When the final whistle blows and tonight’s high school football games across West Virginia end, celebrations and disappointments will follow. Exhausted players and coaches will trek back to their locker rooms for a quick debrief before heading home or hanging out with friends. Anxious parents who held their collective breath throughout the games will file out of stadiums and start to think about their destinations next Friday night.
But for a few dedicated individuals, the real work is just beginning.
The men and women who cover high school athletics for radio stations, newspapers, television and digital media will spend the next few hours pecking away at their keyboards, editing video and audio, and archiving a piece of local community history.
They put in the long hours and late nights because they love what they do and they love their communities.
Earlier this week, I came across an article posted on “X” that has been widely circulated among the sports media. Leah Lowe, an award-winning sports media professional, posed the question, “Who is covering Friday nights now? The press box is getting quieter.”
The article notes the decline of local newsrooms across the country, specifically the casualties in many sports departments.
High school sports participation is at an all-time high. Local sports journalism staffs are shrinking. A look at the changing business of high school sports media — and what gets lost when local coverage disappears. https://t.co/Tc1MfUGHQm
— Leah Lowe (@Leah2Go) October 3, 2026
Lowe highlights media contraction in Indiana and Kentucky where small newspapers have disappeared and, with them, the articles and box scores that appeared in Saturday morning editions that chronicled the accomplishments of local high school athletes.
However, it’s not all doom and gloom. Lowe notes, correctly, that interest in high school sports is not declining and the current digital media ecosystem lends itself to more coverage of local high school sports.
You can read the article for yourself, but it made me pause and consider how lucky I am to work for a company that not only sees the value in high school sports coverage, but prioritizes the coverage. A MetroNews championship radio broadcast rivals any Power 4 Conference production.
But it’s not just MetroNews.
We’re lucky in West Virginia to have many dedicated people covering our student-athletes who are not just reporters or play-by-play announcers but become unofficial historians and spokesmen for communities.
Tonight, as the sun sets and the Friday night lights shine, there will be radio stations all over the state that break away from regular programming to broadcast their team. Play-by-play announcers will describe the action. Writers and digital media creators will be there to document every play. Television stations will send an army of photographers out, all hoping to get lucky and capture the play of the game as they hustle to multiple games and race back to the station.
And where else could a call-in radio show become a Friday night institution that guarantees to have all the scores from every game before midnight?
So, here’s a shout-out to every play-by-play announcer, color analyst, producer, writer, reporter, content creator, and fan who would rather be at a high school football game tonight than anywhere else.
Thank you… And keep up the good work.