We’re doing something a little different this season with our winter sports preview. Instead of one special section with all four sports and 28 teams tossed together, we’ll instead dole out three days of preview sections.

The first will be published next Saturday, Nov. 17, and it will feature girls basketball – all 10 schools.

On Wednesday, Nov. 21, boys basketball will be the featured previews, and Nov. 24 will be wrestling and hockey.

Each team will be getting their own preview story like in years past, full of rosters, schedules and inside information from the coaches on what to expect for the upcoming season. The change will simply be away from a special tab and instead placed into the regular broadsheet newspaper and split into three editions.

The special sections have always been my favorite project to work on in my now four-plus years at the Monroe Times. It is a lot of work, prep and design, but the end product was always something I cherished. It was a personal accomplishment to put out a product that would be a keepsake for families and athletes from throughout our coverage area. 

That said, I am excited to try this new format. It will be a new challenge altogether, but I feel by separating our publishing dates and dividing by sport will lead to a better overall product in both content and as a keepsake.

Part of the reason for change is because the sports themselves stagger their start, for instance, girls basketball begins practice a week before boys basketball. In years past, not just in winter but especially in fall and spring, some teams hadn’t begun practice and rosters hadn’t been set prior to the publishing deadline. This change now gives teams and coaches a few extra days for practices to begin and evaluations to be made.

This format will continue into the foreseeable future as well, with the spring sports previews coming out in the final weeks of March, and the fall 2019 previews available to readers in mid-August.

I also plan on putting my column on hiatus during these couple of issues, but fear not, it will return in time for Thanksgiving and will continue to inform all of our readers how many days are left until pitchers and catchers report to spring training. Currently it’s at 95 days.

— Adam Krebs is a reporter for the Monroe Times and can be reached at akrebs@themonroetimes.net.