Compiled by FRED M. FAOUR
Houston Chronicle

Michael Vick, Allen Iverson, Aaron Brooks.

The Virginia Peninsula has long been known for its outstanding high school athletes. And the tradition goes back for several decades: Terry Kirby, Leroy Keyes, Earl Faison, La'Keshia Frett, to name a few.

The Daily Press in Newport News, Va., published a 28-page tabloid-sized special section on Sunday, Sept. 26, cataloging the 100 greatest high school athletes from its circulation area.

The project took reporters Marty O'Brien and Lynn Burke eight months to complete. They reviewed microfiche from the 1920s through today, and talked to current and former coaches, players and fans. In addition, they solicited the opinion of readers on the paper's website, dailypress.com, to try and make sure it hadn't forgotten anyone when it came to paring down the list.

Once it decided on the 100, it ranked the top 12, wrote a story on each of the Dandy Dozen, as they were called, and had portraits taken of 11 of them. Each page for the top 12 included the story, a box chronicling their accomplishments, and an old photograph of the athlete next to the new one.

The other 88 were listed alphabetically, noting their accomplishments, and included several old photos.

The project included a story on athletes from the 1920s-40s, when records weren't kept as strictly as they are today, which made it difficult to decide who could be included, and a piece about the athletes who had average high school careers before becoming famous in college or the pros, such as Williamsburg's Lawrence Taylor.

To find out who is No. 1, go to www.dailypress.com/top100.

The Newport News Daily Press launched a new high school product: The Student Section. The page comes out three times a week (Tuesday, Wednesday and Sunday) and the copy and photographs are produced by area high school students.

When it started The Student Section on Sept. 21, about a third of the high schools were contributing. Within a week of the page's debut more than half of the schools had signed up.

The Daily Press planned the page in February and began by calling the advisors at the high schools in the core circulation, who helped recruit students to contribute. The paper met with those students in the spring and summer to come up with ideas. The kids filled up three easel pads.

To try and give the page more punch on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, the Daily Press designed it to run sideways on the back page with full color.

Reader reaction has been outstanding.

— DOUG ROBERSON
Newport News Daily Press

Big high school football sections kept the region busy.

For the first time in a number of years, the Chicago Tribune did a high school fall sports preview section. The cover was a boxing card featuring the area's top two quarterbacks from last year, both back for their senior years. It was 12 open pages. ... The Tribune also did a six-page college football wrapper. The main story was on Big Ten QBs, but the Tribune also ran rankings of all 117 I-A quarterbacks and the cover contained the name of every starter with action cutouts of all 11 Big TenQBs. ... The Tribune did an 18-page pro football section with the cover theme of the new Bears passing offense. The Tribune also did an 8-page wrapper every day of the Olympics.

The News-Herald (Willoughby, Ohio) had a 24-page broadsheet high school football preview that was designed to look like a 1950s newspaper. Keeping with a theme for the paper's 125th anniversary, the News-Herald counted down to the section by picking the top 15 football teams in the history of our area.

The Canton (Ohio) Repository and Cleveland Plain Dealer each themed their sections around elections. The Repository's was 20 pages, and the Plain Dealer's was 16.

There's a good story behind the football section at the Times of Northwest Indiana (Munster). They did 29 separate zoned prep covers, then gave those papers away as a promotion to every student in the school. They were done as tasteful, striking black-and-white photos of a featured player from each school. If you want more information, theirsports editor is Mike Clark (mclark@ nwitimes.com).

The Great Lakes Region will get a new chair: Brad Zimanek of the Appleton (Wis.) Post Crescent. Current chair Scott Kendrick is leaving the region to become assistant sports editor at the Florida Times-Union in Jacksonville.

— SCOTT KENDRICK
Willoughby News-Herald

The Hawk Eye (Burlington, Iowa) printed a special section to commemorate Todd Hamilton's British Open win. Hamilton grew up in Oquawka, Ill., which is 10 miles from Burlington. The section was published Aug. 12 as part of a preview for the PGA Championship. Similar sections devoted to Hamilton are being planned in connection with the four majors next season.

The Wichita Eagle celebrated "Hall of Fame Summer" with special packages commemorating the inductions of two Wichita natives: Barry Sanders into Pro Football Hall of Fame and Lynette Woodard into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame.

The Eagle also spent the month of August researching and naming "Wichita's Best Athletes" in more than 40 participatory sports. The project enabled the paper to get about 75 names and faces into the paper that don't often get there.

— SCOTT DOCHTERMAN
St. Joseph's (Mo.) News-Press

The Mid-Atlantic Region will hold its regional meeting at the Trump Taj Majal on Monday, Dec. 6 from 8:30 a.m. until 6 p.m. We hope that region members will join us for an informal get together on Sunday night before a full-day program on Monday.

Jim Jenks of The Philadelphia Inquirer and Ron Fritz of the Wilmington News Journal are putting together the agenda that will include sessions on the Internet, copy editing, critiques for all sections interested, and a special guest speaker. The fee for the program will be $50 per person.

Members should call the Trump Taj Majal directly (1-800-825-8888) before Nov. 5 to make their hotel reservations at an APSE guaranteed rateof $79 per night, which includes parking at the hotel. Make sure to mention APSE when you call for reservations.

Our aim is to teach, learn and most of all share our experiences with one another to make us all better sports editors. If you have one of those tough editors that requires a crowbar to pry the mere pittance of a fee from their budget, please don't hesitate to call Jenks (215-510-0864), Fritz (302-324-2919) or APSE president Jerry Micco (412-263-3052). "We will be glad to make a call to justify the expense," Jenks said.

The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette has started one new weekly section and expanded another. Beginning on Sept. 12 and continuing every Sunday through mid-November, the Post-Gazette will publish CFXtra, a section devoted to college football, according to Jerry Micco.

The section houses local college football, anchored by the P-G's Big 3 schools: Pitt, Penn State and West Virginia. It also handles the large local small college football scene and has an expanded national report with all the breakouts that are standard fare, such as the Heisman chart and top performers.

Micco said the space stayed the same in the entire Sunday product. "We just trimmed some coverage in the main Sunday section and moved a couple features to other days of the week," he said. "This has allowed us to play the Steelers advance packages better on our front, and will clear front space for better display of the baseball playoffs."

On Sept. 13, the paper debuted NFLXtra, which is an expanded version of the P-G's old Steelers Extra. Said Micco: "We pumped up space a bit in this section by repackaging it out of the Monday main Sports section. We also went from a wrap to a stand-alone section, thus giving us two color fronts.

"Our Steelers coverage was basically kept the same, except for the addition of a third columnist, but we added more space to do a better NFL package, including separates on every game. We are also looking at expanding our agate package and may do that down the line. We'll do NFLXtra throughout the regular season and if the Steelers make the playoffs, we'll do it until their season is concluded."

— JIM JENKS
Philadelphia Inquirer

Northeast Sports editors Jeff Otterbein (Hartford) and Matt Pepin (New Haven) had their hands full in late August as two professional tournaments took place in their backyards ... in the same week. Here's how they pulled it off:

Pepin: In a normal year, the WTA's Pilot Pen Tennis tournament in New Haven and the PGA Tour's Buick Championship in Cromwell, Conn., would each get big-game treatment every day in the New Haven Register. With the events occurring in the same week this year, the New Haven Register published a six-page special tournament wrap Aug. 23-29 in addition to an eight-page sports section that included the Olympics, the American League East race between the Yankees and Red Sox and coverage of the UConn football team as it prepared for its first season in the Big East.

Papers were distributed to patrons at the Pilot Pen, which is held at the Connecticut Tennis Center at Yale.

Otterbein: August was about as intense a month as we've experienced around here, more so than dual national titles by the UConn men's and women's basketball teams.

We did three special sections — an Olympic preview, a college football preview and a Buick golf championship preview. During the Olympics we did a 4-page wrap every day around the regular sports section and in the final week of August we had the Olympics, Buick golf and Pilot Pen tennis tournament.

We had two writers at the Olympics, five at the Buick golf and three at the Pilot Pen tennis. Some of our daily sections were as big as many Sunday sections we have throughout the year. The writers and copy desk did a great job and it was fun in an odd, newspaper sort of way.

We came up for air and then ... two days after the Olympics ended we ran our first "Sidelines," an 8-page weekly college football section.

Newly elected APSE third vice-president Greg Brownell and his crew at the Glen Falls Post-Star in upstate New York won several awards in the 2003-04 New York State Associated Press Association's writing contest. Among them: Sports column: Michael Lewis, first place; Brett Orzechowski, second place; Greg Brownell, third place.

— MARK BICKEL
Poughkeepsie Journal

For the first time, The Nashville Tennessean is producing a four-page Titans preview section on Sundays. The Tennessean had been doing a separate college football section for Sundays, but made a switch for ad-revenue purposes. Because the Titans opener against the Dolphins was moved up a day, the first Titans preview section did not appear until Sunday, Sept. 19, the home opener against the Colts.

As the cover story in its annual college football preview section, a Mobile Register poll named Ohio State the best overall program in Division I-A college football. Ohio State's rise to the top was the product of 64 statistical categories that ranked the 117 Division I-A teams in a number of college football's measurable facets, such as winning percentage, bowl appearances and All-Americans. All the data used to determine the top programs can be found at www.al.com/ncaafootball/mobileregister

— BOB McCLELLAN
Nashville Tennessean

Senior Deputy Sports Editor Cody Bailey and designer Michael Currie of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram presented a session at the annual Society of News Design conference on Sept. 30 in San Jose. Their session — Big League Sports, Big League Presentation — focused on the importance of visual storytelling in Sports sections. The Star-Telegram launched a redesign geared toward presenting the news for the "scan reader." The new philosophy includes more hold-to-the-cover stories and blurbs with an emphasis on visual storytelling and improving navigation for the reader.

The Denton Record-Chronicle went reality TV with its football section. It featured a cover on North Texas running back Patrick Cobbs as American Idol and a local high school coach as Survivor.

— FRED M. FAOUR
Houston Chronicle

The annual West Regional convention will be Monday, Oct. 25 at the Treasure Island Resort and Hotel in Las Vegas. Sessions include "Crisis Management" and "Different Ways to Hire Copy Editors." Featured speaker will be boxing promoter Bob Arum.

The Ventura County Star ran an 8-page special section on the Conejo Valley Little League All-Star team, which won the U.S. championship. One page was devoted to baseball cards of the 12 players, which was originally developed for the paper's Web site.

The Star covered the World Series final with double truck color, including a full page of photos and a page of coverage and photos.

During the 18 days of the Olympics, The Star ran 16-page daily sections and 18-page Sunday sections to cover the Olympics, two Little League teams in national tournaments and the Dallas Cowboys training camp in the paper's circulation area in addition to its coverage of the Dodgers and Angels in pennant races.

The Star, with a six-person desk, ran eight open Olympic pages daily, including a back page color photo page, one advance/TV page and an Olympic scoreboard.

— LARRY AMES
Ventura County Star

Editor's note: No reports were received from the Canada and Northwest regions.