A good friend of mine pointed this out to me today- IU Star Resident Genius, Terry Hutchens, has been elected...FOR THE THIRD TIME IN FOUR YEARS, no less, as the Sportswriter of the Year for the state of Indiana. Wha-wha-what??

I have no idea who votes for this prestigious award, but I'm guessing a room full of monkeys along with Terry's Mom and Dad are very pleased with their choice.

Here's the problem with this situation. It's probably fair to say that the largest print media outlet in the state will have the best chance of notoriety...BUT, the Indy Star is a joke...an un-funny, poorly-written one at that.

They decreased the size of their paper a few years ago...and they'll tell you it was for good reason. Make no mistake, it comes down to a few things. First, printing big pictures in full-color is expensive. Smaller paper, smaller pictures, cheaper overhead. Second, as the Star has continued to shrink its coverage of Indy Car, so there's less to write about there...and this year, as the month of May became the two weeks of May at IMS, there's obviously less content. Along with minimal Indy Car racing coverage, the apples of the Star sports editor's eye, UND football and IU basketball, haven't given them much to write about either.

Times are tough in the newspaper business, no doubt about it. Guys like Hutchens getting annual awards probably doesn't instill confidence in the consumer. Maybe, just maybe, *gasp* awards like this might be part of the reason many of you have turned away from mainstream media and toward outlets like this humble web address?

Nah.


*FYI- I can no longer find the link of Hutchens predicting Hummel to be little-more than a role player...for some reason, The Star has burned the evidence. But, I haven't forgotten.