Altoona and Johnstown newspaper All Star lists

[PCmor]

I'm the assistant sports editor of the Mirror. We cover 24 schools that have football: Altoona, Bedford, Bellwood-Antis, Bishop Carroll, Bishop Guilfoyle, Cambria Heights, Central, Central Cambria, Chestnut Ridge, Claysburg-Kimmel, Everett, Glendale, Hollidaysburg, Huntingdon, Juniata Valley, Moshannon Valley, Northern Bedford, Northern Cambria, Penn Cambria, Philipsburg-Osceola, Portage, Tussey Mountain, Tyrone and Williamsburg.

A few years ago, we decided to put capsules in the preseason tabloid for the next four closest schools: Blacklick Valley, Forest Hills, Mount Union and State College. Forest Hills and Mount Union already played almost all of their games against schools in our area (plus MU is covered by our sister paper in Lewistown), Blacklick was just a couple of miles beyond Ebensburg and State College is a large community that we've felt we had a good relationship with and that had a decent amount of interest in our main coverage area.

When we started to do the Blitz magazine, it was decided from the start to have State College and Forest Hills be a part of it. It just made sense to add the other two schools to the magazine this year. We try to run boxscores of those four schools each week and cover their games when they are in the playoffs, although the 24 schools that have been in our coverage area remain our primary focus. Obviously, that's a process that's always evolving, but, at this point, we haven't gone so far as to add those four schools to our full coverage in every sport and their players aren't yet eligible to be on our all-area team; if they were, Loner definitely would have been on there and a contender for player of the year.

Most of the players this year were from Blair County just because those were the best teams and, in our opinion, the best players. One one a PIAA title, one won a D6 title, one made the WPIAL Class AAAA quarterfinals and three of the other five were playoff teams (one that wasn't was Hollidaysburg). That's not typically the case, but we still had three first-teamers from Chestnut Ridge, one from Bedford, two from Central Cambria, two from Portage and one from Huntingdon, and I know off the top of my head there were kids on the second team from Tussey and Moshannon Valley as well.

We try to select players based on merit, not what school they attend. A Blair County player isn't getting more consideration than a player from say Northern Cambria.

[DragonsDoExist]

Keep up the good work Phil. Love the Blitz and the weekly coverage is outstanding!

[PCmor]

Thanks for the kind words. I'll pass them along to the staff. We have a lot of guys who I think do a great job (Buck Frank, Scott Franco, Todd Irwin, Mike Boytim, John Hartsock, Nate Ritchey, Judd Manning, etc.) when it comes to our scholastic coverage that a lot of people probably aren't really aware of. It really is a team effort.

[sportswatcher]

The Altoona Mirror does a great job of covering area sports. Most of the teams are not from Blair county. The Altoona Mirror also does a very well at giving their awards on merit and not location of the school. If you look at the major award winners the past few years, a large portion goes to players outside of Blair county. Congratulations to the Mirror staff for their excellent work and to all area athletes recognized by the Altoona Mirror.

[Manfred]

Mr. PCmor, thank you for your explanation, and for the extended coverage given to the 4 aforementioned border teams. I've looked forward to the Blitz since its inception. It, like a lot of things from the I 99 corridor, is superior to what we have on this side of the mountain. In an ideal world, our locals would emulate you folks over there, and we would have a comparable product and services. There are a few individuals who will now read what I've said and think I'm taking shots at them, maybe personally, and that isn't the case. I want as good as you deliver, on my side of the mountain. Unfortunately, due to circumstances beyond my control, I obviously will never see it come to pass. I used to read as many as 5 different papers every day, and the Mirror Sports was better than any, including the Harrisburg Patriot and Greensburg/ Pittsburgh Tribune Review. I close with keep up the good work and setting a high bar. And maybe increase sales/ coverage over our way.

[HSfan]

Great coverage on the 28 teams during the season by the AM. I now look at the AM on-line, but before this year I drove to a Sheetz at US 22 and PA 271 on Saturdays.

Note, all 24 teams had a player on the First, Second or Third All-Area team.

[WPIAL~Titan]

The AM does a fabulous job covering HS sports, and in my opinion should be a award winning publication for their tremendous work.

I've lived all over the Commonwealth, and the only other newspaper that's close to the quality and depth of coverage of HS sports is the Butler Eagle, who does a great job covering Butler Area, Seneca Valley, and Mars Area high schools. John Enrietto is the writer there, and is at EVERYTHING.

The T-D USED to have a much more informative HS sports section and they had an excellent sportswriter in Ken Horoho. Since Ken retired, it hasn't been the same.

[knowitall]

The T-D USED to have a much more informative HS sports section and they had an excellent sportswriter in Ken Horoho. Since Ken retired, it hasn't been the same.

Ken Horoho was before your time

[Manfred]

The T-D hasn't been the same in my opinion, since Joe Gordon left, and I never met the man. The city was twice as big then, a more bustling economy, more employees, less concern with the "bottom line".

[knowitall]

It is an OK small town paper that probably needs to condense its coverage area.

There are days when I use it to swat a fly. The fly just laughs at me and says is that all you got?