The San Antonio Express-News hasn’t exactly done the Trinity (Texas) football team too many favors in recent years. Game coverage is almost non-existent. Occasionally there’s a feature. Even, on occasion, the facts are right.
I was reading a story in the paper this evening when I thought my opinion was going to change. Here was a well-written, useful story about the Tigers’ consecutive first-round exits, when there was a glaring error.
“Leading by five going into the fourth quarter, Mary Hardin-Baylor used a punishing ground game to drive 80 and 71 yards for touchdowns, outscoring the Tigers 14-0 down the stretch.
“The Crusaders went on to play in the D-III title game, losing to Findlay, Ohio.”
Thanks for playing.
Still, it’s not as irresponsible as the way the paper blew up Roy Hampton’s run-in with the law after the national semifinal win against St. John’s in 2002. That story, which, let’s face it, pales in comparison to what Division I athletes in the state have been connected with, was a major story in their newspaper for days. Eventually the school suspended Hampton for the Stagg Bowl.
An Express-News columnist after the fact wrote, “I just hope that our sensational headlines on the subject didn’t play even a small role in the decision to oust the star player.”
I’m afraid those hopes were unfounded. Trinity deserves better, and so does Division III.
Agreed. Both Trinity and D3 deserve far better treatment from the San Antonio EXPRESS-NEWS.
At the same time, the E-N isn’t alone in south-central Texas in its attitude towards D3: The Austin AMERICAN-STATESMAN seems to have the policy that if it’s not the Longhorns and the Big 12 (and local high schools), we’re not interested. Thus Concordia and Southwestern might as well not exist.
The SAEN has provided little or no coverage since the Mike Burton era. The job they did sensationalizing the Roy Hampton (non) mishap could very well have gotten him suspended and ruined Trinity’s shot at the Mounties… I’m glad that they reported UMHB’s eventual loss (to Findlay?),,, it just proves our point. Looking forward to the Kickoff!
I for one am just pleased to see the SAEN cover Trinity and DIII football at all! Coming from Texas Class 1A (smallest schools), the major newspapers just need to be educated about the “lower” levels of sports. If this is how the Express-News gets started, I think it’s great.
Trinity has a great reputation and the sentiment expressed in this article seems accurate to me … first round exit is less than the Tigers expect … sound good to me. Git ‘R Done, Tigers. Respect will come with time and effort. SA has the NBA World Champs already … NCAA DIII should be next.
I think there are many “bigger” papers that fall in this catagory of not doing small colleges justice. The Oregonian hasn’t done a great job in the past in covering the NWC teams in Oregon….until last year when they have done some great features and stories on Linfield and Willamette. I hope they can keep this up.
The Tacoma Tribune also does a nice job in covering PLU and Puget Sound.
What are some papers that give D3 football some respect in coverage?
Two papers in south-central Pennsylvania do a fairly good job covering D3 Lebanon Valley: the Harrisburg PATRIOT-NEWS (even though this outlet is a major player for Penn State coverage) and the Lebanon DAILY NEWS. The Lancaster INTELLIGENCER provides coverage for F & M and Elizabethtown. I suspect the Sunbury paper does well by Susquehanna and the Reading EAGLE by Albright.
The News-Times in Danbury, Conn., used to be the best paper for Division III coverage — they covered not only in-town Western Connecticut State, but you could expect to see stories on other teams in the conference, even if not based in their coverage area.
Unfortunately, they have cut back. Now I would say the Bloomington (Ill.) Pantagraph is the best paper in this regard, although I have not had much reason to follow their football coverage of late. Basketball is huge there for Illinois Wesleyan coverage.
Of course the award winning “Sports Day” in the Dallas Morning-News is heavy on Pro, Big 12, some C-USA (SMU) and Mountain West (TCU), and they do a very good job of high school sports (another reason for the locals to buy the paper). D3 and the ASC is an after-thought.
The Abilene Reporter-News has 3 D3 programs in its circulation area (Hardin-Simmons and McMurry plus Howard Payne in Brownwood). The sports writers are very young and frequently on their way thru town after some experience.
But, there are sufficient “old-timers” in the local media to provide the breadth and collective memory to balance the coverage. Also, the concentration of 2 programs in one city makes the Reporter-News one of the “media anchors” for the American Southwest Conference. Fortunately, the internet allows out-of-town fans to keep up with those teams.
IMHO, the Abilene Reporter-News belongs in the Top 10.
The Express-News gives little coverage to college teams at all other than Texas and Texas A&M. They’ve given very little coverage to Texas State or either of the D3 schools that you’d expect them to cover (Trinity or TLU). And it’s been that way for a long time. UT and A&M rule the roost.
Your comment on the Bloomington Pantagraph is timely, since I just got through lamenting on the CCIW fball board that IWU seems to have become a totally bball school (despite past success in fball)!
I’m MORE into bball than fball, but would like to see them maintain better balance (the school as well as the paper!).
The Easton Express in eastern PA does a pretty good job covering Moravian and Muhlenburg sports. They also run a weekly feature on local athletes playing in colleges all over the country. Nice sports section, small but nice.
The Jersey Journal in Jersey City will print stories on the local D3 schools if they receive the press release in time for printing, although often the story is a day late because they go to press fairly early. They could do bette but any press is better than none.
The Doylestown (Pa.) Intelligencer does a nice job with Delaware Valley, even sending a writer to games during their dreadful seasons.
The Syracuse (N.Y.) Post-Standard used to do a decent job setting aside space for Cortland stories. I don’t follow that paper as much since I moved south.
I totally agree with you on the terrible coverage that the Express-News gives to college sports that are not UT, Big XII, a7m or UTSA (even they get short changed a bit). St. Mary’s basketball, softball and baseball get very little coverage – and they all three have won national titles (baseball and softball in the last five years!).
Texas State (D-I), TLU, Trinity, UIW, St.Mary’s and Schreiner are all within an hour of San Antonio, and they get very little coverage – one reporter covers all schools if we are lucky. We get a once-a-week bone thrown to us on Thursdays with briefs on a page. The briefs are submitted by the schools. Sheesh. a7m-Kingsville gets coverage only because David Flores (sports columnist) went to school there.
One thing does need to be remembered: there are 15,000 UT football season ticket holders in San Antonio. That does not count alumni in general, that ony counts season ticket holders for football. St. Mary’s has 10,000 alumni in San Antonio – TOTAL ALUMNI. I am sure it is much, much less for Trinity, UIW and TLU.
But, alas, we are not alone. Has The Dallas Morning News ever covered an Austin College game? It’s only an hour’s drive.
And Hampton deserved his fate for being an idiot so soon before the NC game.
Austin College’s game usually appears in a 100-word capsule on Page 9C of the Dallas Morning News, below the fold, of course.
cabonney:
Here are Bloomington Pantagraph articles on IWU football just from the last two weeks…
http://www.pantagraph.com/stories/082305/spo_20050823046.shtml
http://www.pantagraph.com/stories/082005/spo_20050820043.shtml
http://www.pantagraph.com/stories/081305/spo_20050813035.shtml
http://www.pantagraph.com/stories/081105/spo_20050811026.shtml
The Pantagraph covers IWU’s football team every bit as much as it does the Titan basketball team. Not sure what you are talking about.
Thanks for your great coverage of Trinity and D3 football.
As an old fart, let me take you back to 1968-69. We Trinity Tigers played home games at Alamo Stadium, capacity about 22,000. It was always a disappointment when we played Southwest Texas. They would have about 15,000 fans and we’d have about 1,000, including ground crew.
Coverage by the Express News and the San Antonio Light was not a lot better than it is today. Pretty low key….even though we’d had two players go pro, Marvin Upshaw (1968) and Greg Lens (in 1969). So, not much changes over 35 years, except that the Longhorns are still top bill.
Frankly, the level of play today in D3 is pretty close to that of the old Southland Conference. In 1969 we went 7-3 and the year before we had a shot at the famed Tangerine Bowl.
I’d be happy to hear from anybody who remembers the Rabbit Habit on Mulberry.
Go Tigers.
2 minnies…. I was with you up to the Hampton squirt…. Yes, what he did was dumb, but not enough to get you suspended for the biggest game in his (or Trinity’s) life. No charge, no foul!
If you’re saying he wasn’t charged, that is not the case. I spoke with San Antonio PD at the time and the public affairs officer on duty said otherwise.
Speaking of DIII coverage. Be on the look out of a nice write up on Brett Elliott this Sunday in the NY Times.
Well you guys are gonna haaaaaaate this.
But I’m not so sure big newspapers are wrong for virtually ignoring D3. I’m just not sure a well-followed Division III team has a quarter of the fan base of a bad Division I-A. In terms of serving their readers, most big papers could make an argument for not caring about D3.
Here’s why. Newspapers don’t really cover stuff for the people who were at the game, i.e. those with current connections to the team, alumni, etc. The vast majority of newspaper readers are average joes … and a lot of average joes that went to D3 schools or no college at all root for the local high school and the state college, but couldn’t name the nearest D3 school.
We really are in our own niche. A rabid, underserved niche, but a niche nonetheless.
With the advent of highlight shows and the internet, it seems people have short attention spans and don’t really spend as much time caring about all of the local teams as they did long ago, when perhaps reading the sports section front to back was all there was to do after dinner.
In this day and age, newspapers are getting away from long game stories and trying out different theories on reaching the readers: more columns, more features, more of an in-and-out, quick-hit presentation. Maybe it works, maybe not.
But I bet a lot of sports editors would say they get more punch from their 5th Longhorns story than they do from one Trinity story. Sad but true.
I think all newspapers should be responsible for following good stories in their coverage area; Everyone has a story, and on a team of 100 kids, there have to be a few extraordinary ones. Then of course, there are teams that do well and the “community” rallies behind. I think all playoff games should be staffed by the major metro, no matter the level.
But as far as consistent game coverage, let’s be honest. If it was the D-II closest to your house, would you give a crap? The JuCo? NAIA? I-AA? I probably wouldn’t give more than a cursory glance to anything that’s not D3, or somehow connected to someone I know or a team or community I already like.
As far as major metros that do a good job, Akron and Cleveland seem to follow small-college football in Ohio rather well. It could be the competition between them, or the effort to reach outlying areas, or just the audience in Ohio, or that there’s such good football to cover.
Richmond does more with H-SC, R-MC and the ODAC/USAC than they sometimes deserve. They are one of the paper who thinks “who will care if we don’t cover it?” rather than “no one cares, so we don’t cover it.” They think a lot of the alums from both schools live and work in Richmond and it warrants the mention.
I think Philly has done an OK job over the years, but I can’t think of too many major papers that care. NYT has done some features. Not sure what else
But really, people act like they need to be covered in major metros or TV to feel legitimate, like it somehow validates them, when in fact, them ignoring it really opens the door for small dailies, weeklies and websites to treat these players like the stars they really are.
That’s my two dollars.
I can’t speak for other papers but the Express-News doesn’t just ignore D3. It ignores a lot of coverage of St. Mary’s and Incarnate Word (both Div II) and they tend to ignore Div I UTSA. A good portion of San Antonio had no idea that UTSA got into the NCAA baseball tourney this year getting eliminated by CWS bound Baylor. I went to law school at St. Mary’s and even in their national championship years (2001 baseball, 2002 softball) they got very little coverage. Even if UT has more alumni locally, I’d still expect there to be coverage of a local team over one that’s 80 miles away. Of course, if we could all get local D3 coverage to that extent would there be a D3football.com or D3hoops.com? Maybe. Maybe it’s because I went to a D3 college and a D2 university for law school that I’m more sensitive.
The Dallas Morning News has historically done a decent job in covering D3 programs in Texas. Mary Hardin-Baylor’s appearance in the 2004 Stagg Bowl rated a lengthy article. On a weekly basis, D3 programs (Trinity, Howard Payne, Austin College, etc.) have received the same level of coverage as other non-Division I programs (Abilene Christian, Texas A&M-Commerce, etc.)
Hampton should have downed his celebratory beers in the privacy of a house on Chevy Chase or an apartment on Broadway. I heard Burton was with him on the river – nice play, coach. If Burton did not get the ass chewing of his young life from Moher (sp?) then there is no right or wrong.
But, that is water under the bridge.
Unfortunately, I know all too well the economics and research of the major daily newspapers. But it doesn’t take the sting out of their lack of coverage.
Trinity got a little 400-worder in today’s college football preview section, as did Texas Lutheran. Go Dawgs and Cats!