Tuesday, Sep. 01, 2009

Prep football on our door step

By Eric Degerman, sportstricities.com

We're just a few days away, and prep football has folks buzzing and checking in on what SportsTriCities.com plans with regards to coverage.

The key piece to our coverage comes from the Tri-City Herald's award-winning sports writers and photographers. They have been working long hours the past two weeks in preparation for the annual football tab, which will be inserted into Friday's edition of the Tri-City Herald

On Friday night, SportsTriCities.com's season kicks off with video highlights of two prep football games — Richland at Pasco and Southridge at Kamiakin.

That night also marks the return of Mid-Columbia Football Live, SportsTriCities.com's live game log. I will be sequestered in the Herald newsroom to receive and post continuous updates from our field reporters as well as emails/text messages from valued readers, Twitter, my IM buddies, Facebook friends, team statisticians and my monitoring of broadcasts by folks such as KONA radio and Royal High School's live Webcast on Ustream.

But that's merely a repeat of what we did last year. There are innovations in the works.

For example, we will be partnering with the Kitsap Sun on Saturday for live streaming coverage of Kennewick High School's football game vs. South Kitsap. Kickoff is scheduled for noon at Qwest Field — home of the Seahawks.

However, the most interactive component to our new lineup will be the football predictions partnership with Upickem.com. That will be rolled out next week in time for the start of the NFL season. West Richland Golf Course has signed on to sponsor the contest, providing a free round of golf to the weekly winner.

Our community is the most important factor to this coverage, and we want you to become more involved the process than ever before.

Photo galleries are the most popular portion on tricityherald.com, and we want to share your photos with the sports community. Here is the link to our "Submit a photo" page. Got some great shots? Send them to us right from the stands.

In the coming weeks, you will see a new and improved SportsTriCities.com. It will feature more entry points and easier navigation as we continue to focus on the Mid-Columbia and Northwest sports.

We also will send out a free Mid-Columbia sports newsletter daily. Registration is quick, unobtrusive and free on our home page.

You can also follow us on Twitter at "SportsTriCities."

The start of football season is always fun for us, but this year should be more exciting than ever. We welcome your questions, comments, criticism and suggestions.