There hasn’t been a more important time in Colorado for prep sports teams to start reporting their scores and updates to their local newspapers.

With the closing of the Rocky Mountain News, what was the Internet hub of all things prep sports for Colorado is now defunct. Of course, I’m referring to www.rockypreps.com.

The Web site still remains there, but no new updates are being added to it, particularly in the database where coaches or team staff call in and report game scores and individual statistics.

For years, I’ve used Rocky Preps as a source for such little factoids, but in the past few months, possibly from staff cuts and whatnot during the outfit’s slow demise, the accuracy has been horrible. Games appeared with impossible scores, or reversed the outcome entirely.

Recently, we published a photo that claimed Legend, a first-year high school in Parker, beat Valor Christian of Highlands Ranch in Pioneer League boys hoops action. Well, the score was right, but the teams were completely reversed. It was Valor that prevailed. The information I got on the game to go with Mark Dalby’s eye-catching photo came from Rocky Preps.

So, the end of RockyPreps.com is bittersweet for me. Bitter, because teams aren’t submitting their scores and statistics to us here at Colorado Community Newspapers nearly as much as they need to, and Rocky Preps was my first place to go. That source has been severed and now we’re sort of reeling for a lifeline to outcomes of games we can’t personally attend.

The Web site’s end is sweet to me, because now I’m hoping, since teams have to send their scores somewhere, that more of our high school sports programs will start e-mailing or calling in their results to their local papers, like ours.

This is what I’m asking of our communities. Start sending your scores and stats to us at sports@ccnewspapers.com.

Heck, send them directly to me if you want at bfarrell@ccnewspapers.com.

Another bit of help you can send our way is e-mail me the link to your team’s Web site if you post your scores there. I don’t mind doing some digging, obviously. It’s what we do, but if teams are already posting scores and achievement to their own sites, that gives me just the one place to look. Problem is, not all teams’ Web sites appear in a search engine, so if your team has a site, shoot me the link so I can bookmark it.

It’s an ongoing struggle of any community sports writer to receive criticism for not having enough, or any, coverage of a certain team or outstanding individual in a certain area. However, half the time, it is assumed that we already know about the achievements of a certain team or athletic individual and simply choose to not report anything on him, her or them.

Recently, I had an e-mail exchange with a coach in which she mentioned, “[We] had no clue that in order to get coverage in the paper I needed to call you? In fact, I thought it worked the opposite way.”

To a great degree, that is true. I wish I could have enough time and staff to call every team, each season, out of the 15 high schools we cover with our publications and Web sites, but I simply don’t. We rely heavily on coaches, managers, ADs, parents and even players e-mailing or calling us to let us know the stories, scores and interesting features we are missing. Even at that, it’s difficult to get to them all, but at least we know about them and can do something with even a phone call.

So here’s the rundown: Send me your scores and updates. Let me know who’s getting what honors from All-League and All-Conference. E-mail me. E-mail sports. Call me at 303-663-7173 with your tips. Fax in your results to 303-660-4826; attention to Sports, or Benn Farrell. E-mail me your team Web sites. If your team doesn’t have a Web site, you should start one. Start looking for other online sites where you can post scores and statistics like VarVee.com or MaxPreps.com.

We can do this. The community wants to know how its kids are doing, so the community papers, either in print or on the Web, should be the one to inform it.

Farrell

“It’s an ongoing struggle of anycommunity sports writer to receivecriticism for nothaving enough, or any, coverage of a certain team or outstanding individual in a certain area.”