Comments John Baetz asked me to postI appreciate the feedback and the complete support of the Kansas Wrestling Coaches Association with the recently finished Kansas Mat Preview preseason high school wrestling magazine for Kansas.
I wanted to give a little background so the members of this board, and high school coaches, wrestlers, parents and fans can understand what my goal is with producing this publication.
I am a small-town newspaper publisher and former high school football assistant coach who is passionate about the sport of football, and high school sports in general. I believe sports are an outstanding complement to the classroom and in some cases the only method to reach some youngsters with life's most important lessons.
For that reason I, along with Tim McGonagle and my wife, Bree, created Kansas Pregame football magazine four years ago covering 116 high schools in mostly western Kansas in a free news print product that was mostly black and white. After my wife and I bought McGonagle's share of the publication last year, we expanded to a full color, glossy publication covering 301 of the 342 high schools and 27 of the 28 colleges that have football programs in Kansas. We also have a website, kansaspregame.com, with which we provide more football coverage.
We always anticipated expanding to other sports and wrestling was the next natural step for three reasons: 1. It's not covered as well by statewide media outlets and needs the additional exposure; 2. Wrestling has 205 participating high school programs making it a bit easier for our small organization to tackle; 3. And most importantly, it's a family sport with a loyal fan base and it teaches life's most important lessons one match at a time.
Our first venture into wrestling coverage, Kansas Mat Preview, was recently distributed to a number of sponsor locations in Kansas and is available for free from those sponsors. This first year of the publication features about 75 of the state's high school programs.
We got a late start on this year's issue, one of the major factors for only 75 teams in our first issue, but I fully anticipate complete coverage with next year's issue along with more photos and several great features on outstanding wrestlers, coaches and programs.
If a free copy is not available in your area I hope you'll purchase one from us which will strengthen our company and help us provide an even more complete product in 2010-11.
If you would like to order a single copy we ask for $7.95 to offset the cost of printing, shipping and handling. You can mail a check or money order to us at:
Kansas Pregame
PO Box 186
Lincoln, KS 67455
Or, e-mail me at john@kansaspregame.com or call me at (785) 524-6019 to order by credit card.
I sincerely appreciate the overwhelming support I've received from the Kansas Wrestling Coaches Association and I encourage all coaches, wrestlers, parents and fans to e-mail me with suggestions for future issues.
Coaches, if your team is not covered, please look for updates on questionnaire submission on the KWCA website next fall and help us find a couple of sponsors for your school. Our publication is distributed primarily free through sponsors so for us to keep this going we must have sponsors. The sponsor benefits by getting an ad and copies of the publication for free distribution which is very effective in getting additional exposure for their organization.
Fans, if you want to see your team covered, consider sponsoring your school. For more information feel free to shoot me an e-mail.
Thank you to every reader on this board for your support of our publication and your support of wrestling in Kansas. Good luck to all the coaches and their teams this season!
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John Baetz
Publisher
The Lincoln Sentinel-Republican, Chapman & Enterprise News-Times, and Kansas Pregame
john@lincolnsentinel.com
785-524-6019
www.lincolnsentinel.comwww.kansaspregame.com