While doing some spring cleaning upon returning to the office last week after a year’s absence due to the pandemic, I noticed an aged, yellowed newspaper sitting atop a corner desk.
I opened it and was pleasantly surprised to see a special insert in the sports section. It was the Winter All-Bulletin teams. There were photos of every player, statistics, and stories on the athletes and coaches of the year. It was a spectacular presentation.
There have been a multitude of reasons why we stopped selecting and publishing the All-Bulletin teams. I’m sure you don’t want to hear them. Let’s just say with early deadlines and a woefully short staff, our game plans changed.
And on the eve of another high school sports season, we’ve got a new game plan here at The Bulletin that I can’t wait to execute.
First, I’m thrilled to announce that the All-Bulletin teams are returning this year. We want to award the top performers of the year with a spot on the iconic All-Bulletin team.
Second, we’re going to publish an Athlete of the Week every Friday. We want to recognize the top performers each week.
And third, we’re going to focus our attention on teams at Norwich Free Academy, Killingly High School, Plainfield High School, Griswold High School, Norwich Tech, and Ellis Tech.
Over the summer, we went back and looked at what worked for high school coverage during the 2020-21 academic yearand what did not, using an analytics tool that tabulates pageviews and visitors.
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If a certain type of story drew a large interest, you'll see more of that this fall. If it fell flat, you won't see it at all. Essentially, if you're not reading it, we won't waste the time, energy and resources to write it.
With the advent of social media, most interested parties already know the outcome of games within minutes of the final whistle. The days of people reading recaps or game stories are long gone — again, our analytics tell us that — so we want to shift the focus to getting you ready for the game.
You'll be seeing a lot more previews than you will recaps. On a weekly basis, we'll highlight the upcoming weekend of high school football, plus inform you about some must-see non-football contests taking place.
This is what you can expect for coverage as fall sports — football, boys and girls soccer, girls swimming, girls volleyball, field hockey, boys and girls cross and country, and golf — return to competition.
Meet the Stars of the Day
The School Roundup, a compilationof all the previous day's results, is gone. When the schedule was packed, those roundups could take hours to produce, and yet over time, fewer and fewer people read them.
What we want to do instead is highlight top performers on a daily basis rather than give you a rundown of a game. It'll be called Stars of the Day, and for this we'll need the help of coaches. We ask that you email to sports@norwichbulletin.com the top performers from that day's game or meet, providing a bit of context and even a quote.
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Here's an example: "Marc Josaphat found the back of the net three times Wednesday to lead the NFA boys soccer team to a 5-1 win over New London. It was Jones' first hat trick of the season. The second goal was the real gem, when Jones volleyed a ball corner kick past the goalkeeper.
"'A beautiful goal that required a tremendous amount of concentration,' said coach Rob Briones."
The Stars of the Day will be used to determine the nominees for the Athlete of the Week, which will be determined by your votes.
Feature stories, analysis will be the goal
While we won't be writing straight-up game stories anymore, that doesn't mean you won't find sports staffers at games. You will. But the plan is to find an angle, profile a player or provide some analysis to give readers a more in-depth look.
The feature stories will come from all sports across all levels — high school, college or even the youth level if the story is good enough. We want to tell good stories.
Some of the analysis you'll read will not only tell you what happened, but why it happened and what it means.
Now is the time to subscribe
As we prepare for another high school fall sports season, it's worth reminding you to subscribe. Much, if not all, of our content will be available foronly subscribers to accessand read it.
Simply put, you won't find the level of coverage and analysis you'll get with The Bulletin.
And here's some good news. Right now you can get a six-month digital subscription for just $1. That'll give you complete access to all of our coverage throughout the fall season and into the winter campaign.
So what do you have to lose?
Jimmy Zanor can be reached at jzanor@norwichbulletin.com.
