Send me your questions

Have a question about sports reporting (or sports coverage in general)? Send me a note. I'd be glad to help out. You can send them to jgisondi@gmail, which is also listed in my profile. As always, please post comments below my postings to add additional insights, ask questions or just start a dialogue with others. Hope you all are doing well with your summer sports assignments.

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Frozen 4 coverage reveals sad trend

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In case you haven’t heard, the Wisconsin women’s college hockey team won its second consecutive NCAA title. Badgers goalie Jessie Vetter stopped 32 shots for a 3-0 victory over Minnesota in the championship game. Sadly, most sports fans did not know this. As I mentioned last month, women’s sports are merely a second thought to most sports editors ( see “Frozen Four gets frigid reception in most sports departments” under commentary on this blog ). That became even clearer this weekend when another Big Ten team (Michigan State) won the men’s college hockey title in St. Louis. CBSsportsline.com, ESPN.com and USAToday.com devoted considerably more space to the Spartans winning their second title in 21 years than they had to Wisconsin’s winning its second title in a row last month. The Badgers posted the better record (36-1-4), but Michigan State (29-11-2) scored more coverage from national media outlets. We’ll see how much space USA Today devotes in tomorrow’s editions, but bet on more th...
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This NCAA rule makes no sense

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Ron Dayne ran for 7,125 yards in his days as a bruiser in Wisconsin's back field. But the NCAA counts only 6,397 of them. That's because the NCAA did not count yardage from bowl games in its total when Dayne played, meaning the Badgers runner loses out on the 738 yards in four games. Dayne rushed for more than 200 yards four times. (Still, Dayne's total is the most ever by a Division I-A back.) A few years ago, the NCAA changed its rules to include bowl yardage. But the yardage is not included retroactively. So Dayne's yards do not count for the overall record. This makes no sense. The NCAA does a terrific job organizing, marketing and assisting thousands of college athletes across the country. Few organizations do more for athletics in this country. But rules like this flabbergast fans and journalists alike. Andy Baggot, a sports reporter for the Wisconsin State Journal, says his temples are pinging over this rule. He revealed the ridiculous nature of this rule in a...
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KO the acronyms, OK?

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Dale Earnhardt, Jr., is leaving DEI. No, not Directed Electronics Inc., which is the largest supplier of home theater loudspeakers and remote auto start systems. And not Design Engineering Inc., the self-proclaimed “proud supporter” of several auto-racing teams. NASCAR fans are shaking their heads, knowing Earnhardt is leaving his father’s auto racing team, aptly named ‘ Dale Earnhardt Inc. ’ after Dale’s dad who died in a car crash at Daytona about six years ago. Dale Jr. has worked to extend his father’s auto-racing legacy, but, apparently, he does not get along so well with his mother-in-law, Teresa, whom he blames for the team’s woes the past several years. I’ll leave the deeper analysis to the experts who cover auto racing. I’m more interested in why we love acronyms. ‘DEI’ was tossed around by broadcasters and analysts on ESPN’s SportsCenter and Pardon the Interruption (that’s ‘PTI’ to my street sports homeys) last night as easily as if they were saying ‘NFL’ or ‘NBA.’ Our job a...
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