Six is greater than three

Word on the street is, folks in Junction City are irate at the News-Times' football coverage on Friday. There was no story in Saturday or Sunday's paper about the Dragons' non-conference win over Mountain Pine.
Unfortunately, no one from Junction City has confronted me personally on the subject. If they had, here's my explanation.
First, we have three sports writers, including myself, to cover six area football teams. I'm not a math major but ...
It's frustrating for us. I've been at the paper more than 20 years and this is the first time there have been senior varsity football games played in Union County that haven't had a staff member present.
Friday, we had three people to cover five games.
Kev Moye' traveled to Bearden the previous week to cover Junction City's huge game against the Bears. Even though it was outside the county and forced us to miss Norphlet's home game, we felt it was important that we be there.
This past week, Junction City hosted Mountain Pine in a non-conference game while Smackover hosted Fordyce in one of the Bucks' biggest games of the year. We've missed a lot of Norphlet's games this year so Jason Avery covered the Leopards while Kev went to Smackover. I was at El Dorado, leaving Junction City and Strong uncovered.
Jason and Kev talked to Junction City coach David Carpenter and Strong coach Shane Davis during the week. They explained that we wouldn't be at their games and asked if they would please call us Friday night to give us results so we could put them in the newspaper.
They both indicated they would call in their results.
Friday, Coach Davis called in from Hampton and we had Strong's story in Saturday's paper. No one ever called in Junction City's game.
Saturday, Kev called Coach Carpenter at home and left a message asking to please call us so we could get information in Sunday's paper about the Dragons' game. No one returned the call.
Three people cannot cover six teams without the cooperation of the coaches. I wish we had more sports writers available. Unfortunately, we don't.
We have three writers and six teams. I don't know how much simpler I can make it. Three does not equal six. Six is greater than three. Three is less than six.
If you're having trouble understanding that explanation, perhaps you should YouTube some old Sesame Street episodes with the Count or find some of those School House Rock cartoons.
It's not biased coverage. It's basic math. We're doing the best we can with what we have to give every team the best coverage we can.

NBA is on lockout?

Oh my God, did you hear the news? The NBA has locked out its players!
Oh, you heard? You didn't care, either?
If the NBA ever wanted to know its standing in the sports landscape in this country, the utter apathy over its work stoppage should be a clear indicator. Football fans practically went on life support when the NFL went through its labor issues. And, that was during the offseason.
The idea of the NBA actually losing regular-season games, meanwhile, is met mostly with yawns of indifference.
It proves what most have been saying for a long time. The NBA season is too long. Fans don't get invested until the playoffs because the perception is the regular season means very little.
In the NFL, every game is important. Five games into the season, teams are already being counted out of the playoff chase. Plus, the NFL is just hugely popular. NFL players could spit in fans' cereal bowls on Sunday morning and those fans will still watch them play in the afternoon.
There's nothing the NFL can do to hurt its fan base. They took out the celebrations. Didn't hurt it. They eliminated hits on the quarterbacks. Didn't hurt it. They've taken hitting completely out of the game. Hasn't hurt it. Hell, they've taken defense completely out. Still going strong.
The NBA looks longingly at the NFL. But, fact is, the NBA is not the NFL. The owners and players are going to find out the hard way. I think a lot of fans can do without the NBA a lot easier than they can the NFL. Between the end of college basketball and the beginning of baseball, the NBA's window of importance isn't that large to begin with.
So, I think I speak for a lot of folks when I say, take your time NBA in working out your labor issues. You can kill the entire season for all I care. I'm sure I can find something to do while you're gone.