Blogwatch: Internet a great way to follow your team

When the designers of the Internet were plugging away, writing millions and millions lines of code, I bet they never thought the second-most popular use of their labor would be to keep track of Cougars football.

OK, before you start firing off letters to the editor, I admit I don’t have any figures to back up that statement. I’ll even admit it’s not true.

But following sports – and following your favorite team – has to be one of the favorite pastimes on the Net. If you cast far enough, you can catch just about any piece of information you need about your favorite team – whether it is the Cougars, the Huskies or even the Banana Slugs of UC Santa Cruz (check out www.ucsc.edu/ about/campus_mascot.asp. for some info).

Saturday I started swimming in that sea. And I felt like a sardine in a school of sharks.

But the sardine survived.

Minutes after the Cougars finished walloping their neighbors to the east, a story about the game appeared on our sports Web site ( www.spokesmanreview.com/sports/). As the evening wore on, the story grew in length and complexity, as more information became available.

It was updated seven times by 7 p.m.

That wasn’t all the on-line news coming out of Pullman that day, however.

Before the game, there were comments and information posted to the SportsLink blog ( www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/sportslink/) as well as All Cougs, All the Time ( www.spokesmanreview.com/ blogs/wsu/) you wouldn’t find anywhere else. The commentary flowed all afternoon.

By the end of the day, there were 14 posts about the Palouse showdown consisting of more than 2,800 words, at least 11 of which were interesting – my personal favorites: divide, corralled and twisted.

And the best part about it?

We get to do it all over again Saturday, this time from Qwest Field, as the Cougars play host to Baylor in their annual Seattle game.

Quick fact: Baylor is believed to be the only university to have two former athletes win the Medal of Honor. John Kane and Jack Lummus earned the medal in World War II after having played football and basketball in Waco.

Before Saturday’s game we’ll have facts and comments at SportsLink; afterward, the story will be posted on our Web site. Click in and read.

The topic is transfers

One of the better discussion this past week on SportsLink and Mike Vlahovich’s Prep Report ( www.spokesmanreview.com/blogs/preps/) concerned student-athletes who transfer high schools.

Mike elaborated on the thoughts he articulated in last Thursday’s Prep Page, I gave my view and you commented on both.

The readers’ comments were well thought out, reasoned and persuasive. Ours were long.

The discussion is still on-going, so join in on either blog. Just find the posts about transferring.