Somebody told me it’s 2015, but I have my doubts.
I mean it wasn’t that long ago I was taking my daughter to her first day of kindergarten, and I remember calculating back then that she would graduate from high school in 2015.
So it can’t be 2015. Can it?
Well, in the event what everyone is saying is true, I thought it might be a good idea to catch up with the times, or at least try.
A couple of years ago, The Columbian launched a Facebook page dedicated to prep sports. But most teenagers these days think Facebook is soooooooo 2009.
We also have a Twitter account — @360preps — for prep sports coverage. But I recently saw one high school student comment that adults are starting to take over Twitter like they took over Facebook, and it’s time to find the next hot social media platform.
So in an effort to keep up with times — or more precisely to keep one step behind all the cool kids — we launched an Instagram account devoted to prep sports coverage — 360preps.
And now a couple days after letting folks know about it, we have 61 followers on Instagram.
We have posted eight photos on our Instagram account. And when I say “we” I mean “me.”
That’s the problem with all of these new-fangled social media sites and apps — I have to convince all the old, um, codgers here in The Columbian sports department to get on board with it.
Old sports reporters can be set in their ways. “Bah! Instagram! Back in the day, we used to file our stories on a Radio Shack TRS-80 … with phone couplers! And we liked it!”
Well, sometimes the best way to get something moving in a particular direction is to simply dive in and hope someone follows.
That’s what I’ve done with Instagram. I headed out to the Fort Vancouver-Hudson’s Bay baseball game on Friday — I mean, heck, Propstra Stadium is less than two miles from The Columbian office — took a couple of pictures and shared them on Instagram.
On Saturday, I ventured out to Battle Ground High School to watch some of the Tiger Invitational track and field meet.
Heck, I even shot some video. You can watch the video clip on our website (360preps.com), but you’ll have to cut me some slack on my first attempt. Some of shots were so shaky at times, you’d almost expect Bigfoot to saunter across the video screen at any moment.
My hope is more Columbian staffers will be getting out to prep events this spring and sharing images on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook. I mean, if the weather is nice, why wouldn’t you want to get outside for some sports?
But you can help me out with this. We can’t get to every prep event — an average spring day can have 25 to 30 different prep events in Clark County. So if you’re at a prep event and have your smart phone handy, click off an image and send it to us. We’ll share it up on our Instagram account, with the appropriate credit, of course.
The easiest way to send us photos is by email at sports@columbian.com, and we’ll take a look.
Who know? Maybe if this Instagram thing takes off for us, we’ll explore other platforms like Tumblr or Snapchat or whatever else is out there.
But there are only so many watering holes you can drag a horse to at any one time.
