calling The Standard Democrat's sports desk at (573) 471-4141, sending a note via mail to 205 S. New Madrid St., Sikeston, Mo., 63801 (Attn: Sports), or by sending E-mail to standemsports@yahoo.com.

As always, I'm speaking of sports.

---

Jeff Arenz is the sports editor of The Standard Democrat. He can be reached by calling (573) 471-4141 or by sending E-mail

to standemsports@yahoo.com.