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Tulsa World coverage


Old Titan

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After last week's exhibition victory over Central Oklahoma, I was terribly disappointed with what I viewed as our lack of coverage in the Sunday Tulsa World, especially in comparison with a front page story about TU's near loss to Southeastern State. In the heat of the moment, I fired off an e-mail to Mike Strain, the Tulsa World Sports Editor, asking if this was the kind of coverage ORU fans could expect this season (I'm sure those of you who know me are not surprised by the "yell first, ask questions later" approach). Anyway, Mr Strain was kind enough to respond quickly and thoughtfully, and with his permission at my request, his e-mail is posted here for any other ORU fans who were also concerned about that first night's coverage:

Thanks for the note and for reading.

We made the decision to put Tulsa on the cover of Sports section, because it was Wojcik's debut game and the Hurricane very nearly lost. We believed those two factors made the story a good one for the front page.

I agree with you on ORU's talent this year. It's undeniable. I believe this is the year ORU will break through and make the NCAA Tournament. I also believe the Eagles are good enough to advance in the NCAA Tournament.

Mike Brown will be covering ORU again this season. He was on the road for the Tulsa football game last night, so he was unable to attend the ORU basketball game. It was the same situation for Eric Bailey, who will be covering the TU men's basketball team. He was unable to attend the basketball game yesterday, because he was at the football game in El Paso.

Matt Doyle will be covering wrestling this winter, but was filling in on TU men's hoops. Lynn Jacobsen is our women's college basketball writer and was filling in on ORU.

If you wonder about my philosophy about the importance of ORU hoops, I think you can refer back to our coverage of the Mid-Continent basketball tournament last March. We devoted two pages every day to the tournament. In addition, we sent a writer with ORU on the road to Maryland for the NIT game.

Thanks again for writing. I hope the season is a good one. I think with Caleb Green and Ken Tutt, and it's almost assured that will be the case.

I bring this up because I thought today's front page story about our prep signings was outstanding, from both an information and promotion standpoint. I also think we are very fortunate to have Mike Brown as our regular ORU basketball writer, as he obviously takes the job seriously and does an excellent job reporting on the team and dealing with the players and coaches.

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Good post, Old Titan. I'm glad to hear that Mike Brown will be covering ORU basketball again this season. I've felt like he did a really good job covering ORU the past couple of seasons. He seems to get along prettty well with the coaches as well.

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I agree about Brown. He's done a great job the past few seasons (last year especially). Plus it looked as though the TU insert and story was something they had planned for a while not a last minute inclusion.

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Good post, Titan. I'm glad ORU doesn't have punk pushover fans that just roll over when we feel over looked. I'm sure your email let the Tulsa World know that ORU does have a fan base out there that wants to see some coverage. With that said, I too think Mike Brown has done a tremendous job covering our team. We are lucky to have him.

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If any of my TU buddies read what I am about to say, they might get offended, but my intent is not to SLAM TU.

That said, I think the Tulsa World knows that this is going to be another LOOOONG season at 11th & Harvard and with that in mind, they are going to FEATURE Tulsa U. early in the season while there is still hope for success this year. I can assure you that if TU limps to another sub .500 season, which I think they most certainly will, and ORU excels, like I think we will, the coverage we get will DOMINATE the TW sports section in January, February, and March!

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