And in third place was a Minnewaska Area Laker: Laura Ankeny. Ankeny trailed Werk by 28 seconds.
Thirteen teams spells a pretty big invite. Amidst the sea of runners the Tigers placed ninth in the girls division. The Lakers of 'Waska fared well as a team as they had three individuals in the top 15. 'Waska took second to Wadena-Deer Creek.
The MACA boys' story had Gavin Stallman arrive at the chute No. 17. We were tenth in the boys division. This time of year before the cold sets in, is a joyous time to walk across a golf course and observe the high school running action.
Volleyball: 'Waska 3, Tigers 0
Tuesday was not an uplifting day for the orange and black on the volleyball court. Minnewaska Area impressed on their home court. It was a sweep night for the host Lakers as they prevailed 25-17, 25-16 and 25-18.
Brianna Marty supplied some up notes for the Tigers with her 13 kills. Maddy Grove pounded down ten. Whitney Bruns got around the court in the setting department and put up 23 assists. The Tigers came out of the night at .500, 4-4.
These players set the pace for 'Waska as the Lakers "made quick work of Morris Area-Chokio-Alberta," according to the Echo-Press: Avery Fier, Brooklyn Meyer, Dacia Fleury, Dreya Barsness, Hallie Schultz, Haley Shea and Miaya Guggisberg.
West Central Tribune issues
It seemed not many years ago when the Willmar newspaper published six days a week. The paper had a reputation for covering a lot of ground with sports. I'd often go to our Morris Public Library to check it out. I would often take notes for my own blog posts.
The West Central Tribune went into a retrenchment or cutting-back mode. Hardly surprising, because this has been the state of newspapers for quite some time.
So can newspapers hold our attention? It has been slipping, even if you haven't noticed much.
So the WCT has been trying to achieve a migration from print to online. It has to be daunting. That's largely because newspapers have no special grip on online communications. It's not at all like the old days when their access to a printing plant made them thump their chest like King Kong. I actually rode along with that for a long time in my days with the Morris newspaper. My halcyon days, you might say.
A lot of us in the field took our position for granted. Radical change entered the picture. So today, fans get super enrichment re. high school sports through YouTube. In Morris it's with the "YouTube geniuses," and this effort has no connection whatsoever with legacy media. There's no reason all the media coverage efforts couldn't take root on online platforms that have no connection with legacy media.
People in the legacy media must be scratching heads over the transformation. They are fighting to try to retain what they have. And so we see the notorious West Central Tribune "paywall" which this year is reinforced from before.
Have you noticed? I know they don't ask for a lot of money but it is a hassle, isn't it? Just seems to clutter your life a little more. You'd no doubt get spam emails from Forum Communications and its advertisers - just an educated guess. "They've got you." So I won't do it.
Prior to this year I used the "incognito" trick to gain access when the paywall was up. But like I observed, the paywall is now reinforced. They're saying "pay up, sucker."
I learned "incognito" just by doing a basic Google search with words like "get past newspaper paywall." It's easy and I really mean that. Sometimes people will say of an online technique "it's easy," and then I find it's anything but. I am 67 years old.
I shared in the last few days with my Bonanza Valley friend who continues to be in the newspaper field. He and I are keeping watch on the WCT and how sports fans might still get free access, if you get into the weeds about how this might be done. Here's an email I got from him on September 21:
I found it interesting that on one of my devices I can't even access the homepage for the West Central Tribune. It's very strange because the website loads up and automatically puts up the paywall. I can't even view headlines because of that.
Yet on a different device I can load up the homepage and see the story headlines. I have another trick I learned that I'll tell you about another time where I can read their full stories without paying. Top to bottom.
I responded to my old friend thusly. BTW he has a background that includes Morris.
There's a neat Nebraska football podcast called "Corn Nation." Fun character to listen to.
OK, the West Central Tribune. Let's keep observing that situation. I'll probably write about it again. I'll wonder why coaches take the considerable trouble to call in the info - don't tell me that isn't a hassle - and then it's the WCT that tries to make money off it. I like you have noticed that we cannot even call up the headlines, so I can't even do a check when looking for a game outcome. Also, I can't even confirm if the WCT has covered a particular MACA game. If I had signed up to subscribe and then discovered that games weren't covered, well I might complain. Knowing the Forum, I know they would start sending you spam promo emails or emails representing their major advertisers.
And would you believe, the last time I tried using "incognito" (the old trick), a panel came up on the screen stating that they were aware I was trying "incognito!" Pretty funky. I wonder if it costs them a fair amount to have a system like that installed. There was probably a time when papers investigated if someone could be charged with theft if using a trick to get around a paywall! I'm sure it was explored. There was a company called "Righthaven" that tried representing papers in efforts like this, like to go after bloggers who might lift a few paragraphs, but the company was wiped out of existence. It didn't win a single case that went to trial. Mostly they got money through extortion-type communications with people, and they were upbraided by the Bar Ass'n in their home state. Interesting story.
It took the law a while to catch up to the Internet. But the law always makes haste to catch up. So quaint: I remember many years ago reading that "you cannot put a song cover on YouTube." (Expletive) there are a billion song covers on YouTube now, just like there's a billion of everything. I have used the analogy "mobs breaking through the palace gate." The legal system has to give up sometimes. Quaint? I remember Rick Santorum once saying "we need to get all pornography off the Internet!"
I predict that the West Central Tribune will continually get stressed. Their sports dept. depends on coaches calling in. Coaches might increasingly suggest that their game reviews be on an online platform outside of any newspaper website. Newspapers once thought they could make hay by shooting their own videos. Hell, the kids figured out they could go right to YouTube. The Morris paper hasn't done this in ages. And my God, the Stevens County Times website is insulting with how poor it is!
It is far from assumed that the WCT site includes a fair amount of MACA game coverage. As of last year we were no longer in their official coverage territory (like for the all-area team, Ranweiler award). MACA people might have felt offended by that. And as for the coaches, maybe they'd be less likely to call in. I think the coaches who call into the WCT are suckers. Jeez, go home after a game and get to bed.
I exchanged emails with Mark Torgerson recently. I asked him if an athletic director could instruct a coach to make calls to the WCT. He did not respond to that. I have always been curious.
The print edition of the WCT that comes to Morris now does not include any game reviews at all, it's just Twins/Gophers stuff and features. I see it at the library, and of course it's only twice a week, a far cry from before. I used to take my spiral notebook to the library and write some game reviews right there.
When you get time, you might share with me this system you have to get past the paywall. If I find out, I won't hesitate to share about it on my blogs.
Well, here we are. Speak of the devil as it were. So my friend followed through and shared his technique which I personally found "involved." Congrats if you can wrap your arms around it.
Hello Brian and thank you for that thoughtful reply and the notes on Nebraska. For college sports lately I've been following UM-Crookston sports. They are a huge underdog and I do love underdogs. So from a distance I root for UMM and UMC teams.
This trick is only available on a desktop computer or laptop. In a nutshell, so I click on a "sports story" on my computer. It loads up, and for a span of about 1 second, the entire story is loaded. It takes about 1 second for the "paywall" to hit.
You have to do "Apple-A" and then "Apple-C" on the keyboard in a fraction of a second. This selects all the text on the page and then copies all the text of the page before the paywall hits. I open a Wordpad document and "Apple-V" is the quick command there to paste the whole thing in a simple Word Doc.
Then I have to glean out photo captions and the usual "Spammy" stuff that's on the bottom of website pages. This whole thing selects all words, and many words are hyperlinked as you know.
Try it out sometime. This has allowed me to read full stats / game recaps on Friday nights and other times for area volleyball results. It's certainly cheating the paywall. But when they block out even the ability to view a webpage, something is amiss on their end and not on my end!!!
Synthesizing our thoughts
Sports reviews should be free access online. You can look up score and schedule information on the very reliable "Minnesota Scores" site. The Internet evolved slowly with this. Sites would be set up that in theory would be useful - alas they often were not updated reliably. The Internet always plunges forward. It's a meritocracy.
I encourage coaches to ask themselves if they really wish to continue to be burdened with calling the WCT on game nights. I'm sure they are tired by the time they pick up the phone. They must feel pressure to have all categories of info ready and reliable. So they call it in, and then it's the WCT that gets some money from it, not them.
Coaches are not contractually required to do this. I have wondered if an athletic director could even direct a coach to do it. Has this been tested? Anyway, good luck to the MACA teams in the rest of the fall season. Note that I'm not even commenting about the Stevens County Times website. It warrants no comments whatsoever except complete dismissal.
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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