Tucson Weekly: Editorial Advice (August 28

Here's Badly Needed Help for 'The Arizona Daily Star' Sports Pages
By Tom Danehy
THERE USED TO be a publication by the name of The Pretentious Idea. Said idea was to have undergraduate journalism students at the UA write critiques of the works which appeared in established publications--magazines, newspapers and journals.
I really don't know that much about the P.I., since I didn't have anything to do with the journalism department when I was in college. (Go ahead, get it out of your system.) However, I do think it was aptly named. It is indeed pretentious for know-nothings to criticize professionals.
Danehy So, having made that clear, I want to talk about The Arizona Daily Star. But see, I'm not a know-nothing (although I'm probably not all that much of a professional either.) I was sports editor of the Douglas (AZ) Daily Dispatch for a whole year, and this was before I went to the UA. And if you can cover sports in Douglas, you can cover sports...in Bisbee, too, I guess.
We're coming up on Labor Day, which means it's now safe (and meaningful) to read the sports section again. Those are 10 bleak weeks between the end of the NBA playoffs and the start of football season. When I was a kid I'd read about major-league baseball during the summer months. But they don't have major-league baseball anymore. They've replaced it with some quasi-entertainment...money thing.
Right now starts the 40-week period of sports page reading. It starts off with a bang with high-school, college and pro-football, builds to a fever pitch in that glorious two-month stretch where football and basketball overlap, then settles in at that Plateau of Ecstacy during the NCAA and NBA playoffs. Then comes the summer, and like students everywhere, we stop reading.
First off, I must state, as always, I like the Star sports section. I always have. I wish there were more of it. I even remember the days when there was more of it. But then some suit in St. Louis recalibrated the profit margin formula and that was that.
I have lots of friends who work there. Ron Somers was cool (unfortunately, he quit last Saturday). And Managing Editor Bobbie Jo Buel and I used to play golf together back when we were both section editors of the UA Daily Wildcat. We even bet one time, with the loser having to donate blood at the Bloodmobile. (Fortunately, I bleed fast, so I didn't have to squeeze on that rubber thing too long.)
Last month I was sitting around at the gym and I picked up the sports page. You know you're in trouble when you turn to that page near the end of the Sunday sports section and see that the vacationing Greg Hansen has been replaced that week by...PACIFIC COAST LEAGUE NOTES!!!
And you read it anyway.
As in all such heady intellectual matters, I assembled my Domino Table Cabinet, so named for the space which most of us occupy when we're not partaking of the pleasures of basketball. I sit at the head of the table, mostly because I don't fit anywhere else. I also have the unofficial title of T.H.
That stands for Token Honkie, since for a while I was the only melanin-challenged individual there. But lately, lots of white guys have been trying to play dominoes. Unfortunately, they just sit around and try to build stuff with them. Architecture majors. Dominoes can be a dangerous weapon in the hands of an amateur.
On this particular day, the Cabinet included Stew, who grew up reading the Providence (R.I.) Journal; Bill, Detroit Free Press; Jay, the Dandy Dime; Mikey, The Hartford Courant; Jesse, the San Quentin Bathroom Scrawl; Morgan, who doesn't read; Bootie, the Grand Rapids Coupon Clipper; Kim, the Concord Heights Elite News; Arlene, the Tucson Citizen (we think Ken Brazzle had a thing for Arlene, whose name appeared in his column virtually every week. Aug. 31, 1992: "Former Tucson High star Arlene Locklin has transferred from Grambling to Alcorn State." Sept. 7: "Former Tucson High star Arlene Locklin is still at Alcorn State." Sept. 14: "Former Tucson High star Arlene Locklin will start conditioning drills for her basketball season which starts three months from now."); and myself, the L.A. Times.
We all read the Star on a daily basis, with the exception of Morgan, who occasionally looks at all the neat pictures. We made a list of suggestions on how the Star could better utilize its limited space. We threw out Morgan's suggestion of "more pictures" after we explained to him that pictures take up space which could be used for words. Here they are:
1. Little or no coverage of the Phoenix Cardinals. Nobody cares. The other day I heard about a kid who got caught sneaking into a department store after hours. He was trying to return a Cards shirt his grandma had given him for his birthday. The cops let him go because they understood.
2. No coverage of Dallas Cowboys' troubles unless it involves a felony committed by a starter. That should free up lots of space.
3. Get your nose outta Salpointe's butt. It's embarrassing. A couple years ago, Salpointe had one of the greatest years in Tucson prep sports history, and they were all over it. Salpointe still has a couple great coaches, some wonderful kids, and good teams. But gee whiz, there are other schools in town equally deserving of coverage. There are other good stories to be told.
Last year, of the nine major sports (football, both basketballs, softball, both tracks, wrestling, volleyball, and baseball), Salpointe won 5A South titles in two of them. And yet the Star was still the Lancer Press. It's gotta be hard to be some kid at Palo Verde or Pueblo who busts his behind and knows he'll never get in the paper. (NOTE: Three Salpointe coaches were in the gym when we did this, and all three agreed with us.)
4. Ignore ASU, unless they're playing the Cats that week. If someone wants to read about ASU (there are two things which don't often go together: "ASU" and "read"), buy The Arizona Republic.
5. Finally, by a 5-4 vote (with Morgan abstaining), we'll allow Anthony Gimino to do that Uncle Guido thing one more season, but he's on probation.

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