Sigh.  Here we go with the media coverage again.  Everybody get out your dead horses....

It was officially announced in the paper on Wednesday that Hokie alumnus and Tech fan favorite Greg Roberts will be leaving Roanoke's WSLS-10 TV station after the November 25th broadcast.

Before reading on, check out the story from The Roanoke Times on-line:

Roberts, Newschannel 10 to part ways - The Roanoke Times, 10/21/98

For those of you living under a rock (or far away from the NRV), Channel 10 has traditionally lagged behind WDBJ-7 in news ratings and in the overall quality of their production and reporting, but Hokie fans could always count on Greg and his crew to trump Channel 7 in Tech sports coverage.

Channel 7, at best, splits the Tech/UVa coverage down the middle, and Channel 7 also covers NASCAR in a huge way, leaving relatively little time for Tech sports news, when compared to Channel 10. They cover Tech, and they do an okay job, but it's not where their emphasis is, like it was at Channel 10.  To be fair, Channel 7 does a good job, but they're not overtly pro-Hokie like Channel 10 is, and I've always just liked Greg's energy and excitement level.

Channel 10 has historically done a great job of covering Tech, favoring the Hokies slightly over the Wahoos. Greg and his backup/weekend anchor Justin Ditmore are both Tech graduates, and they do a commendable job of not just reporting scores and stories, but of seeking out news and digging to get the latest information.

Now comes the news that Greg is leaving Channel 10, and the reasons, which were widely rumored on the message board, are clear: Channel 10's general manager, Mike Brunette, is de-emphasizing sports (among other things) in favor of local news coverage. Let's put it this way: they're calling the station "NewsChannel 10," not "Sportschannel 10" or "Weatherchannel 10."

Most telling is this statement by Brunette in the article linked above:

"Introducing the sports ticker at the bottom of the screen during our sportscasts was a way to get in more scores while doing local stories."

Apparently, Mr. Brunette is at least partially laboring under the assumption that covering sports is like covering stocks: all you have to do is report the numbers.

The last week or so, I've been timing the Sports broadcasts done by Greg and Justin during the six o'clock newscasts, and they've been averaging just under three minutes (with many of them clocking at 2:45). Three minutes. That's nothing, folks, and it speaks clearly as to Channel 10's priorities. I've seen Channel 7 spend more than three minutes on a single NASCAR story.

Last spring, during the flap between Jim Weaver and the Roanoke Civic Center, an editorial by Jack Bogaczyk ran under the headline "Weaver needs remedial help in PR skills."

Well try this on for size: Roanoke needs remedial help in covering sports. Not just at Newschannel 10, but at The Roanoke Times, as well.

Before I embark on this tirade, let me state that the men and women who actually cover the sports are all hard-working professionals who do their jobs well. But their bosses at the newspaper, and now at Channel 10, are really starting to tick me off with their "Who cares about sports?" attitudes.

Let's take The Roanoke Times first. I can't really complain about the coverage that the RT gives us during the season. It's pretty good. But the coverage during the offseason, and during the preseason (as was roundly discussed here during the month of August) is almost non-existent.

Last August, the volume of complaints about The Roanoke Times coverage during the Hokie preseason built to a crescendo, and the word leaked out of Roanoke that the reason Tech beat writer Randy King wasn't writing more articles about the Hokies was that he was spending 40% of his time as a copy editor or some other non-sportswriting-related task.

(I can't remember exactly what an RT insider told me at the time, but he sure didn't say, "Gosh, Randy's just sittin' around doin' nothin'!" and he sure as heck didn't say, "Hey Randy's writing Tech articles all the time.")

Randy would love to write an article about Tech every day and have it get published, I'm sure. But it's kind of hard to, when your boss has you answering the phone or getting coffee or whatever.

And just take a look at the paper, for crying out loud. 3-4 days a week, the Sports section is buried inside the "Virginia" section or (my favorite) the "At Work" section.

That sends a clear message as to where the Times stands on sports coverage.

And now Mr. Mark Brunette of "Newschannel 10" has run off the energetic and well-liked leader of one of the last bastions of Hokie sports coverage available in Roanoke, a town that likes to bill itself as a sports town, but is severely hampered by the clueless attitude displayed by its media directors.

Nice move, Mr. Brunette. Come to my house on November 26th, and take a look at what channel I'll be watching. I'll give you a hint: it doesn't start with a 1, and it doesn't end with a 0.

To Greg, I say, good luck, and we'll miss you. I'll see you down at the Greg Roberts Sports Club.

And to Justin, I say, good luck, as well.  Sounds like you're going to need it.   Don't be surprised if one day you come to work and you've been replaced with a sports ticker.

You can't blame me for being in a bad mood.  I'm still trying to shake off the effects of last week's game, and I'm certainly not alone.

There has been very little talk on the message board about the upcoming game with UAB, and I'll have to admit that I haven't thought about it much at all.  The talk has, understandably, centered around the Temple game.

Regarding the upcoming UAB game, I can't remember a time when I've been so unenthusiastic about a game.  I usually plan my away-game weekends around listening to Bill and Mike's broadcast, but I find that my thoughts and my heart are still stuck in time on Saturday, October 17th, at about 4:05 pm.

I certainly hope the team and coaches are more focused than I am.  Saturday's game at UAB has all the makings of a trap:  the Blazers play at Legion Field, a huge 80,391-seat stadium where the Blazers might draw just 20,000-30,000 fans on Saturday night.

In other words, it will be like playing at Veteran's Stadium against Temple.  When a stadium is that empty, the game becomes almost like an exhibition game, one that doesn't matter.  Heck, no one's watching, so why play hard?  And we just lost to Temple, so why play hard?  And the Blazers are good enough to take advantage of that attitude.

Like I said, I'm hoping this team can snap out of it, because I'm having trouble.   I find that I'm not even giving much thought to the upcoming clash with WVU, which, until last week, was shaping up to be one of the biggest games ever at Lane Stadium, particularly if the 'Eers knock off Miami this weekend.

What this team needs on Saturday is an inspiring performance.  Not necessarily from the team itself, but from a particular individual.  It's a time like this when a leader is needed, someone that the team can rally around, someone who gives the appearance of picking the team up on his back and saying, "I've got you.  Let's go."

The best example I can think of is J.C. Price's four-sack performance against Miami in 1995.  The Hokies were coming off of a demoralizing loss to Cincinnati, and J.C. single-handedly stood front and center and made the plays that I remember that day.

Of course, there's also the example of every single game Druck ever played (minus Cincinnati).

So, for any Tech football players out there who might be reading this, I've got one question:  Who's going to be the hero this weekend?  Are you?

After last week's loss, CBS backed out of their plans to show the Tech/WVU game, which means that - get this - the Big East's flagship network will show every Big East team this season but three:  Temple, Rutgers ... and Tech.

It's amazing that the network can continue to thumb its nose at Tech, a team that has finished first or second in the conference every year since 1994.  Nothing like knowing how to market a commodity, eh, CBS?  Just ask David Letterman about that.

The best article I've seen written on the subject comes from Mitch Vingle of the Charleston (WV) Gazette (actually, Mitch does the best job of covering the Big East that I've seen - sorry Randy King, but Mitch is flat-out awesome, probably because his paper lets him be awesome):

Quality of WVU-Tech game doesn't amount to hill of beans - 10/21/98

As Mitch details, the WVU game was passed on by ESPN as well, and is now a Big East Game of the Week regional broadcast.  It is being picked up by WJPR, Fox 21/27 out of Roanoke/Lynchburg, but other than that, I don't know.

My advice to Big East commissioner Mike Trained-Geese:  the next time you go looking for a network (after the 2000 season, when the CBS contract runs out), flush CBS.   Go check out the Fox network - I'm sure they would do a much better job of broadcasting the Big East, but more importantly, a much better job of hyping and promoting the conference, than CBS (which stands for "Can't Broadcast SomeoneotherthanMiami") could ever dream of.

Geez, what a bitter little person I am today.

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