Once again, I am disappointed by The Daily Free Press’ lack of sports coverage. As a fan of the sport of running, I went to the BU track website yesterday to find the Terrier Classic took place this past weekend, and I had missed it entirely. Foolishly, I was depending on the Free Press, which supposedly covers the BU sports scene, to inform me that one of the country’s biggest indoor track meets and perhaps the largest collegiate meet was taking place at the Armory. I guess 1,600 athletes, including some Olympians competing at BU, were not important enough to warrant a single sentence of coverage. Other sports stories must have been much more important. Similarly, the women’s cross country teams finishing 16th at the NCAA National Championships this fall wasn’t worthy of any attention, even though this was the highest finish of any BU team this fall. I should be used to this slanted reporting by now, since it has been a continuing problem for years. For some reason, you cover the same sports on a daily basis while failing to cover even the major happenings of other teams. Cross-country, track, wrestling, crew and swimming receive abysmal coverage. Why don’t you even out your reporting and have weekly updates on these sports while they are in season? Maybe for every 20 stories on the men’s lacrosse team (which isn’t even a Division I sport) you could provide one story on the wrestling team. Myself and many others are far more interested in reading about these sports once in a while rather than the same sports every single day. I do not intend to demean the sports that do get coverage, but why not balance out the reporting a bit? I only know about what happens with the running teams because I have enough interest to visit their website, but I’m sure the other teams that are not covered also have important achievements that no one has a clue about. Furthermore, when you actually do cover these sports, why don’t you actually put some effort into writing quality stories about them? You skillfully manage to turn some exciting competitions into the most boring events. For instance, when writing about a race — whether it be swimming, running or rowing — don’t just write about the outcome accompanied by some quotes from the coaches and players, but actually talk about what happened during the races. Writing about the actual occurrences of the competitions is far better than just reeling off the results. When you write about a hockey game, you don’t just write about the final score with some quips from those involved, but you actually write about what happened during them — which is far more interesting. Sports such as track deserve the same. Obviously there are more important things in the paper than sports. But if you are going to cover them at all, then why don’t you do it right?
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