Does South La Soccer get any Media attention?

[soccerfan44]

Being from North La, we see zero in the newspaper, much less any other media. There is more about girl softball than boy or girl soccer up here. We are about to start District play here and not one article about the area teams has made it to the sports section yet. Is this the media, the coaches, or parents?

Is it any different in other locations?

[DREDG03]

i thought tim barnes at the s'port times always put in little capsules of every district and its teams for soccer. listing best players and results

[lhssoccerfan]

I had the same question for the Daily Advertiser...I called and the sports writer that I spoke to told me that he had sent out forms that could be used to submit various types of information, schedules, etc. and the response from the schools in Lafayette was virtually zero...Faculty representatives should be doing that...?

[Ghandi]

A few years back, alot of the Lafayette parish schools tried sending in soccer information. No matter how much they sent, the newspaper would not put any of it in. Now all of the schools in Lafayette parish and surronding areas don't even bother; even though, apparently, newspapers are now willing to include soccer information.

[m]

Houma newpapers...The Courier and The Daily Comet (Thibodaux) are good about reporting home soccer matches with reporters at the matches, but do little to report on away games until the playoffs.

[Pitchstalker]

No THIS is a GOOD topic.

The Morning Advocate in Baton Rouge makes VERY LITTLE effort to include soccer in anything.

You can look practically every day and see articles on High School Basketball and Baseball when it starts up, but maybe 2-3 soccer articles the ENTIRE season.

I questioned them last year and was given the argument that there are not enough people to go to the games and report. And they will not accept articles from other sources. How many people does it take to cover maybe 2 articles in a weeks time?

Another argument was that they don't always have the schedules of teams, but no effort is made to notify schools and let them know that they are receptive to receiving schedules. Another argument was that communication isn't always made between the Referee association and the paper. Who's fault is this? The ref's have a MASTER schedule, which the Advocate DOES have this year because they post the games that are upcoming. They just choose NOT to cover them. AND it's not because of lack of quality teams to cover. There are many quality teams to cover.

It's like everything else I guess..if NOT enough people complain and just accept it then no change will occur.

They do accept the scores reported, but don't count on seeing a story. The first two were just done last week to my knowledge. Who's worried about reporting scores when all you get is a little box score that no one can see unless there looking for it.

Now as for Ascension Parish. The Ascension Citizen and the Gonzales Weekly have made efforts to cover articles. Obviously they have less to cover in the parish so its easier for them, but at least they CHOOSE to try to cover soccer.

As for our Metropolitan papers....let's start a letter writing campaign or something....

[Bish]

I flipped the TV late last night only to find St. Louis on some local sports program on fox. Was a good little segment that had some highlights from games and a long interview with the coach. Soccer gets decent to mediocre coverage here in SW LA.

[coachray40]

I agree with Pitchstalker on the Advocate. They usually ramp up thier coverage as the key district games get played, most specifically in 5A, and then moreso into the playoffs. Only have seen 2 articles so far--one on the Catholic/St Amant boys game, and one this past Sunday on BRHS/St Joes Girls--kinda underlines my point. As far as knowing the schedule, every Sunday they do publish a weekly schedule of all the matches in BTR that week--it is fairly comprehensive. I think soccer suffers for a couple of reasons--First, Robin Fambrough just doesnt know enough about it to make an informed article about it, so she just chooses to stay away; Second, soccers districts differ from those in the Major sports, so it is difficult for the average HS sports fan to understand why Salmen (from Slidell)plays soccer in BTR, and Third, because of the coaching carousel that goes on with soccer at most schools year in and out--just no consistency.

I will say this--it will only change if we make it change. Getting coverage will only happen if we get out an keep banging on these guys to print it. ALWAYS CALL YOUR SCORES IN. Its something simple like that where we can start. Most of us come here to get our info--try to get that info to the paper too. Write a story and send it in. Catholic used to get decent coverage because they had this one guy who was a fan who wrote a story after each big match and submitted it to the paper--most of the time it got printed with the by line of his name followed by "special to the Advocate". They are right, they dont have the folks to cover all the games, and they choose to use their resources on basketball as it is more traditional( and there are more basketball teams in BTR then soccer), but when the only outlet we have to complain is here, we aren't getting through to them. I am going to write to Robin Fambrough today and voice my concerns over this. I have her email address, and she has no qualms as to people sending her email--just dont write to her and be ugly. If some of you want it--send me and email and I will pass it along to you.

[Pitchstalker]

Hopefully you have a better response than the ones I got last year, coachray.

I offered last year, if I remember right, to have the articles written and even went so far as to mention that perhaps a relationship between the high school journalism departments and the Advocate could be formed to help with these things and they did not seem very receptive. Perhaps you can mention those ideas again.

Let me know what you hear back.

[Crip4Lyf]

I also saw the short segment with the St. Louis coach... which I found very suprising to see soccer and it not be the playoffs.... anyways, the local Sulphur paper actually has articles about the boys and girls teams and yes even quotes from the coaches! The Lake Charles paper (American Press) post scores but thats about it.