Sprinting into spring sports

Well, we’re officially back in that time again; spring sports season is here!

We’re pushing to get the preview out for the local area schools’ teams next week. But in true track and field fashion, local area track teams are already sprinting headlong into the season with indoor track meets at MSU - Mankato.

Both the boys’ and girls’ track teams of JWP have a chance to take the conference and maybe even the section. I might be biased, and I’m basing this on an indoor track meet, but all I’m saying is…when you take first place by 78 points like the boys did, that’s pretty good.

As a reporter, it’s definitely tougher to take sports pictures in an indoor track. That’s a bit weird to say, I’ll admit. But it’s a shorter part of the season, it’s a smaller track, and everything that isn’t the track events (hurdles, runs, and relays) is in the center of the arena. An added complication is being one of five photographers in an already crowded track.

That being said, Myers Field House (which I see is often spelled “Meyers” by mistake) is an awesome place to take pictures. It presents a new challenge trying to get photos of the long jumpers while the people running the meet have all the athletes pile right in between me and the sand pit which the jumpers leap into. (No offense to those in charge of the MSU meets; they have limited space to work with.)

While we bring up some occupational hazards here at the paper, I’d like to add another one: eye strain. Between Sunday and Monday, I spent the majority of my day looking at the computer screen writing. As I write this column, I feel the slightest dull pain in my eyes looking at this screen.

I don’t want to complain too much. I’d rather have slightly dull pain in the eyes than have my whole body ache working in a factory. But it’s an indicator of how hard I work between two papers.

Speaking of hard work, I’m acquiring renewed respect for my stepdad. He’s closing in on his mid-50s, and he still works 12-hour shifts as a boiler operator.

We’re getting into what is arguably our busiest time of the year. I say this for two reasons.

The first is that the spring sports season brings the most teams for us to cover. For example, JWP’s winter sports coverage involves two basketball teams and the wrestlers. (Hockey players from JWP go to Waseca, of course). In the spring, there are two track teams, two golf teams, baseball, and softball–twice as many.

My second reason for believing we’re hitting our busiest time of the year is that it’s getting warmer. Once we break through these awkward weeks when it can be 50 degrees one day and 30 the next, we’ll have a ton of people chomping at the bit to be outside. That usually equates to more events to cover.

We’ll be churning out a lot of content in the next few months. From here, we’ll more than likely stay consistently busy; we like covering summer sports, so that part of our workload will stay consistent. Once school is out, there will no longer be the centralized focus of those larger events–instead we’ll be traveling farther and wider to attend the vast array of smaller happenings at their various locations.

We’ll be in a good position to stay busy and provide plenty of content for you readers. It’s going to be one great ride, so come along with us as we near our one-year anniversary!

This week in music

On March 31, 1984, Kenny Loggins scored a number one hit in the US with the legendary single with a legendary namesake movie “Footloose.” It stayed on top of the charts for three weeks (a fantastic feat for 1984) while peaking at number six in the United Kingdom.