It's approaching 10 o'clock in the morning, still about 10 hours until gametime in the state tournament for the Monroe High School softball team.
But it sure doesn't look like softball weather outside. Dark clouds have been dropping rain on and off, with precipitation heavy at times. It makes an editor wonder what Mother Nature's going to do to the plans made for game coverage. We shall see.
Planning for a state tournament takes some thinking and communication.
It all starts with the sports editor making sure we have credentials through the WIAA to cover the game, which we do. We'll be sending both of our sports reporters to tonight's 8 p.m. game against Rice Lake. Sports Editor Christopher Heimerman will cover the game and take photographs. Reporter Mark Nesbitt will be writing a column for Saturday's paper from the game, but also has an important job as a runner.
The Division 2 state semifinal game begins about three and a half hours before we need to have all of our pages done Friday night. Our deadline is about 11:30 p.m. (I say "about" because all sports deadlines are at least a little fuzzy and flexible on busy nights.) Assuming the game finishes around 9:30 or so, we have about two hours to have all stories written and edited and photos sent, selected and placed on the page.
In other words, our sports guys have to work quickly. And our technology must work.
Christopher will be writing his stories on our laptop computer, and sending them from the field in Madison back to our Monroe office via e-mail. The WIAA provides the media wireless Internet access at the site.
Mark will be "running" between Christopher's camera and the media area during the game to send photos to us, again via e-mail. About every two innings, Christopher will take his digital media card out of the camera and hand it to Mark, who will take it to the laptop and do some quick editing of the photos Christopher's taken. He'll e-mail a handful of photo files back to the Times office, where photographer Brenda Steurer will go through them and select photos for the newspaper and for our online Photo Gallery. Christopher, Mark and Brenda will repeat this process a few times throughout the game.
The idea is to get as much of the information back to Monroe as soon as possible to give us as much time as possible to get it in Saturday's newspaper. Since both of our sports guys will be in Madison, I'll be working on the sports pages in the office tonight.
Once Saturday's newspaper is complete, I'll put together a photo gallery of pictures Brenda has selected, probably between 20 and 30 of them. The gallery should be posted to our site by about 12:30 or 1 a.m.
All of this assumes, of course, that Mother Nature cooperates. The later the game would start after 8 p.m., the more difficult it will be to get in Saturday's paper in time. If rains push the game back past, say, 9:30 p.m. (the Division 1 semifinal didn't start until after 10 o'clock on Thursday), it might not be possible for us to get much if anything in Saturday's newspaper.
Regardless of what we're able to get in the newspaper, we'll have full stories ready online as soon as they're done - early Saturday morning.
Until then, we'll be hoping for clear skies.
But it sure doesn't look like softball weather outside. Dark clouds have been dropping rain on and off, with precipitation heavy at times. It makes an editor wonder what Mother Nature's going to do to the plans made for game coverage. We shall see.
Planning for a state tournament takes some thinking and communication.
It all starts with the sports editor making sure we have credentials through the WIAA to cover the game, which we do. We'll be sending both of our sports reporters to tonight's 8 p.m. game against Rice Lake. Sports Editor Christopher Heimerman will cover the game and take photographs. Reporter Mark Nesbitt will be writing a column for Saturday's paper from the game, but also has an important job as a runner.
The Division 2 state semifinal game begins about three and a half hours before we need to have all of our pages done Friday night. Our deadline is about 11:30 p.m. (I say "about" because all sports deadlines are at least a little fuzzy and flexible on busy nights.) Assuming the game finishes around 9:30 or so, we have about two hours to have all stories written and edited and photos sent, selected and placed on the page.
In other words, our sports guys have to work quickly. And our technology must work.
Christopher will be writing his stories on our laptop computer, and sending them from the field in Madison back to our Monroe office via e-mail. The WIAA provides the media wireless Internet access at the site.
Mark will be "running" between Christopher's camera and the media area during the game to send photos to us, again via e-mail. About every two innings, Christopher will take his digital media card out of the camera and hand it to Mark, who will take it to the laptop and do some quick editing of the photos Christopher's taken. He'll e-mail a handful of photo files back to the Times office, where photographer Brenda Steurer will go through them and select photos for the newspaper and for our online Photo Gallery. Christopher, Mark and Brenda will repeat this process a few times throughout the game.
The idea is to get as much of the information back to Monroe as soon as possible to give us as much time as possible to get it in Saturday's newspaper. Since both of our sports guys will be in Madison, I'll be working on the sports pages in the office tonight.
Once Saturday's newspaper is complete, I'll put together a photo gallery of pictures Brenda has selected, probably between 20 and 30 of them. The gallery should be posted to our site by about 12:30 or 1 a.m.
All of this assumes, of course, that Mother Nature cooperates. The later the game would start after 8 p.m., the more difficult it will be to get in Saturday's paper in time. If rains push the game back past, say, 9:30 p.m. (the Division 1 semifinal didn't start until after 10 o'clock on Thursday), it might not be possible for us to get much if anything in Saturday's newspaper.
Regardless of what we're able to get in the newspaper, we'll have full stories ready online as soon as they're done - early Saturday morning.
Until then, we'll be hoping for clear skies.
