As a parent of athletes of Windham I would like to say that a little more recognition of the kids in this town would be appreciated. I feel that this newspaper is only after the news of teams that are always successful. The kids in this town try just as hard but numbers hurt us. A few more pictures and a little more thought needs to be put into the articles that are published.

With only one high school beat writer and 16 schools in the conference, we don't get to be everywhere we would like to be.
Nor can we do as much as we would like to do. When it comes time for our one high school beat writer to cover a game, he generally has to cover a game that has major implications on a respective division championship, which is why it may seem like we only cover the teams with good records.
If there is a game in a particular sport that would decide a division championship, and we did not cover it, that would be a big issue.
We never ignore a school, city or township on purpose.
Tom Nader.

I understand that but the division title games don't become a factor until the last few games of the year. Why can't you cover some of the schools that aren't projected to be in the running for division titles at the bigging of the year? The first few weeks could be set aside for the teams that aren't projected to do well. Use this year(2008) as an example. Rootstown, Windham, Waterloo, and Woodridge could have been teams that could've had coverage for the first three or four weeks and then more focus could've went on the title contenders for the last six weeks. It doesn't take alot of effort to understand that doing a little homework before the season starts would go along way with parents of these programs also. In the end all programs would benefit from this idea. I understand you are doing the best you can but there are better ways to handle this situation. Thanks for taking the time to read this and responding so quickly

Windham's first two games were at Jackson-Milton and at McDonald. With two non-division games played at locations that far out of Portage County makes it very difficult to get to. We don't have the funds right now to be able to pay someone's gas mileage for trips like that.
Typically the only two teams we travel to cover out of county on a consistent basis is Ravenna and Kent Roosevelt. Because we have offices in Kent and Ravenna, it is essential for us to cover those teams. Windham's Week 3 game at home against Newton Falls was a game we were going to cover, but then it got canceled because of a teacher's strike within the Newton Falls school district.
Rootstown got coverage in Week 1 and Week 3 because they played at home. Waterloo received coverage in Week 1 and Week 3 also.
We limit our coverage of Woodridge because it is in Summit County.
Thank you,
Tom Nader.

If you only have one high school beat writer then how was it that Rootstown and Waterloo got coverage in weeks one and three? That's more then one game at a time? I would think that some of the other schools could have been covered (Windham for example) in week four or whenever along with some of the contenders. I think you see where I'm going with this. Hopefully next year there will be a little more thought put into this and if funds are truly a problem, I believe many parents of many programs (including myself) would be happy to transport anyone that you would appoint the task of covering any sport so let us not use funds as a reason not to cover an event. There are many ways to get all the teams coverage in the P.T.C. Thank you again for your time.

I feel your pain Moe,,,,,,,,,,,I had tried my best to get the R/C to cover just one of Mogadore's volleyball matches besides them covering the football team or golf team. Both volleyball matches between Windham and Mogadore would have been great events to cover.

We have one full-time, on staff beat writer, and a handful of volunteers who donate their time on Friday nights to help us with football coverage.
We do the best we can, and fully understand that we cannot be perfect. We know we cannot get to every team in every sport in every season. We would like to, but just cannot.
We have actually received a large amount of compliments on our fall coverage this season, from a variety of different communities.

In closing I'd like to say that there is alot of good that goes on in my small town (especially in the youth programs) and I wish the R/C would be as concerned with the good as much (if not more) as they are with the bad. By this I mean as soon as something negative happens it seems like the R/C is right on top of it but the same doesn't happen with the good. I look forward to purchasing the paper for all sporting events and hope that this paper takes my comments into consideration. Again thank you for taking the time to read these comments and responding so quickly.