I believe in you, the reader.
I believe you will understand that I have favorite sports to cover and not-so favorite sports to cover, and that you would not hold this against me.
After all, there are 22 sports (including boys and girls teams) sanctioned by the Washington Interscholastic Activities Association, and The Columbian covers all of them. These are not children. I do not love them equally.
But I do respect every athlete who has put in the time to make it to varsity. Because I get to talk to so many young athletes who have so much commitment and drive, I clearly have the best job at The Columbian.
Sometimes I wish there were more hours in the day, or even more days in the week, though. Because I can’t get to every game.
I’m not going to bore you with my list of preferences, from top to bottom. Anyone who has been reading me for any length of time knows that football is the greatest game ever invented. That’s not opinion. It is fact.
After football, well, it depends on the season.
Which leads me to May and my favorite spring sport to cover. With all due respect to baseball — it was a blast covering Skyview’s state title run last year — my favorite spring sport is softball. Love the pace. Love the battle between an ace pitcher and the other team’s best hitter. I love that in the postseason, teams in the winner’s bracket play two games a day.
“Hey, you just won in the state semifinals. Congratulations. You have about an 30 minutes to enjoy it. Then you gotta get ready for the championship game!”
One thing I do not like, though, is how the spring schedule plays out. It is getting more and more difficult to cover softball.
In the 4A and 3A Greater St. Helens Leagues, baseball teams play each other 15 times in league games. Softball has 10 league games. Baseball’s postseason also is longer than softball’s because nobody wants to watch baseball teams play four games in two days over one weekend. So baseball’s regular season is wrapping up at about the same time softball’s league season is beginning.
When games are being played on the same day, well, a baseball game with a league title on the line is more important than the third league game in softball.
The end of the softball regular season often conflicts with postseason in other sports.
One of my favorite weekends of the year used to be state championship softball, when the 4A and 3A tourneys were held in the same place. A few years ago, though, the 4A moved to Spokane and the 3A moved to Lacey. I hope those moves were good for the athletes. They were terrible for the media. I could keep track of four or five of our teams in one long day when 4A and 3A softball were together.
This year, the bi-district softball tournaments have been split up, as well, the 4As in one place, the 3As in another.
Come state championship weekend, every sport except golf ends on the same day. As always this spring, The Columbian will be at as many events as possible. But when so many of our teams make it to state (a good problem to have) we have to make decisions. Last year, 4A softball in Spokane drew the short straw.
We prefer fall and winter scheduling because state championships are staggered over a series of weekends. Not spring, though. It all happens at once.
In softball, the two biggest classifications will be played at the same time, roughly 315 freeway miles apart.
Love the game, but can’t stand the schedule.
Paul Valencia covers high school sports for The Columbian. He can be reached at 360-735-4557 or e-mail at paul.valencia@columbian.com.
