This is called "The Case Of the Vanishing Press Guide."
An e-mail forwarded to me from George Wine is titled, "How To Save $$$...Screw the Press."
The message goes on to say, "Please don't ask my opinion on this. The Internet cops wouldn't allow it in cyberspace. Big Ten schools Michigan, Ohio State and Wisconsin have opted to stop printing media guides for their collegiate sports teams. According to the Associated Press, Michigan and Ohio State will save more than $250,000 a year combined. Wisconsin's athletic department will pocket as much as $200,000. The information will be made available on the Internet instead."
Wine knows all about media guides. He was in charge of publishing them for many years. He spent 25 years as the sports information director at the University of Iowa. Before that, he was at Northern Iowa and Memphis State.
The sad thing is, with Ohio State and Michigan -- which historically have been the Big Two in the Big Ten -- halting the printing of press guides, others will certainly follow.
Before long, I predict it will become a national trend.
However, neither Iowa nor Iowa State -- or such universities as Drake and Northern Iowa, for that matter -- have announced that they're abandoning media guides yet.
Actually, football media guides in recent years have changed anyway.
Most universities, such as Iowa, have had two of them.
In the photo at the right, take a look at what Iowa has done in recent years.
Most of the historical and statistical information that sportswriters and broadcasters value so much, and use as reference material, is in the gold book at the left. The book at the right is primarily recruiting material.
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It was good to see that this morning's paper finally caught up with that story about the new girls' basketball coach at Roosevelt. Sure, it was a day-and-a-half after you read it here but, hey, you can't expect miracles anymore.
