stories that can be saved for publication much later without fear of having them go stale in the interim. It lets them write stuff that the paper can be use in late December while the reporter enjoys some (well-deserved) vacation time.
Pete Tobey of The Post-Star wrote just such a piece, but he used it last month rather than saving for Christmas vacation. And he didn't settle for compiling the top Section 2 football games of 2009 or of the decade. Nope, he put together the best 10 games of the last 40 years.
The winner was Queensbury topping Amsterdam 36-35 in overtime in the 1998 Class A sectional final at Shenendehowa. They were ranked Nos. 1 and 2 in the state at the time, and the game featured eight lead changes. Future NFL players Adam Terry of Queensbury and Josh Beekman of Amsterdam went head-to-head.
You can read the whole compilation and also check out reader feedback here, here and here.
A new low in taste: The bar has been lowered, and I'm pretty sure the next person to move it lower will be eyeball-to-eyeball with Satan.
An Iowa student was banned from high school sports this week for taunting a crowd of students who are mourning a string of teenage suicides, and more sanctions could be forthcoming if school officials verify witness accounts that two or more Waukee students pointed index fingers to their heads and pulled an imaginary trigger, among other gestures, in Tuesday's game in Waukee.
"A whole bunch of our students got mad, and some of the cheerleaders started crying," Southeast Polk senior Tanner Johnson told The Des Moines Register "You just don't joke about that."
Waukee school administrators apologized immediately for the incident, which came a day after authorities found the body of senior Christopher Stumme, 17, the community's fifth teenage suicide in less than two years.
The taunt, which happened late in the fourth quarter, appeared to cap off a tense game that included chants between student fans. "The whole night there was a feud going on," said student Samantha Phillips, who added she saw several Waukee students point index fingers to their heads or gesture as if they were hanging themselves or cutting their wrists.
