I comment about this July week in sports each year: Major League Baseball All-Star break, Home Run Derby, the All-Star game itself, the ESPY awards (ESPN’s sports-related award show with huge names on the red carpet, pre-show) … and nothing else really happening.
Ther are, however, still items of interest for area sports fans.
The Indiana Football Coaches Association (IFCA) North-South football game took place last night, and tomorrow afternoon and evening, the sports action ramps up again.
Soccer fans have a “Championship Sunday” of viewing with the Euro Cup final at 3 p.m. featuring Spain and England in Berlin, and the Copa America final will feature Argentina and Colombia at 8 p.m. in Miami’s Hard Rock Stadium.
I’ve watched more soccer this summer than most summers past. The Euro tournament was not as entertaining in group play, and Spain, the best-looking side in the tournament by far, should handle England convincingly.
The same goes for Argentina, where Colombia will have its hands full in front of the Miami crowd.
The football and futbol action are getting me warmed up for each of their respective regular seasons at the high school level. NFL training camps start during July’s final week, and high schools in the area will begin their regular season practices the first week of August.
Bring it on. I’m eager to have a full announcing plate this fall sports season.
I’ve continued to watch the WNBA action, and Caitlin Clark is progressing as expected. In an earlier season evaluation of her debut, I was one of many who criticized her for the number of turnovers she committed.
I believe I did not have the right perspective in that column. Perhaps looking at turnovers per touch might be an effective way to evaluate a hoopster’s productivity. If you look at stat sheets among the best area high school players, at first blush, some of them look like they’re racking up more turnovers than a bakery.
A closer look, however, at how many fast breaks do they initiate, or how many passes do they throw surprising their own teammates… you get a better feel of how many of those turnovers aren’t indicators of ineptitude, but signs – instead – of how many times they turn the game speed up a notch or look to make things happen.
Some sad news in this otherwise slow sports week is the end of the WHME Channel 46 sports department, replaced instead by Univision programming.
I mentioned earlier this week on social media the product the team at WHME provided was better than some larger market media cable or UHF channels based on my experience watching high school sports in the Cleveland-Akron, Columbus, Dayton, and Cincinnati areas.
My first scholastic sports viewing in Michiana was August 1996 after two weeks of being a Buckeye transplanted to Hoosier soil. I was immediately impressed, and when the broadcast team added Chuck Freeby (whom I saw working hard on WNDU, the NBC affiliate in the area), the product improved again.
The termination of sports programming is sad for area fans, friends, and families of high school athletes. The Channel will move toward programming partnerships with the largest Spanish Speaking media group in U.S. television, and the numbers will sustain the Family Broadcast team’s operations.
Family Broadcast will continue its sports radio programming, though, including a partnership with Mishawaka athletics.
Thank Heaven for You-Tube, where I am going to seek and record a handful of games of special interest to me and hope my wife doesn’t erase them.
WHME has set up camp for broadcasts through the years I’ve viewed high school sports action among Wawasee’s Hardwood Teepee, Warsaw’s Tiger Den, Triton’s Trojan Trench, and Tippecanoe Valley’s noisy, well-packed gym – not an all-inclusive list, mind you.
Indiana high school basketball, something I was eager to see when I first moved here, was one sport in particular where the WHME could add even more to the already energetic buzz taking place in area gymnasiums.
The team will be missed, so I hope folks had their fill of high school sports broadcasts as they set up residence in Memory Lane hereafter. From crew to the broadcast booth, each person contributing to the high school sports broadcast worked hard to make the product as professional looking as possible.
Moments like these – watching games on WHME – made me forget how small the market is where we live.
Several schools, Triton in particular, have spent recent years building a product for their fans to stream/watch the action, and I wish them all the best in taking the torch to do their best.
Schools like Carroll and Homestead continue to use a blend of students and professionals to serve their audiences with a great media product.
Warsaw Community High School’s Tiger Broadcast Network resourcefully combined the professionalism and top-notch quality of Roger Grossman’s voice with the hudl cameras placed in its venues so fans can watch athletic events worldwide.
WHME’s exit from televised sports puts the onus… on us. The local teams we have covering the action look like they are ready to turn the lemons of WHME’s televised sports exit into lemonade.
I wish each area media team success in those next steps.