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Subscribe? It's harder all the time to justify that. Obviously the online world gets progressively better to get news of all kinds. The Star Trib is available to look at, at our Morris Public Library. I do not think the overall activity level at our library is back to pre-pandemic levels. Might our daily habits have changed now for the long term? Looks like a mask is no longer required there.
So, I look at the new Morris paper and it's quite obvious what is going to be there. That thing is going to hit us over the head with basketball stuff. It's the boys basketball team, having gone to state and won one game there, lost the next two. Hard to see how that isn't anticlimactic.
We revere basketball not because of the real rewards or enrichment it provides to its players. If I were to suggest those rewards are nil, would you dispute me? A mere five athletes are in a team's starting lineup. I remember from when I was in high school, I thought it was actually sad when the "reserves" got into the game. A game of this type would be decided well before the end. Therefore the coach had slack to send in the "shock troops." I learned that term from the notorious Hancock girls basketball coach of years ago. The fellow was Dennis Courneya who of course crashed and burned at the end.
Seems like a lot of highly successful coaches can have a volatile nature. They can exit the role ignominiously. Institutions have to take risks with these guys sometimes. Look at all the attention that Bill Musselman brought to the U of M Gophers program. A plain vanilla coach would have kept the profile quite low.
Ah, the private thoughts that school administrators must have about sports!
So the new Morris paper heaps attention on basketball in the most predictable fashion. I had thought the paper would issue (and sell) a "special section" on this. However, it appears it's just the usual 'B' section. Maybe the public is getting a little weary of all the hero worship in connection with a prep team? I hope that is the case.
We had been dragged through hype in connection with the contemporary iteration of Hancock girls hoops. The Owls won the state championship. The coach who I alluded to earlier brought the Owls to great heights in the daunting two-class system. So it's hard to compare the current Owl iteration with the past one.
The past one has a significant historical niche. It was when so many post-season games were played at our UMM P.E. Center. Fans seated all the way up toward the top, many decibels of sound. Hancock and its rival at the time would draw hordes of preoccupied people. Preoccupied with success, as if that success was a highly meaningful thing, affirming their place in the world.
Did everyone have a good time? I really think not. The pressures of competition had to create anxiety for many of the young athletes. They were in this fishbowl that I'm sure disturbed them at times. Game-time approached and the "starting five" would be announced to a thunderous acclamation.
Is this "war" or what? These are just young people with delicate psyches. Look at the world we dragged them into.
Fast-forward
Today because of all the school activities, the public interest is more dispersed. The Morris fans have to depart from our town almost immediately when the post-season begins. We head south. Marshall is a common destination. No way are "hordes" of Morris fans going to show up for an 8 p.m. game at Marshall, at least I don't think so. So maybe it's a more healthy arrangement. I worry about fans having to drive over such a long distance on the way home, so late at night. Just think, a game like this would at one time have been at UMM. Believe me, I remember.
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On this Wednesday we look at the Morris paper and perhaps we smile because we know exactly what we'll see there. As if it's news: "Tigers place fourth in state." Wow! Well, in a 4-class system, I think our enthusiasm can be tempered.
The High School League sets up all the post-season stuff in a calculating way, trying to make even modest accomplishments seem special.
For example, a team might win its first playoff game and lose its second, but it gets honored as "sub-section runner-up." The sub-section finals might just as well be called the section semis. Creating two layers gives more opportunity to bestow recognition. That way, the local news media can "lay it on thick" with coverage that echoes Lake Wobegon where "all the kids are above average."
Young adults are choosing more and more to not have children. This is caused by economic pressures. Supposedly we have serious inflation now. A common view is that all the current policies are turning the screws on the "middle class." We have depended on the middle class to have kids. Without kids, how can all these school activities thrive in order to give us reason for living? I mean, "fourth in state." What else is there?
It appears school activities are the raison d'etre for community media now. There's the "business/professional group." This didn't exist when I was in the Morris school. We didn't have FFA. Or interscholastic hockey. Girls sports was just getting started. Isn't that unbelievable? If you went back in time to 1970 and told the people that in the year 2022, girls sports would be taken just as seriously as boys, their jaws would drop.
Ironic, because the period around 1970 was when there were so many of us kids - we were the "baby boom," children of the World War II generation. Boys took "shop class." What happened to that? Girls were in "home ec" and when it came to sports, they were represented on one page of the school yearbook for "G.A.A." (Girls Athletic Association). A friend in Morris told me about his hometown where "G.A.A. did a tumbling demonstration at halftime of a basketball game."
What does the future hold? We had better keep policies to preserve the middle class, or we won't have student athletes any more. Don't count on the Republican Party to help. They just take care of the "one percent," even though they posture about cultural issues. It's all a clever smokescreen.
The thoughts I share here began with an email I sent to a friend shortly after breakfast at DeToy's. I share here a portion. Certain sentences would have to be redacted!
Hello (name withheld) - Did you order this weather?
Was at DeToy's for biscuits/gravy, Morris paper was there so I looked at it for couple minutes. Total "happy news" front to back, nothing but joy, Lake Wobegon with all our kids above average. Was there any mention of the offensive message from the C-A kid? Star Tribune covered it with Reusse's column.
So the paper goes crazy with sports stuff on Page 1 and in 'B' section. Is it over the top? Maybe after the Hancock girls and what they did, public is starting to get a little weary of it all? Sports is king? Music has to adjust to sports, it's never the other way around. Five kids who are good at playing basketball. What does that prove? "Making state" in the 4-class system is not what it used to be, not even close. But media covers it like it is.
Just checked newspaper's website, and NOTHING about Tigers in state. So the paper is evidently just withdrawing from online news and banking everything on its once-weekly print edition. Sue Dieter was going to really prioritize the website for current reporting. The "photo gallery" would have to be filled all the time. The paper made a big deal about making photos available "for purchase." I hear nothing about that now. Is that because people can easily grab any photo they see online, no sweat, save it on computer? So, tech has evolved? When I left the paper, I was being battered daily by all these expectations for all the super-dynamic things we could do online. I was in a stupor. And every time I walked into the building, I could be reprimanded for some little thing I didn't do. Now the paper's website is dormant and the "paper" only comes out once a week, plus no more Ad-Viser, no more Hancock paper.
I had thought paper would "sell" a special section on the Tigers. Not happening? Did they sell a congrats thing with Hancock? It is all starting to seem like overkill, and I wonder if businesses and the public are starting to wake up to it, even though they won't want to say much.
We all want a good school system, but should the school be so preeminent in the media's coverage? It's just one part of community life.
Is Kleinwolterink still on the UMM music faculty? Does he go to the concerts? I think he would have to feel pretty major concern about the quality of the choir concerts this year. No way would Miller want to answer for these. He saw all this coming? If St. John's program is doing better than UMM's, why?
Re. the bill in legislature for scholarship $ for kids attending outstate U campuses, let me know if you see any updates on that. I am 100 percent sure that Backer and Westrom as a matter of principle would oppose this. In the old days, Republicans would still support it here because it's good for their district, but Republicans today are not as inclined to be expedient like that. They stick to their hardcore ideas.
Will the paper make a big deal about the MAHS music trip when they all get back? They might.
I'd still enjoy getting a photo of the Alamo, but my journalism probably doesn't count for anything. I'm just "Mongo." I hope Wanda enjoyed herself and can get some rest now! - BW
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| We love the Tigers! (image from Jackson Loge's twitter page) |
- Brian Williams - morris mn minnesota - bwilly73@yahoo.com
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