High school football last night (Richland: home, stadium, childcare)

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by Copanut

Only half kidding, just never got into soccer. Just like a lot of people have never gotten into baseball, I always say if you learn the game, you'll see how exciting it is. No doubt the same with soccer.

But I always loved this quote by the late, great Mike Royko:


All that proves is that most of the
world is too poor to build bowling
alleys, golf courses, tennis courts
and baseball fields. There's
hundreds of millions of poor people
out there who still ain't got
indoor plumbing, but that don't
mean there's something great about
an outhouse. Soccer is
boring. I've never seen a more
boring sport.
Mike Royko

As to the OP about a lack of football coverage, every Thursday it seems there is an extra sports section in my paper devoted to High School Football. Course, in the Great White North we have North Allegheny, North Hills, and Pine-Richland with a stadium that most small colleges would kill for.

I like you, Copa, but Mike Royko was a horse's rear end!

I too agree that there's plenty of high school football coverage. (I do look at the PG from time to time.) It's the same here. My kids did HS gymnastics, and they were lucky to get coverage even for the state meet. I am surprised to see that hockey is not a sanctioned sport in PA.

[Pitt Chick]

Ice hockey is sanctioned by USA Hockey, but for some reason does not belong to the PIAA (along with some other sports).

[Copanut]

Sorry Kat, Royko was the man!

Not sure why hockey is not in the PIAA, maybe due to the cost. It may be more expensive than football. Traditionally only football and to a lesser extent basketball is covered by the local papers. The lesser sports just don't get the ink.

[Pitt Chick]

Wikipedia says:
"There are Pennsylvania schools that offer sports not fully sponsored by the PIAA such as gymnastics, ice hockey, bowling, rifle, water polo and other Olympic sports. These sports are governed by other sport specific bodies that use similar PIAA rules for classification and eligibility, but are not officially recognized as state champions by the PIAA. The PIAA took over jurisdiction of both boys' and girls' lacrosse in July 2008."

Many of those cost way less than football. I wonder WHY the PIAA excludes them...

[villageidiot1]

Originally Posted by Copanut

Sorry Kat, Royko was the man!

Not sure why hockey is not in the PIAA, maybe due to the cost. It may be more expensive than football. Traditionally only football and to a lesser extent basketball is covered by the local papers. The lesser sports just don't get the ink.

I disagree about the coverage issue. I read the Post Gazetteand Tribune Review every day and follow HS sports. I can't think of any sportthat they don't give at least some coverage. Obviously football and basketball get more coverage. The Post Gazette provides schedules and results for all WPIAL and City League teams going back to 2003 for football, girls' and boys' soccer, girls' and boys' basketball, baseball and softball. They both also cover at a minimum the championship information for every other sport such as golf, tennis, lacrosse, rifle, wrestling, volleyball, swimming, hockey, bowling, field hockey and gymnastics.

Originally Posted by Pitt Chick

Wikipedia says:
"There are Pennsylvania schools that offer sports not fully sponsored by the PIAA such as gymnastics, ice hockey, bowling, rifle, water polo and other Olympic sports. These sports are governed by other sport specific bodies that use similar PIAA rules for classification and eligibility, but are not officially recognized as state champions by the PIAA. The PIAA took over jurisdiction of both boys' and girls' lacrosse in July 2008."

Many of those cost way less than football. I wonder WHY the PIAA excludes them...

I'm not sure what you mean by "not fully sponsored," but the PIAA sponsors gymnastics, bowling, rifle, and water polo. See PIAA - Sports for a list of all sports they sponsor. I wasn't aware the PIAA sponsored water polo and found that there are 25 schools in PA that participate in PIAA waterpolo with two in the WPIAL (Baldwin and North Allegheny). Gymnastics is a girls' sport in the PIAA and 21 schools in the state participate including seven in the WPIAL. See PIAA - Schools - Classifications - Sport District Classification It seems that a lot more school districts used to offer gymnastics in the past, but have dropped that sport.

[Pitt Chick]

*I* don't mean anything by it... that is a direct quote from the wikipedia article.

[Katarina Witt]

Originally Posted by villageidiot1

I disagree about the coverage issue. I read the Post Gazetteand Tribune Review every day and follow HS sports. I can't think of any sportthat they don't give at least some coverage. Obviously football and basketball get more coverage. The Post Gazette provides schedules and results for all WPIAL and City League teams going back to 2003 for football, girls' and boys' soccer, girls' and boys' basketball, baseball and softball. They both also cover at a minimum the championship information for every other sport such as golf, tennis, lacrosse, rifle, wrestling, volleyball, swimming, hockey, bowling, field hockey and gymnastics.

Do you mean "obviously" by measurement of the column inches of coverage, or that these sports are "obviously" the important ones?

[erieguy]

Football and basketball, to the majority of people, are the more important ones, therefore get more coverage and print. I'm sure the media would agree in a politically correct way if you contacted them and they were asked about it.

[villageidiot1]

Originally Posted by Katiana

Do you mean "obviously" by measurement of the column inches of coverage, or that these sports are "obviously" the important ones?

Originally Posted by erieguy

Football and basketball, to the majority of people, are the more important ones, therefore get more coverage and print. I'm sure the media would agree in a politically correct way if you contacted them and they were asked about it.

I agree with erieguy. Football and basketball have the biggest fan following by far. This is why they play the WPIAL championships at Heinz Field. From the 11/22 Post Gazette:

The WPIAL won't know the official final attendance at Heinz Field until this
week. But through the third of four games, a little more than 13,000 had come
through the turnstiles. Of the eight schools in the title games, Pine-Richland
sold the most presale tickets at 2,150. Avonworth was next at 1,125.

This is a down year for WPIAL football chanpionship attendance. Attendance at HS basketball championships has also been declining, but as recently as 2007 the attendance for the PIAA basketball championship games (boys and girls) was over 33,000.

Other sports such as wrestling, soccer, swimming, track and field, baseball, hockey, volleyball, etc. do not have anywhere close to the fan following of basketball and football.

[Pitt Chick]

Originally Posted by villageidiot1

This is a down year for WPIAL football chanpionship attendance.

Moving it from Saturday has a lot to do with that.