What should be in the news

By Paul Shugar
Staff Writer

A gigantic fire kills two children and the parents barely escape with their lives. Story at 11 here at Channel 7, your news leader.

These types of stories don the headlines that quickly make me turn off the television and flip away from the front page.

Terrible things happen every day, and they should not be ignored, but I cannot just read about how vulnerable I am to tragedy. I also do not want to be depressed by all the sad things in the world.

Tragedy sells newspapers and usually my only salvation is to read accomplishments by different players and teams on the sports page.

Lately, however, the sports page has been more like the front page and stories involving athletes such as Ray Carruth, Allen Iverson and Super Bowl MVP Ray Lewis have spilled onto the front page.

We leave out the stories of all the great players in the NFL who spend time at the United Way helping the unfortunate.

There is something wrong with reporters, and I know it. We are always so busy looking for a fire that we miss the good things.

I am no exception, and I cannot be if I want to be successful in this business, but today I guess I'm trying to be different.

A few inches of something good never hurt anybody.

On Sibs weekend at the Ohio club hockey team's games against Penn State, I was standing to get my interviews from some hockey players when I noticed a bunch of younger brothers and some children waiting by the ice to get autographs.

The Ohio team is not a team of future superstars. It is a bunch of guys who do not want to stop playing a sport they love.

The team does not have to sign autographs after playing with only 13 players for 65 minutes against the second-ranked team in the nation; it is exhausted.

Still, the players talk to the kids about their scout uniforms and pine wood derby cars as they pour out of the locker room, their faces bruised from a bench-clearing brawl the previous night.

They even went to snag guys the kids want to meet from the locker room. Sure enough, out came more of the ice-warriors-turned-nice-guys, fresh from the shower.

Even though Ohio hockey is no longer a varsity sport - a victim of Title IX, which tries to decrease the gap between spending for men's and women's sports - the Bobcats are not bitter. They need their fans to stay above water and if they do not sell out their games, they do not take a trip to the national tournament.

They give the Ohio fans what they want to see so they can continue to play. Without the fans there is no team. The 2-1 gutsy win against a more talented Penn State team to keep alive their streak of no sweeps at home showed how hard these guys play.

I cannot count how many times a player tells me they want to put on a good show for the fans at home. It has turned into a cliché for the team, but the players do seem to play for the fans.

We need more stories like this in our papers because this kind of success provides children with role models. It shows children that not all athletes act like Ray Lewis and all the pompous athletes we see on the front page.

These players might not be on the front page, but they represent Ohio well. And I would not be doing my journalistic duty if I did not let people know about it.

- Shugar, a sophomore journalism major, is hoping the XFL player "He hate me" will sign a jersey for him and make his dreams come true.