The Scoop

Continuing with adaptations of Facebook for journalism, yesterday I was reading a story in the Columbus Dispatch about an Ohio State football recruiting class that had just one player left in the program. Newspapers report on the comings and goings of college athletes, particularly in the high-profile sports, but we do so in a piecemeal fashion: either it’s a notebook item or the subject of stories like the one in the Dispatch. The writer was able to contrast the lone guy from the 2003 class with the 16 fifth-year seniors on last year’s team, but shouldn’t we (and the public) know how common it is to have that many (or few) fifth-year seniors?

Here’s an idea: databasing recruiting and subsequent player actions will give fans a resource to answer questions and track their favorite players, while also providing the paper with the ability to spot trends over time and compare classes and even schools with much greater ease. Every action (oral commitment, signing, enrolling, playing, starting, getting injured, getting suspended, getting kicked off the team) would be recorded in a database. Yes, it requires some work on the front end, but it’s a great reference with multiple uses for stories, for the Web, for syndication even. And it’s not like this work is beyond us – heck, the Dispatch compiled a listing of the Class of 2003 for its story. That’s a start, but it’s not the best way.

Unless, of course, news organizations are happy to have their sports fans get better stuff from blogs and recruiting services. Me, I’d rather compete.