Out-of-hand books cut back (Media Guides)

[MatRatUSF]

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/sfl-guides05aug05,0,7893074.story?coll=sfla-sports-headlines

By Ted Hutton

Staff Writer

Posted August 5 2005

Oklahoma's 2004 football media guide won top prize in the annual contest sponsored by the College Sports Information Directors of America.

The problem was that many of the reporters who covered the Sooners quit hauling the award-winning guide because at 404 pages it was just too bulky.

"I thought we had reached a point where something needed to be done," said Kenny Mossman, Oklahoma's associate athletic director for communications. "The books had gotten completely out of hand."

Mossman has spent the past couple of months cutting 196 pages from last year's guide to get the 2005 version down to 208 pages. He is not doing it on his own initiative, but because the NCAA decided to put a stop to the ballooning guides and adopted the 208-page limit in April.

"Where there is abuse there is regulation," said Steve McClain, the Florida assistant athletic director for sports information who is nearly done chopping 132 pages from the Gators' guide to get it to the new limit.

The genesis for the 208-page limit came a decade ago, when the NCAA said schools could no longer publish separate media guides and recruiting brochures. Only one item could be produced, and that would be the only publication a recruit could receive.

The solution was to combine the two, and the binge began as the media guides quickly became part of the arms race, where colleges try to get an edge in recruiting by a variety of means, whether it be a bigger stadium, new practice facility or producing a bigger media guide.

The page limit came after complaints from mid-level schools about the bigger guides being published in the major conferences.

Missouri's reached 614 pages last year, the unofficial record, and the average Big 12 guide was nearly 400 pages. Florida's was 340 pages and Florida State's 336.

It turns out that at most schools, the media get the fewest copies of the media guide. More make it into the hands of recruits, fans and boosters.

That is why when FSU began looking at what to cut, football Sports Information Director Jeff Purinton went to the coaches who do the recruiting first.

"You've got to have your NFL stuff in there," Purinton said about the advice he was given. "That and facilities, since we have a new weight room and training room."

When told the space given to the biographies of the coaches might get cut, Purinton said the coaches told him to hack away.

"The challenging part is that it is the one printed publication you can put in a recruit's hand. That drives a lot of decisions," McClain said.

Most sports information directors said their athletic department Web sites will be beefed up, and any material cut is being posted there.

Proponents of the page limit cited potential cost cuts as another reason for the rule, saying some schools could save as much as $20,000 by trimming down. How much will be saved is unclear because many schools are still collecting bids for printing.

Oklahoma recovered a lot of its costs by selling its media guide to fans at local bookstores and on its Web site.

"We charged $35 when it was 404 pages, so the price will have to come down now that it will be half the size," Mossman said.

"This is not going to be the financial windfall some say it is," Sun Belt Conference Commissioner Wright Waters said. "Texas is not going to send us their savings on the media guide."

Ted Hutton can be reached at thutton@sun-sentinel.com.

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/sports/sfl-guideside05aug05,0,6865234.story?coll=sfla-sports-headlines

Need help trimming? Consider Fuller

By Ted Hutton

Staff Writer

Posted August 5 2005

Those sports information directors struggling to find a way to cram 400 pages worth of material into the new NCAA limit of 208 might want to give Marty Fuller a call.

Fuller's 2004 Kenyon College football media guide was 36 pages and won fourth place in the College Sports Information Directors of America contest in the Division III and NAIA category.

"They recruit so hard they need whatever edge they can get, so maybe a 27-pound media guide helps," Fuller said about his Division I-A brethren.

Kenyon, a private school with an enrollment of 1,600 in central Ohio, may be small but it has 115 years of football history. The Lords' first win came in 1890 when they beat Ohio State 18-10.

The media guide includes the basics, including season-by-season results and a list of every letter winner in the program's history.

"I doubt we'll ever get over 50 pages," said Fuller, who has been putting together the guide for four years.

Kenyon's media guide cost $2,200 to produce and print, while Michigan State's 300-page volume cost more than $65,000. Fuller said Kenyon printed about 1,500 guides last year.

Florida expects to print 20,000 media guides this year, with 13,000 going to boosters as part of a package of perks for supporting the program and 2,500 going to the football office for distribution to recruits, high school coaches and others.

Like Fuller, Florida Atlantic Sports Information Director Katrina McCormack's summer is free of the angst of editing down a media guide. FAU has been playing for only four seasons, and McCormack used 164 pages to chronicle the team in the 2004 edition. The 2005 edition is expected to be the same.

[USFMikeB]

There was a good story on this a few weeks ago...

[bulls96go]

so how many pages is our's?