Raider Zone Coverage of Men’s Tennis Falls Short
To the Editor:
This letter really is directed at Raider Zone but can also be of help to the Shakerite. As a member of the varsity tennis team, I was somewhat, well actually I was very disappointed that the team got no recognition. Allan Slawson,the 2nd winningest high school tennis coach in Ohio history came back to Shaker this year and brought the team to the round of 32 in the team tournament and improved the team’s record from four wins and 11 losses last season to 9-7. I know that tennis is by no means a popular high school sport, but I feel that this team deserves some sort of recognition from our school’s paper. We were in my mind the most successful men’s spring sport this year, also coming in second in the NOC tournament and performing well in the Lexington Invitational against the best teams in Ohio. I hope this doesn’t come off the wrong way, but the Shaker tennis community has just been re-energized by Coach Slawson and some new players and next year we have Wilder Grier, a highly touted prospect, who was persuaded by Coach Slawson to stay in Shaker. I hope you understand where I am coming from. Thank you so much for all you do as a paper, and I am blessed to get all of the information I do. Go Raiders!
MAX ROSENBERG, ’14
May 19, 2014
Curtis Martin | May 20, 2014 at 11:52 am
Max, no offense, but other sports other than Tennis do not get respect from the Shakerite. If you aren’t Football, Basketball, Hockey, or Field Hockey, you aren’t going to be written about in the Shakerite. The writers of the Raider Zone do not care about most sports at the high school. There hasn’t even been an article about a sports team in the Shakerite since March.
Stacey Reed | May 20, 2014 at 10:17 am
The publicizing of Shaker Schools sports is a bit of a problem area. As the person who puts together the SHHS PTO eNewsletter, I have on occasion been the recipient of emails of this type. As the ONLY person who does the Oval, who also has a family and a job, it is not possible for me to be at or even aware of every sporting event of every SHHS sports team. I greatly appreciate the work the Shakerite does through the paper; website and twitter feed and use this as one of my sources for SHHS sports news.
I can’t speak for the Shakerite, but the problem for me is that I can’t “print” what I don’t get. In the past, I’ve sent out emails to teams asking for a contact and offering to put in information about SHHS sports. Some teams have become very active contributors and others I have never heard from. As far as I know, there isn’t a paid person on staff for the district who collects information about the teams and/or publicizes sports news for the district so it appears to be up to the individual teams to get out the word about their fundraisers, accomplishments and team activities in general. The coaches themselves are most likely employed full time outside of their coaching duties and have other responsibilities, so I don’t expect them to be doing this job as well. Maybe if the teams themselves could find a student athlete or a parent willing to share information with the Shakerite (and the Oval) each season we could all provide better recognition for the efforts of our student athletes.