Every couple of weeks, I’ll be using this space to chime in on a hot-button issue in the world of sports – usually with particular regards to the Orion community.
For starters, I thought it might be wise to address an issue we receive almost weekly comments about: the lack of junior varsity and freshmen sports teams in our pages.
While there is no question that the athletes on any team, whether it be freshmen, JV or varsity, are playing their hearts out, the varsity sports at Lake Orion High School get almost all of the media attention.
We would love to be able to give the freshmen and JV teams their due, but I’ve long-believed that our first priority is to provide coverage of all the different varsity sports.
I understand that the JV football team is the second-biggest draw (behind the varsity football team) in terms of crowd size among all of the fall sports at LOHS. But giving them equal coverage to the varsity would result in little to no Thursday night coverage for boys varsity soccer, girls varsity tennis, girls varsity swimming, girls varsity basketball and, well, you get the idea.
This isn’t to say that the JV squads deserve no attention.
I’ve often sat through JV games as part of my scouting for the future varsity players, whether it be later in that season or the following years.
In addition, I’ll arrive early to events like basketball games, where the JV game usually precedes the varsity action, and, in cases where games are played simultaneously on neighboring fields, like baseball, I will check out JV contests periodically.
There simply just isn’t enough manpower, nor room in our paper on a weekly basis, to cover the JV sports as thoroughly as we do the varsity sports.
Though some may prefer to read a story about the JV team, it has always been the stance of The Review to run a package about a different, and often more overlooked, varsity sport in its place.
We do, however, highly encourage parents and coaches to contact us with information about their teams and submit short articles and photos for publication – particularly at or towards the end of their season.
Some have taken advantage of this opportunity and gotten their deserving teams and players into the paper.
And for those future varsity stars that haven’t recognized the glory that is a mention in your Lake Orion Review, it will be all the more rewarding when you do so at the varsity level.