Fall sports preview work happening now

As we’re in the home stretch of the summer and high school sports offseason, this is probably a good time to let everyone know what The Post’s plans are relative to high school sports coverage this fall.

We’ve got about five weeks left until Aug. 14, which is the first official day TSSAA teams can compete in fall sports. That Friday, Aug. 18, is the Friday of Week 1 of the football season.

That week, we will publish a special section previewing high school football in Madison County with previews, photos, rosters, facts, features and preseason analysis of all seven TSSAA football teams.

The theme of the section will be “A Fresh Start.” Four of the seven teams in Madison County have a new coach (North Side, South Side, Trinity Christian, University School of Jackson). Jackson Central-Merry football will be officially back as it begins region play with hopes of making it into the postseason. Jackson Christian hopes to start another try at a Division II-A state championship run, and Liberty hopes to start a new tradition of winning for the Crusaders’ program.

And of course, this will be the first full school year of coverage for The Post sports section as we started in November and were able to cover a couple of weeks of the playoffs last year before everyone was eliminated.

To be totally honest with you, putting together a football preview special section is probably the one thing I’ve missed most when I made the move from sports to news coverage six years ago, and the elimination of a football preview section was the signal to me that it was time to make that move because of statements made from the corporate higher-ups at the time that if the section was cut, probably a sports writing position would be soon after.

But one of the goals of the section is for a reader who wants to know what to look for and watch in Madison County on Friday nights to be as informed as possible after he or she picks up the section and reads through it.

Who’s expected to be good? What players are expected to make an impact? Who in the county has the best chance of getting into the playoffs and making a deep run into the postseason?

There’s a level of fan who is asking those questions now, and there’s another level of fans who feel like they already know the answers to those questions. This section will raise both of those groups to a third level of fan.

Both groups will be able to know who is expected to compete well, what players will drive those teams to that level of competition, lead them into the postseason and possibly win anywhere from one to five games in the playoffs. But that third level will have an idea of why those teams and players will have the expectations they do.

And I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention this is a great opportunity if any local businesses want their name and logo in this section. Shaley Dawson is available to help make that happen for you at 931-209-7238.

The next six weeks will be eventful for local football teams and the other four sports who compete in the fall – golf, girls’ soccer, volleyball and cross country.

Athletes who compete in all five of these sports are working hard, getting their stamina up, their timing down and ready to push to compete at the highest level possible to have a shot at bringing home state championship recognition for their schools.

We had three teams to do it last school year – USJ girls’ soccer, Madison boys’ soccer and South Side girls’ basketball.

Will anyone else add to that list this year? If that does happen, the work to make it happen has already begun in July.

Brandon Shields is the managing editor of The Jackson Post. Contact him at brandon@jacksonpost.news. Follow him on Twitter @JSEditorBrandon or Instagram @Editorbrandon.