[Salimander]

I hope you were listening to the radio tonight. If not, here's a recap:

EKB has simply not provided every single game coverage of Pike Central because it takes community sponsorship dollars. We're not asking for thousands and if you listen, many small business sponsor high school sports year after year. EKB's choice of not covering every single regular season game or the first two playoff games has nothing to do with coach John Chapman either. Coach Chapman has been invited to the station for preseason interviews, has been asked to give interviews prior to games (including this Friday's) and has refused - guess what, that's fine and it's his decision. That is not going to deter our stations from covering their games or Pike Central sports.

15thslamma: You are incorrect when you believe we think, "every time I ask im denied so whats the point anymore I will wait for them to come to me..." I will say this though, it would be nice to have stats and individual player highlights that have been the subject of this thread given to us from officials with the school so we could have verification and give recognition. You can't seek the information when there's no place to get it officially.

Also 15thslamma, sometimes the best sources to find info on football teams and players are from fans that follow them. They're at every game and are passionate for their team.

I had sent this explaination to someone else in this thread in a private message and originally didn't want to post this publicly, but with the way this thread has gone, someone needed to provide a different point-of-view. Just a side note: EKB sports has covered at least 1 football game of every single football team in Pike, Floyd, Johnson, Martin, Magoffin and Letcher County this year and we have tried to give a variety of different games on dial and hopefully we'll be able to do even more in the future to promote the youth/community/schools

With that said, good luck to Pike Central this week.

Here's the media deal in a nutshell. Why should a local paper be getting info from other sources instead of being there in person? Why don't they get their butts in a car and travel to the playoff game being played by a Pike County team or hire some playoff "help" to get it covered! Rick Bentley, used to do that, so did Terry Spears, David Mulliken, John Bastolla, Brad Lockard and yes even Tom Kopacz. They made sure someone was there to get it and get it right. The problem is the paper doesn't value the sports programs in the county enough anymore to cover them effectively. Sadly, our communities have laid back and let it happen. When we stop buying that cheap excuse for a "day old news" newspaper then things could change. Probably why their paper is sinking and revenue is down.
As for radio, here's my take. EKB has more stations than there are high schools in Pike County. You are telling me that EKB can't sell spots for a team on each station. That's bull. EKB doesn't put an emphasis on sports as they did in the past. That's not a sports directors fault. It starts at the top or near the top (i.e. used to be on SportsOvertime) 10 years ago Brian Crager had a team at every playoff game and mainly because he was allowed to do soand it was important to do that for the kids. Okay, if more teams are making the playoffs then grow the radio teams. The money is no good but people would do it. And quit harping on Chapman not talking or giving interviews. What coach ever says anything other than "We just try to get better each week".... anyway. Maybe some coaches could take a lesson and talk lesson and let their players performance do the talking on the field. Is it about the coaches or the players? And as far as player stats, that wouldn't be a problem at this point in the season if a radio station covered every game or the newspaper covered every game in person. It could all change if the paper and radio wanted it to change and maybe people are starting to get fed up with it. I hope so.