HS Football coverage

[DinwiddieProud]

Hey Mike, how many TV stations out Salem way give Friday night football anything close to decent coverage?

WTVR 6 has been the only on one for years around here. And they are truly the gold standard around the state. Sean Robertson does a heck of a job on Friday nights. He makes it to a couple or three games, does the filming, and gets back to the studio to do a live broadcast with Lane Casadonte every Friday night at 11:15 for a 15 minute show.

WRIC 8 has relaunched there special programming after several years absence. It remains to be seen how much they put into it.

WWBT just seems to muddle along with a little news on a couple of games.

How about down in Tidewater? Any of your stations do a reasonably good job?

 

[General172011]

I really miss the Cox Sports report Matt use to do back in the day. Wish they’d bring that back for the Tidewater!! Right now I watch Wavy10 for Tidewater & WSLS 10 for the Western part of the state. I wish stations would dedicate at least 30 minutes to High School sports. The kids deserve it and have deserved it for years now

 

[DitkaXX]

Hey Mike, how many TV stations out Salem way give Friday night football anything close to decent coverage?

WTVR 6 has been the only on one for years around here. And they are truly the gold standard around the state. Sean Robertson does a heck of a job on Friday nights. He makes it to a couple or three games, does the filming, and gets back to the studio to do a live broadcast with Lane Casadonte every Friday night at 11:15 for a 15 minute show.

WRIC 8 has relaunched there special programming after several years absence. It remains to be seen how much they put into it.

WWBT just seems to muddle along with a little news on a couple of games.

How about down in Tidewater? Any of your stations do a reasonably good job?

Not Mike, But we have two that are terrific in the Lynchburg/Roanoke area. Fox affiliate WFXR as well as WSLS (NBC) are great. Friday Football Extra on WDBJ7 used to be the best, but they aren't where they once were. WSET, the only one based in Lynchburg, has really fallen off a cliff since Dennis Carter left. WSET does cover the Seminole and Dogwood decently (better than the other two) but they completely neglect Roanoke and other parts of their viewing area. The others do a fine job of showcasing all the districts even though they are Roanoke based.

Someone mentioned Sean Robertson to me last year and I agree. I just follow him on twitter and love what he shares. Wish the Lynchburg guys cared about local football half as much. Roanoke/Salem people, how is coverage from the Roanoke Times? Has that fallen off as well? I know the Timesland twitter account hasn't done anything like it used to.

 

[DinwiddieProud]

Ditka, the Richmond Times Dispatch used to be very good about HS football, but like almost all print media, they are a shadow of what they once were. However, the RTD has a terrific young man, Zach Joachim, that covers most of the high school scene. But print media dedicates so little space to sports, he is lucky to get a few paragraphs past the editors.

 

[1MoreHokie]

Not Mike, But we have two that are terrific in the Lynchburg/Roanoke area. Fox affiliate WFXR as well as WSLS (NBC) are great. Friday Football Extra on WDBJ7 used to be the best, but they aren't where they once were. WSET, the only one based in Lynchburg, has really fallen off a cliff since Dennis Carter left. WSET does cover the Seminole and Dogwood decently (better than the other two) but they completely neglect Roanoke and other parts of their viewing area. The others do a fine job of showcasing all the districts even though they are Roanoke based.

Someone mentioned Sean Robertson to me last year and I agree. I just follow him on twitter and love what he shares. Wish the Lynchburg guys cared about local football half as much. Roanoke/Salem people, how is coverage from the Roanoke Times? Has that fallen off as well? I know the Timesland twitter account hasn't done anything like it used to.

Fairly accurate. Those two are up, WDBJ and WSET are down. Times has done little since Robert Anderson retired and that's to be expected. Salem is the area program and there were times last year you couldn't even get a box score to their games. I quit using Twitter before the pandemic but I've heard similar descriptions of the Timesland account. Pretty sure whoever was running it for RT has moved on. Honestly, with ScoreStream it's kind of whatever, that account served a purpose for awhile but it's kind of redundant at this point so I understand abandoning it. Sounds better than having someone ding your phone dozens of times a night so you can update scores, at least to me.

 

[mike salem]

As Ditka mentioned there are 4 media outlets in the Roanoke area that cover HS football. When I was a kid Friday Football Extra was the only TV coverage for Friday football in the area, and they did a better job then by themselves, than the 4 combined do now. One of the reasons I fell in love with "Community Football" is because a guy named Mike Stevens (not me) was the main reporter for FFE. I always thought it was so cool that a guy with my name was the face of FFE. (He's now the city of Salem’s spokesperson)

The Roanoke Times used to have excellent print coverage in the Sat paper as well. Myself or my wife at the time, would run out to Krispy Kreme and get a dozen hots and I would make a cup of coffee and peruse all of the wonderful stories of the previous night's drama. Robert Anderson and team were excellent at bringing the best write ups.

Sadly, neither media format compares to the good ol days. I also miss the Cox Sportsreport with Matt Hatfield.

 

[tommythecpa]

I enjoyed talking with Roy Stanley when he was on the GW sidelines.

 

[mike salem]

I enjoyed talking with Roy Stanley when he was on the GW sidelines.

I miss Roy. He was a good man and a good reporter.

 

[mike salem]

The other local sports guys back in the day that I really liked was Dennis Carter, WSET, & Greg Roberts, WSLS. I think Roberts has a local radio show that showcases HS football during the week.

Of the current sportscasters I like Jermaine Ferrell (WFXR) the best.

 

[DinwiddieProud]

For many years, the three TV stations in the Richmond market did a good to great job with sports at all levels. It was channels 6, 8, & 12. Channel 35 was around back then, but they were just a clone of channel 12. Chip Tarkington on 8 was well respected and did a great job. Even ole Ben Hamlin in 12 did a nice job. I don’t recall who the head sports guy or guys were on 6 in those days. But 6 with Sean and Lane are in a class by themselves these days.

The RTD, like most newspapers back then, did a nice job for many years. Even though us localities south of the Appomattox River were solidly in the RTD coverage area, we took a back seat to the teams directly around Richmond. If it wasn’t for Zach nowadays, the RTD wouldn’t even bother to post scores for teams down south of Chesterfield. But that’s ok, I don’t bother subscribing to the RTD any longer because of that.

 

[cutnjump]

As Ditka mentioned there are 4 media outlets in the Roanoke area that cover HS football. When I was a kid Friday Football Extra was the only TV coverage for Friday football in the area, and they did a better job then by themselves, than the 4 combined do now. One of the reasons I fell in love with "Community Football" is because a guy named Mike Stevens (not me) was the main reporter for FFE. I always thought it was so cool that a guy with my name was the face of FFE. (He's now the city of Salem’s spokesperson)

The Roanoke Times used to have excellent print coverage in the Sat paper as well. Myself or my wife at the time, would run out to Krispy Kreme and get a dozen hots and I would make a cup of coffee and peruse all of the wonderful stories of the previous night's drama. Robert Anderson and team were excellent at bringing the best write ups.

Sadly, neither media format compares to the good ol days. I also miss the Cox Sportsreport with Matt Hatfield.

FFE was the gold standard from its start in September 1984. Jim Shaver and John Kernan(ESPN/NASCAR) got the ball rolling but Mike Steven's, Roy Stanley, Travis Wells and the crew took it to the heights. All the area stations WSET, WSLS, and eventually WFXR have all played roles on Friday night. The area was blessed for a very long time with great high school sports coverage, both TV and print. Changes have not been kind to either medium in quantity or quality of coverage but, the one advantage that has helped is technology.

You could put quite an all star team on the field if you go back through the 40 years of Friday Football Extra. Good times and memories!