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Show i ..... t. . : . ; . V PowmOf The Press -.1 B DAVE WIGIM The power of the press. Seems to always be there. IT STILL amazes this reporter how much influence influ-ence a now --paper, and visual media, has on many lives If a name is misspelled or not even mentioned someone gets upset. If a score is wrong or omitted someone hears about it. . ' ' Championships arc won and losl ni the athletic field yet there are still some jn put fc'fevhole lot of emphasis on polls. College jnjlhji scfctl teams are the first people to head right 10 the polls on the'day they come out yet mi one ever! pets a trophy for it. BEFORE AND after games all the relatives dive through the paper to see if that idiot reporter mentioned men-tioned their favorite son or nephew. ' ; The press get to name their all-state and ail-American ail-American teams and that has a lasting effect on the players. They could have had a tremendous season but unless some paper recognizes their accomplishments accomplish-ments they feel betrayed. i' ' ' ' 1 . , A PLAYER couldjiai o super fPf i &4n t4" W " yards rushing and.sori? ?(l U)ti ujri. Mess a reporter gets his nhnic i?U4 jpappr f fry few vwli ever1 know of it. Plus, it can ftevcnbe'thle'Up fW that player, onto you forget Uj write a name it can never be corrected. Sure you can go back and write another column about missing the name but even then how can that player's parents show the original game story to anyone without the kids name. Sometimes other people just think or say to themselves them-selves "how can they let a small thing like that upset them?" But the bottom line is that they do get upset. TAKE THE case of Jim McMahon righ now . Now first of all let me say I'm not a Jitrt McMahon fan ora BYU fan but 1 also have to say that wieone is doing him an injustice leaving rurnoft'the pro-season all-Ameritan all-Ameritan list. 1 j ? .'.; i For heavens sake here's aguy who ledthe world in passing last year, was an all-American zi a junior and now we're led to believe there are two quarterbacks in the country better than him? SOME NEWSPAPER or sports information director direc-tor in California should get a raise forthejob they've done in selling this John Llway of Stanford. Who heard of this guy last year? Now he's the number one , quarterback in most magazines. I; No matter what's said t Jim ndjtiis family the damage is done. He should, b(V,he alUAmerican . 1 quarteibatk. He is the best college passer in the country. But because the print media has shunned him some people are starting to second guess. Power of the press again. A M 01- F the street can say that he feels so and so is the best to ever play the game of football. Few people take much stock in it. just one guys opinion But make that guy a sports writer and lie says the same thing and all of a sudden everyone believes it. It's a scary thing to have that much power. The power to rum a high school players week. I miss printing that he scored a touchdown and that guy hates me for life. 1 missed that it was their son who made the key block to enable the back to score and those parents didn't talk to me for weeks. I II E honestly felt for years now that the best j way to serve the public in FJavis County in sports j would be simply to write the roster each week. Don't say any thing good or bad about a game, don't even j need mention who won. just print, right from the , program, who was dressed. That way everyone sees j their name in the paper and evervone is happy. j Misspellings 1 can live w ith because half the time ! it's the way the coach said to spell the name. Fa en then the parents are at least thankful that 1 tried to get the name in. But out and out missing the name is a sin that bugs me to death. 1 find out later I got the w rong guy scoring and 1 get mad at myself. TWO OF MY biggest mistakes come to mind. While watching a Woods Cross game once a couple of years ago 1 1 watched a certain player score a touchdown. At least this guy had on the jersey. Seems like the person who's name was on the program prog-ram was in the hospital, yet I had him scoring a touchdown on Friday. Then somehow when 1 named the all-region football foot-ball team a couple of seasons ago I lost one page of my article when 1 turned it in. 1 didn't notice it at the time. The results were that two players w eren't mentioned. men-tioned. SO WHY IS W'igham writing this column. 1 guess to prepare you for this football season. It gets tougher and tougher each year to cover these guy s. I'll try my best to mention all the players 1 can. even your son. Mistakes will always be there, at least as long as I'm here. If anything is wrong in the paper feel free to write or call, like most folks do. The bottom line is that I'm here to serve you people. Let me know how it's going. |