Already there are Trump campaign signs quite visible along the highway on the north end of town. The highway where you find Homestead and Pizza Hut of course. Morris thus appears proud to be totally MAGA. A majority of our Christian churches are all in with MAGA. Might their fervor re. this supersede their enthusiasm about Christ and the Bible? I think it does.
All I can do is observe. My thoughts about all this carry no weight. What about high school sports? Are we short-changing our student-athletes here in Morris? I mean from a media standpoint?
We are a full week after the very exciting home opener win by the MACA football team. I believe three volleyball matches have been played. Can a parent or fan "surf" online to find some thorough and fun coverage of all this? Yes it is fun and not work. At least it would not be work for me.
The football Tigers defeated Minnewaska 46-27. I was present at the Big Cat place for a portion of the game. The event itself was 100 percent successful for the school and its backers. The most recent school referendum passed only narrowly. So I would suggest that public relations is important for the school at this time.
More importantly the student-athletes should get more attention in the news media. Again, where can I find some coverage of the game, I mean coverage with names of the MACA players and some stat highlights? Can anyone get off the schnide and do this? It is not heavy lifting.
Over the years I have done better finding the desired coverage from media sources like the West Central Tribune of Willmar and the kmrs-kkok website. Brett Miller really did some nice work for the latter. What happened to that? A check of the kmrs-kkok site these days just seems to report "scores." I don't want to just see "scores."
A fan could write something up, email it to the station and then it could be copied and pasted in. So, a nice little headline you could click on to read some lively and much-deserved coverage. People demanded a lot of me during my days with both the Morris and Hancock newspapers. There is no stand-alone Hancock paper now. The Morris paper is greatly reduced in size and content from when I was there. We're not supposed to notice.
The football Tigers scored 46 points last Thursday. Right now I am not even familiar with the names of the MACA players, not even the starting offensive backs.
Volleyball? I think this week's 14-page Morris paper - puny - has limited coverage from when the season first started. But the "news" is so dated. There is a very easy solution to this. We are in the year 2024. The "Internet" is very far advanced.
I can find individual highlights for Minnewaska Area in more than one place. I totally whiff for MACA. It is a lost opportunity. How will our next school referendum do? Maybe it will lose narrowly. Something should be done to open up the exciting world of MACA athletics for the broad public to enjoy.
Brett Miller is no longer a resource. The West Central Tribune of Willmar has dropped MACA from its coverage area. These are significant developments. Let us note here that the Morris newspaper has a website. It has a website with a "sports" link. In theory all sorts of coverage could be posted there. The sports person for the paper could just "riff" now and then. Expand on what's happening.
Here I sit and I cannot tell you the name of our quarterback although I might remember this from being at the game. I do not have a note pad with me.
Let us take a look on this Thursday morning, a week after the game, to see what we might find using the sports link on the Stevens County Times website. Am I asking so much? I don't think so. Doesn't the Morris paper actually pay people to work there? So let's click on "sports" to see what might be discovered. The headlines:
- "Women's soccer takes a loss to physical Hamline team." Pictures included.
- "Men's and women's golf sees UMAC opponents for the first time this season."
I scroll down the entire page and it's all UMM. Proceeding to the next page there's more UMM. Finally I come to a high school item but it's Hancock and it's not timely. It's about post-season basketball awards. Now I see a Bantam hockey item. The first MACA Tigers heading is about the 3AA boys basketball tournament. Totally old and stale news.
I have bad memories from the section tournament because Charlie Hanson was forced to stay here and play one last stinking game at Marshall which we lost anyway, instead of being able to go on the MAHS band's trip to New Orleans. Charlie is a top band performer.
I personally helped with the band's trip by contributing $2000. At first I was going to write a check for $1000 but then Wanda shared some background about apparent hardship cases or challenged cases for families coming up with their share. I succumbed! So I was happy to help out.
How many sports articles on the Tigers has yours truly written over the years, going back as far as 1972? Well, tens of thousands maybe? And today all the coverage seems to have dried up. The newspaper fails on the timeliness test. What a shame. It would be so easy to do something about it.
School referendums always passed easily in my heyday with the Morris newspaper.
A final thought: Local churches where the tenor of conversation favors Donald Trump and MAGA over the word of Jesus Christ ought to feel God's wrath. I'll just assert: "May God have mercy on their souls."
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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