Bill Wende - Section6Runs Chief Cook and Bottlewasher
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April 27, 2008

Missed Opportunity?

There is an opportunity presenting itself to Section 6 and WNY that I know some of you have noticed but I’m not sure others have. Given stereotypical WNY mentality, I think it will painstakingly die a quiet death and fade away without much fanfare.

It’s a summer Olympic year and we have the NYSPHSAA State Track & Field Championships coming to our own backyard at UB. Coincidence, maybe, planned, c’mon…there are no visionaries in WNY (I’ll leave that for another column). What concerns me is nothing is being said or being done about it.

First of all, I am will not call out individuals or groups. To do so is counter-productive and will not help to achieve the objective given the short amount of time to do so. What I am asking is, collectively we put our efforts in promoting the State Championships to our classmates, teammates, friends, family, co-workers, etc. We can urge Section 6 to work with The Buffalo-Niagara Convention & Visitor’s Bureau to promote outside of WNY to the other Sections and to draw the attention of these potential visitors (outside tourism dollars) to come to Buffalo and root for their student-athletes.

As school athletic directors, coaches, student-athletes, parents we can do our best to be gracious hosts and invite the other Sections’ families to join us in celebrating an Olympics of sorts (maybe we can do a torch ceremony without the protestors) and show outsiders the virtues of Buffalo and WNY.

One of the more critical objectives is to urge the local media, print, radio and TV to increase their coverage of our sport, especially given this opportunity. I have to include this example of, what I feel, is the lack of interest in track & field by the major media outlets in Buffalo.

In today’s Buffalo News (Sunday, Apr 27), the only coverage given to the Olean Invitational was about the weather and how it caused the meet to be canceled after three quarters of it had been run. No mention of the results or that the weather had been perfect up until then. Conversely, I think the high school sports reporters do a wonderful job with their articles about specific sports and have limited resources to cover all high school sporting events. But there are ways to expand the coverage without incurring major expense, trust me…you have to think outside the box (overused cliché which never gets implemented in WNY).

We can all do a better job of promoting our running sports (XC and track & field). How? Let’s make an effort to get results in to the media on a timely basis and a brief write up about the event. My wife is in the public relations field and the one thing she has learned is you are more likely to have your story published/broadcast if you provide complete information to the media contacts. It is more work for us, yes, but it’s really a small price to pay to promote your sports program and the student-athletes.

For example, I spoke to one of the coaches recently who stated Section 6 has more Scholar Athletes (90 average or better) than any other section in New York State. Why is this not made a big deal? What are the ramifications if this is publicized? The answer, maybe more college scholarships given to our kids, more attention from colleges/universities for our scholar athletes?

Write a letter or an email to the media, to Section 6, to the CVB urging them to help make this event special. We all know WNY pulls for the home town kids and that we love our sports. UB is such a great venue for this event and we need to make sure it’s the hot ticket for the weekend of June 13-14. Email me event information that can be posted on Section6Runs to help provide information about local meets, records broken by your student-athlete, Spotlight information (I need some spotlight athletes!), Section 6 alumni info, etc. All this will help draw interest to the sport once people realize our athletes are special.

I would really like to see this take off and fill the UB stadium for the NYSPHSAA Track & Field Championships and show the rest of the state that we are passionate about not only our student-athletes but the sport of track & field.

Some contacts: