People love those Hawkeyes, and other sports news

Greetings, weekend readers.

My column in the Sunday, April 4, Gazette deals with sports related news we've had on our newspaper's front page this year. And it isn't just about the University of Iowa Hawkeyes. The University of Northern Iowa men's basketball team gave the entire nation something to talk about until losing a close one to Michigan State in the NCAA tournament and yielding the national spotlight for darlings to Butler University.

I wrote the column because someone complained. She was a well-reasoned, nice person and I enjoyed the conversation. A few laughs were sprinkled into the call. She wasn't an irrational person, although she did not want me to use her name in the column after I called her back and told her I'd write about our sports coverage. She knows how snarky people can be on message boards and in letters to the editor about sports topics.

I explain in the column that sports related material on page one of The Gazette has broader appeal than a simple game-related story. Thus, page one treatment of the UI firing and hiring of men's basketball coaches. Some sports related stories aren't about sports. The example this past week was a Rick Smith story that The Gazette ran about the need to repair Cedar Rapids' Veterans Memorial Stadium.

Folks who wonder why we don't give other high school programs the prominent display we give high school sports may weigh in on this topic. They'll be right about the attention sports gets over that given to other activities. Fact is, though, most people -- right or wrong -- pay more attention to sports. That is why you see more written about sports. It has a broader audience.

By the way, one of my daughters was in show choir while in high school. This area has a lot of good show choirs and some have Web pages. Here is a link

that tells you more about show choirs in Iowa.