Clarion Sports Zone Is In Need Of Contributors (11/28/16)

The Clarion Sports Zone is in need of more folks to volunteer time in covering the sporting events of our Clarion Area School District and other local youth athletes. In this article I will give some of the history of the website and detail why I have the need for more help with the site.

If you are a coach, athlete, parent, or anyone who has an interest in our local youth athletes please read the entire article. It is a little long, but I feel that all the information contained in it is needed to let you know where we are.

The Clarion Sports Zone began over four years ago, with the purpose of giving the Clarion Area School District athletes and other young, local athletes, such as Little Leaguers and YMCA sports participants, a truly local sports outlet, covering them as the home team, much like Brookville’s Jeffersonian Democrat covers Brookville and Clarion-Limestone and New Bethlehem’s Leader Vindicator covers Redbank Valley and Union.

In describing the Clarion Sports Zone, one person put it, “(We’re) here to give the kids a pat on the back.” We also exist so out of town relatives can read about the athletes. The difference between Clarion Sports Zone and Explore Clarion, D9Sports.com, the Derrick etc. is that those other outlets cover a wide area and don’t necessarily cover Clarion Area as the home team. Clarion Sports Zone considers the Bobcats and Clarion community sports teams as the home team.

As for the need for more involvement:
If you have followed this website for an extended time, you’ve probably noticed that I don’t get stories posted in as timely a fashion as before, that the Schedules page is not up to date and many of the sports stories are combined in weekly summaries, the Facebook page is not up to date, etc.

(Photo provided by Clarion MMA)

There are some reasons for the backing off of coverage. First, my son Seth, who was the major backbone of Clarion Sports Zone, as far as the technical end goes, has moved out of the area, making it difficult for him to do much of the behind the scenes work that he did, including Schedule page and Facebook postings, etc.

Glitches have prohibited me to post on the Clarion Sports Zone Facebook page. This is why I only post to my personal page, at present. Schedules are posted as stories now, instead of on the Schedules page. If you scroll the homepage, you can find the most up-to-date schedule postings.

During much of the year, there are a number of different sports going on, at different levels, often with several events on the same night. I can’t possibly make it to every event, and with working full time and volunteering for the football team, sending and answering e-mails to coaches, writing and posting stories, covering events takes etc. it can get pretty overwhelming.

My current work schedule (Monday – Friday and Saturday mornings), including drive time, takes over 55 hours out of my week and with just a day and a half weekend, my time is even more limited at present.

So I am asking for your help. We have had and do have a number of coaches and other individuals who have contributed immensely over the life of Clarion Sports Zone and I am very thankful to all of you. We couldn’t exist without your help.

I want to give coverage to as many sports, elementary through varsity as possible, but with the amount of events, there isn’t time for me to cover and write for many.

If you are a coach, I would ask that you would write small articles on your events. Just couple of paragraphs, (who, what, when, where and how) is enough. This isn’t about being a great journalist, just getting the kids recognition. If you are a parent and your child’s sport isn’t covered, maybe you could get with the coach and see if they would like you to submit stories and/or photos.

Perhaps there are students who could submit stories and photos. Some already submit photos. If more people can get involved and send in stories, and I just copy, paste and edit, it will make it possible for the site to be more in-depth and more effective.

I’ll still try to cover some events, for sure. But I just ask for more involvement from the community, for the kids. It’s about them.

If you see the need for this outlet recognizing the sports achievements of our area kids, please consider what you can do to help.

“Many hands make light work.”

If you can be of help, please let me know:
davemcclaine@yahoo.com
226-9895