Today's journalism is tomorrow's history

The hardest thing about covering high school sports is not having as many eyes and ears, as I would like. What I mean by this is that if I could I would love to get everything in the paper.
I want pictures, articles, features and anything that I think readers would enjoy seeing in the paper. I know from experience how much kids, parents, grandparents and coaches love seeing things in the paper.
It could be a picture, it could be a short article or it could be a full-length story. People love to make scrap- books and they love to have these things to look at 10-15 years from now. Showing their children what they did as student athletes or just for memories is what we are all about. Newspapers are printing history in the present.
What is today’s news are tomorrow’s history lessons. People like to read about what they accomplished and the good things they have done. The beauty of my job is people want to see it no matter what. If Ypsilanti High defeats Dexter in football they want to know how and why. If they lose to Highland Park people still want to see who led the team in rushing or who scored a touchdown.
I want people to send me as much news and sports information as they can so I have the problem of putting it in the paper each week. I would like to have so much information that I have to hold it from one week to the next. Give me articles, pictures and all the information that is worth printing and I will get it in the paper.
I want stories on kids who play soccer, people who swim in the summer or maybe someone that runs a marathon. Give me the information and let me put it in print. I love game stories and I love writing stories about high school sports but I know for a fact this area has more to offer than just high school varsity sports.
I recently started running feature stories on Eastern Michigan University athletes. These are interesting and good for the paper but there is so much more that this area has to offer. I want to write stories on athletes who went on to college and are playing at any university. Give me some stories on area students playing basketball. I know we have a lot of that.
We have some very good athletes in all sports. I would love to do stories on “Where are they now.” Give me some ideas of who to track down and write about and let me do the rest of the work. Let me know what you want to read about and I will do my very best to hunt it down and put it on the pages of the sports section so you can read it.
Any interesting coaches, teachers or people who have been important to student athletes let me know and we can do a story on them. Any new sports programs or any news sports we haven’t covered let me know. I want to work for you and your reading entertainment.
I know most of you have seen my name in print by now. Call me let me know you thoughts and what you think. I am here and would love to hear from you.
So I do cover a few schools. There is Willow Run, Ypsilanti High and Lincoln in the Ypsilanti Courier and I do cover Belleville High in the View. Maybe you want another school covered just let me know.
I would love to hear from anyone on suggestions for coverage ideas. I would like to get as many names and events in the paper as I can.
Dave Merchant is a staff writer for the View and Courier newspapers and can be reached at 734-697-8255 or dmerchant@heritage.com. His blog Dave’s Sport Gems can be read on www.ypsilanticourier.com.