To Paul O. and Mark L.

[wh]

I have noticed in the past that most VU men's basketball articles receive higher profile placement in your respective Porter County editions than in the Lake County editions.  For instance, a headline story in Porter will be farther down the page in Lake.  Or, a front page story in Porter will be on page 3 in Lake.  I'm wondering why.

Both publications preach the importance of regionalism (e.g., One Region, One Vision), and yet the Region's one and only D-1 college program is given only secondary emphasis in Lake County.  I hope the two of you will push to get that changed.  For openers I will be watching to see where your respective articles about Alec Peters appear.  I know where it would be if we were in Evansville or Peoria.

[vu72]

I don't think Mark Lazerus is covering Valpo athletics any longer.  I looks like he has moved to ND, not sure but he last few things written about Valpo have been done by others.  He is the sports director however.

[Valpo89]

I think I might have a little insight, as far as The Times goes.
The Times zones its editions on most days by Lake, Porter and Illinois.
VU will always get better play in Porter County. The thinking is something along the lines of "people in Lake County don't care about VU," and I'm not going to disagree with that too much. They care more about Purdue, IU or Notre Dame. They also care more about high school sports in Lake County. To be honest, an Andrean-Merrillville game or a Munster-Lake Central basketball game is more important to the readers of Lake County than a VU game.
And, I know what you're thinking - "Well, if The Times gave Valpo better coverage in Lake County, more people would care." Perhaps, but I don't think it would make enough difference to create enough buzz that a sports fan in Crown Point would choose to go to a VU game over a high school game on the same night. You're definitely not going to get a significant Lake County crowd to a game against a bad opponent, or even a week night game that isn't something like what we saw in the Horizon tournament.
It's not the newspaper's job to be the PR department for VU sports. The newspaper reports on each sport to a degree that they think the interest warrants. That's why you're not going to see many volleyball or soccer stories, even if the teams are good, in Lake or Porter counties. The readers in northwest Indiana care only about the major sports or maybe features on local kids who play at VU.
Don't worry, in five years it's not going to matter. Everything will be online only. Save the trees.

[lowposter]

If VU recruited and signed more Lake County players, then VU would attract more attention in that area.  Nick Davidson is a step in the right direction for Lake County. 

[sliman]

I agree with Valpo89 although there are two other variables he didn't mention: competition and success.  When Valpo plays teams that NWI recognizes as "big time" (e.g. Notre Dame, Purdue, Duke, et al), coverage of the game is likely to be carried in all editions.  Similarly, when Valpo enjoys extended success through a long winning streak or an NCAA win or two, the news is likely to hit all editions.  As I recall, there was good coverage of the Valpo in the Lake County edition late in the 1997-98 season.  So, if we can beat "name" teams with some regularity and win an NCAA tournament game with regularity maybe we can make some of the Lake County residents WANT to read about the only Division I team in NWI.  Let's hope it happens before his prediction of the newspapers being online only comes true.

If newspapers are only online, we'll all be reading only what we want to read, overlooking news of value to us and to which we should be paying attention.  Now, when I read the newspapers, I skim over stories I judge to be less interesting and often stumble across something I find worthwhile reading.  Not sure I'll do that if the only clue is a 5-6 word hotlink.

I also agree with the earlier comment that is seems a bit hypocritical for the local newspapers to promote being one region, but distributing the news to fragmented areas.

[valporun]

If/When newspapers go fully online only, we'll miss so much news because a lot of the little stories we don't read are usually the AP stories/bits that you can find on national papers like USA Today. In the end, I agree with Valpo89 about the regional coverage of Valpo because of its location, not that it is the only D-I school in NWI. Where I live, we have a D-III and an NJCAA school, and neither one gets a whole lot of major coverage. At best, the D-III football team will get coverage, but once basketball season starts, all four basketball teams at the two schools get minimal coverage, about a paragraph each because most of the kids aren't local, or the teams just aren't very good. For Valpo to get presence in Lake County, they will have to win games against more than the NAIAs and no-namer teams added in tourneys to build a field.

[crusaderjoe]

If VU recruited and signed more Lake County players, then VU would attract more attention in that area.  Nick Davidson is a step in the right direction for Lake County.

I agree with you that VU would attract more interest in Lake County if more kids were recruited from that region.  However, to garner increased interest, I would think you would have to exclude schools like Noll and Andrean given that they are 1) private and 2) draw students from all over NWI and Illinois.  These schools are not exclusive to Lake County.  IMO, unless he's an absolute superstar with say a Glenn Robinson pull, the run of the mill Lake County resident isn't really going to follow VU just because a kid from Andrean enrolls.  Now if you're talking Munster, Merrillville, Lake Central, East Chicago Central, or Gary West, it might be a different story, even without a Glenn Robinson type pull.

[chef]

How many Munster people attended Loyola games last year because Joe Crisman started for them?? I'm guessing not to many. The drive from Munster to Loyola is about the same as the drive from Munster to Valpo.

[crusaderjoe]

Listen, you may be completely right. I get what you are driving at with your comment. Loyola lost 23 games last year though.  Maybe that had some effect on travel. But I get your point.

Let me put it another way.  Andrean has students from both Lake and Porter Counties.  If Nick Davidson's presence draws an increase of fans from Hebron, Shorewood Forest, Ogden Dunes, or Portage because those fans know him or know of him as a result of their attending Andrean High School, has his recruitment really garnered an increased interest from Lake County?  In this context, the risk of my hypothetical actually occurring is far less if he would have attended Munster High School, IMO.  Given that Andrean accepts students from all over NWI, this possibility remains open.  Sure, the kid will garner interest no question.  But will it be Lake County interest?

[valpotx]

I never knew Andrean was a private school while at Valpo.  I just knew it as the school that Ali Berdiel and Jamie Gutowski attended.  Apparently, the Gutowski's are legends at the school in various sports, as I noticed on their Hall of Fame portion (looking to see if Ali was on it) that her father and two brothers are in the HOF with her.

[wh]

I never knew Andrean was a private school while at Valpo.  I just knew it as the school that Ali Berdiel and Jamie Gutowski attended.  Apparently, the Gutowski's are legends at the school in various sports, as I noticed on their Hall of Fame portion (looking to see if Ali was on it) that her father and two brothers are in the HOF with her.

If I recall correctly Berdiel attended Andrean but he was never cleared to play basketball by the IHSAA.

[wh]

I don't think Mark Lazerus is covering Valpo athletics any longer. I looks like he has moved to ND, not sure but he last few things written about Valpo have been done by others.  He is the sports director however.

Apparently no one is.  I haven't seen anything from the Post Tribune about the Peters signing. 

[vu72]

I don't think Mark Lazerus is covering Valpo athletics any longer. I looks like he has moved to ND, not sure but he last few things written about Valpo have been done by others.  He is the sports director however.

Apparently no one is.  I haven't seen anything from the Post Tribune about the Peters signing. 

Perhaps its time to either complain or simply drop the subscriptions.  Pretty weird to just drop coverage all together.  This isn't a women's soccer game but probably one of the biggest signings in recent history.

[LaPorteAveApostle]

Yeah, what the heck?  He always seemed to enjoy that beat, too...and Hutton was their ND homer guy.

[historyman]

Get used to it. More and more coverage will get dropped as less people pay for their news. My brother-in-law is trying to redefine the newspaper business by having the universities or another form of government run bureaus that collectively do the things like investigative reporting that newspapers always did but can no longer pay for. He works at WiscWatch at UW-Madison.

[justducky]

I don't think Mark Lazerus is covering Valpo athletics any longer. I looks like he has moved to ND, not sure but he last few things written about Valpo have been done by others.  He is the sports director however.

Apparently no one is.  I haven't seen anything from the Post Tribune about the Peters signing. 

On my third look thumbing through Monday's Post Trib I found it. Page 29, tucked in the corner, under the topic of Local brief, with VU in almost fine print it says that vu gets another commitment: followed by maybe 80 words of the usual dribble that in no way gives any indication of the true significance of this verbal to either the Valpo coaching staff or the VU fan base. So in my excitement I just figured that they would follow it up with detailed coverage on Tuesday that would include mention of the entire recruiting class.

Nope, nothing in the Tuesday paper, and I doubt that 9 out of 10 readers that might have been interested would  have seen what little there was.  My guess would be that there could have been 20 times as much print space used in the Peoria and Bloomington-Normal newspapers telling their readers where Alec wasn't going than there was in northwest indiana telling us where he is coming. Big news in Illinois-doesn't mean a pinch of   to northwest Indiana's news team.

[hoopfan22]

Valpo will never get Lake County interest. Ever. Not when they dont recruit/get players from Lake County.. I can count 3 or 4 kids the last 15-20 years. Davidson REALLY won't change that either.

[valpotx]

Sounds similar to Tarrant County being focused on TCU, while Dallas County is SMU.  Big difference in the stereotype of living in Fort Worth (laid back, more friendly, will invite a stranger to a BBQ) and Dallas (more akin to NYC, busy busy, non-trusting).  I am much more FTW than Dallas 

[milanmiracle]

Here's my persepctive...and I'll try to keep it brief. Somebody touched on the Lake County interest and their reasons why they don't pay attention to Valpo U. I'll go the other direction and touch on LaPorte County. There is an association that VU is a bunch of rich, snobby private school kids. They're brought up thinking that Valpo HS are the snobby rich kids, so they aren't going to feel much better about a private religious university in the same town. Is it accurate? Not entirely, but there's been nothing done to change that perception either.

And on a much more simplistic level...No NCAA tournament = no local interest. My Dad has lived in northern Indiana for 40 years and has never been to a Valpo game of any kind...but he has been to plenty of Notre Dame games in football, basketball and soccer.

[vu72]

Here's my persepctive...and I'll try to keep it brief. Somebody touched on the Lake County interest and their reasons why they don't pay attention to Valpo U. I'll go the other direction and touch on LaPorte County. There is an association that VU is a bunch of rich, snobby private school kids. They're brought up thinking that Valpo HS are the snobby rich kids, so they aren't going to feel much better about a private religious university in the same town. Is it accurate? Not entirely, but there's been nothing done to change that perception either.

And on a much more simplistic level...No NCAA tournament = no local interest. My Dad has lived in northern Indiana for 40 years and has never been to a Valpo game of any kind...but he has been to plenty of Notre Dame games in football, basketball and soccer.

[/b]

Milan, In the last 40 years Valpo has been to a bunch of NCAA tournaments.  Basketball, Volleyball, baseball and softball to name some.  Now, obviously that isn't the reason why he hasn't "been to a Valpo game of any kind", now is it??

[milanmiracle]

Here's my persepctive...and I'll try to keep it brief. Somebody touched on the Lake County interest and their reasons why they don't pay attention to Valpo U. I'll go the other direction and touch on LaPorte County. There is an association that VU is a bunch of rich, snobby private school kids. They're brought up thinking that Valpo HS are the snobby rich kids, so they aren't going to feel much better about a private religious university in the same town. Is it accurate? Not entirely, but there's been nothing done to change that perception either.

And on a much more simplistic level...No NCAA tournament = no local interest. My Dad has lived in northern Indiana for 40 years and has never been to a Valpo game of any kind...but he has been to plenty of Notre Dame games in football, basketball and soccer.

[/b]

Milan, In the last 40 years Valpo has been to a bunch of NCAA tournaments.  Basketball, Volleyball, baseball and softball to name some.  Now, obviously that isn't the reason why he hasn't "been to a Valpo game of any kind", now is it??

Okay, fair enough...should have rephrased that as they were two seperate points. Local interest is tied to the NCAA tournament and success in the tournament. The run by Bryce garnered a whole lot of local interest, and I can even remember lines for the Sweet 16 shirts. Those weren't just students waiting in line. Since the NCAA tournament is now an event, much like the super bowl, it means everything to be involved in it. The "brackets", selection Sunday, ect are all more than just a basketball tournament and to be involved in that means everything.

As for my father, it's just not big time college athletics. He'd go to ND basketball game when they were playing UConn, Syracuse and Georgetown, ND womens soccer when they were playing UNC, and the womens basketball when they were playing Tennessee. Unless it was a marquis matchup against programs expected to do something on a national level, he didn't go. I can think of the Purdue game and the Marquette games as ones he might have considerred, but other than that.

He has absolutely no interest in volleyball, softball, or baseball.

None of this makes it right or wrong, just what it is.

[lowposter]

I have always thought VU was a tough market for drawing fan interest.  Relatively small student body, which over the past few years seems to have really dropped it's interest...correct me if I am wrong. 

Compared to other similar universities, the community is on the small size (compare to other Horizon League teams).  There is very strong regional sports affiliations - Chicago professional market is huge, Notre Dame is less than an hour away and is a national university, Purdue is 90 minutes away with a large NW Indiana alumni following, and IU is Indiana University and has a storied basketball history. 

In other words, there are too many other options for the sporting $$$.  Attendance is good, but not great for VU basketball. 

Full disclosure...season ticket holder for 25 years until 3 years ago.

lowposter