Interesting Article

[swok34]

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/spt/stories/010306dnspobig12bkwlede.cd53148.html

Tough games appeal to A&M women
By RACHEL COHEN / The Dallas Morning News

Emerging from the Big 12 South – from which four teams regularly make the NCAA Tournament – is no easy task. Baylor is the defending national champion. Oklahoma has dominant freshman post player Courtney Paris. Texas and Texas Tech have tradition on their side even if their young teams have struggled some against tough nonconference schedules.

Who would have thought Saturday's game in Lubbock between the Aggies and the Lady Raiders could be a battle for an NCAA Tournament berth? It could prove important in a couple months.

Is it mathematically possible for five South teams to make the NCAA Tournament? Blair says it can happen.

"We need parity among the top teams," he said. "We need for a lot of us to beat each other up."

[vickie1ok]

It's about time she wrote an article. It seems like she only writes about 10 a year. Wish I had such a plush job...No respect, no love from here.

[Bball Girl]

It's about time she wrote an article. It seems like she only writes about 10 a year. Wish I had such a plush job...No respect, no love from here.


I believe she writes on more than WBB...if you search the site you'll see a lot of other sports articles by her. In fact, I just posted an article last week that she wrote about Tech.

Limping toward Big 12 (http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/spt/colleges/texastech/stories/122905dnspotechbkwlede.171469f1.html)

She writes for a Dallas paper & the love is going to be directed toward the Texas schools, just as the majority of Mechele's love at the KC Paper is directed at the Kansas and Mizzou schools.

It's good to see TAMU getting some attention, goodness knows Blair has worked his tail off to get it.

[horntooter]

An article from the Houston Chronicle about the onset of Big 12 play:

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/3561252.html

[vickie1ok]

I believe she writes on more than WBB...if you search the site you'll see a lot of other sports articles by her. In fact, I just posted an article last week that she wrote about Tech.

Limping toward Big 12 (http://www.dallasnews.com/s/dws/spt/colleges/texastech/stories/122905dnspotechbkwlede.171469f1.html)

She writes for a Dallas paper & the love is going to be directed toward the Texas schools, just as the majority of Mechele's love at the KC Paper is directed at the Kansas and Mizzou schools.

It's good to see TAMU getting some attention, goodness knows Blair has worked his tail off to get it.

I don't have a problem with her writing mostly about Texas schools at all. I'd just like to see more of them! Actually, I should rag on the sports editors at the DMN. They need to assign more women's hoops stories to her.

I also go to the college site on Sports Day to find women's hoops stories and maybe they don't update her stories on her link on that main page

TA&M will be a wild card in the league this year. Not that we expect them to contend for the championship, but they sure can determine who does. I think they will dish out a few upsets this year.

[BearLady]

I should rag on the sports editors at the DMN. They need to assign more women's hoops stories to her.

Agree with you, Vickie. In fact, I've sent them multiple e-mails suggesting just that. I think Rachel does a very nice job, when she gets the opportunity. Unfortunately, sometimes some of the male writers get the assignment, and they tend to be a little more focused on their favorites. I think Rachel did a great job during the NCAA tourney last year. Yes, that meant including more coverage on the Lady Bears. But given the amount of ink that women's hoops had received in recent years, it was a huge leap. Rachel is stationed physically in College Station, so it's not like she's based here in Dallas and operates from a more central location. Still, I think she's the best at the DMN and strives to (and succeeds) write informative stories about most all of the Big 12 women's teams in general. But yes, I'll admit there's a local bias toward the Big 12 South teams (not yet including OSU).

As for optimizing the search criteria for her columns, sorry, but I'm not much help in that regard. I'm usually skimming over the (paper) Sports section while I have breakfast. And I'll typically look first for college hoops stories. If I see that she has one and if I think it has a wide appeal (and my schedule cooperates), then I try to post a link to it here in HoopScoop.

[vickie1ok]

Thanks for the info, Bear Lady and SW. See the link I've posted below. It is the main page for colleges under Sports Day. When you click on Rachel on the lower left, it only has one story linked to her archive, which was the story on the Lady Bears 11/13.

Since she only has limited stories linked to this page, I assumed she rarely wrote anything. The only time I ever buy any newspaper is for crossword puzzles, and I noticed last time I bought the DMN there was more info on women's hoops than I normally find on-line. I should have known better because the DMN really is an excellent paper.

So I will have two issues to address to the DMN; one, she needs to do more women's hoops stories and two, they have a problem in their links to stories. And there is nothing wrong with her focusing on the Big 12 south, the strength of the Big 12 south is unreal. And Baylor absolutely deserved a large focus in last year's tourney. They won it all!

See this link and you will understand why I didn't think she worked very often!

http://www.dallasnews.com/sports/colleges/

[BearLady]

You've made a very valid point, Vickie. I'm not sure how everything formally works, but I think perhaps one reason why links to Rachel Cohen's columns don't show up under 'Columnists' is because perhaps that's not her official job description title. From reading the DMN over some time (years actually) there is a group of writers who don't have a special beat assignment but rather who write on whatever is timely, etc. Kevin Blackistone, Kevin Sherrington and Tim Calishaw (who frequently writes about the Dallas Cowboys) are listed under the 'Columnists' link. Problem is, there's no one specific person who writes about other story types and who is assigned to them always (well, give or take). I can see how it appeared that Rachel very infrequently had columns, because you would basically have to look under every college link (where most of her story topics are) and search to see if she had anything posted for a given time period.

I did a quick search just now, and when I entered just Cohen in the Search Field, turned up all sorts of stories by someone named Cohen and not necessarily at the DMN. So I tried another Search, this time using both the first and last name of Rachel Cohen. And a lot of stories turned up. In fact you'll see quite a few on Big 12 football, specifically A&M, though I've also seen her do stories on UT this past football season.

Maybe our strategy should be to pitch to the mgmt at the DMN that Rachel needs to do a story on womens' hoops every single day, whether it's about the Big 12 or some other women's team across the nation. :) BTW I have noticed quite a re-vamp of women's coverage in the paper so far this young season, in that they are including a Women's Hoops highlights section, that summarizes games among top teams across the nation, etc. Now if we can just get them to include box scores from all Big 12 games, not just those in the South!

There's lots of room for improvement, but at least since Rachel has had the opportunity to write more beginning last year the amount of ink has improved. As Mechelle has suggested to us, we've got to be vocal and persistent!

[vickie1ok]

You are right, the time I bought the DMN about a month or so ago, they had a women's hoops notes section. That's really valuable since we can keep up on current news. Features are just that, feature stories about players and coaches. And a little bit of current news.

Kevin, Kevin and Tim have links on the front page of Sports Day. And when you click on their archive, it is current. And when I click on Sports Day Columnists or Beat writers, Rachel is not there.

We should not have to, essentially, do google searches to find women's hoops news. The DMN is not providing the proper links. There is no women's sports or women's BB link under Sports Day. That's why I always go to college. Thank for the valuable input, Bear Lady! I will do some talking to the DMN editor.