At Toledo’s first Thursday of sanctioned football practice, I saw the coaches gather the players around on one knee to talk about player safety.
Gone are the days where players are taught to tackle using their heads, but it was the norm before the knowledge of concussions and CTE. Toledo’s coaches explained the proper way to tackle and had each player partner up to show they could use proper tackling technique.
Like the art of tackling in football, change can sometimes be a good thing.
Many readers are accustomed to receiving their Saturday paper the morning after football on Friday night and opening it up to see how many yards Napavine’s quarterback threw for and how many rushing yards the kid from Adna had.
The Chronicle recently changed its print deadline to 3 p.m. Friday afternoon, allowing your paper will get to you on time Saturday. Unfortunately, the deadline makes it impossible to get up-to-the-minute results in the print edition.
Due to the changes intended to make The Chronicle a strong and lasting part of your routine, Saturday’s paper will no longer contain coverage of Friday night’s events. Instead those stories will be in Tuesday’s edition of The Chronicle.
Does this mean there will be less coverage of football? It certainly does not. We still plan on having all hands on deck on Friday night, with Jordan Nailon, Aaron VanTuyl, Jared Wenzelburger, Rob Hilson and I all going to games and providing updates throughout the night. We’ll come back to the office and sort out the action, put it into words and post it on Chronline.com and lewiscountysports.com for everyone to read Friday night.
On top of that, we will also be doing a special Friday Night Lights version of Let’s Take About It, the Lewis County Sports podcast. Jordan, Aaron and I will talk about what we saw at the games we covered and what else happened throughout the area.
Email me at mbaide@chronline.com to sign up to receive all of our Friday night football coverage in one place when you wake up on Saturday morning.
I know that all of this may not be enough to make up for the fact that there is no football in Saturday’s print edition.
This is not a change that I’m fond of either, but a necessary one in order for The Chronicle and the sports staff in particular to deliver the best possible coverage of sports in Lewis County.
Please be sure to follow me on Twitter (@chronmatt) and Jordan (@chronnailon) and Aaron (@chronavt) for all game updates throughout the season.
Our prep football preview tab will be out in the Thursday edition of The Chronicle in order to prepare you and keep you informed throughout the 2019 season.
The Chronicle is excited to be covering local prep and college sports and will continue to do its best to let you know what is happening in your communities. Good luck to all of the local teams in the fall sports season.
