Quotes about the Advertiser coverage

About their special 8-page preview section before the UW game and another 8-page special section after the game, HA Sports Editor Curtis Murayama said:
"You can't overcover a story of this magnitude. I try to put as many people as I can on this judging from the reaction I get from people on the streets, such as family, friends, parents on youth teams, etc. In my experience, the more you give readers, the more they want." (HA)


About how UH's story had to be covered in depth, Ferd Lewis said:
"When a story like this — or the Little Leaguers of a couple years ago — captures the imagination of a whole state, it is hard to overdo. I don't think we have reached the saturation point yet. In fact, more and more stories seem to come spinning out of it. We're just trying to keep up." (HA)

HA Note: "We have to cover every angle of this compelling story, not just in sports, but in other sections, as we did all this week with some Page One presence leading up to last night's big game. Selfishly, we know that the success of the teams sells papers and draws online hits. For example, 16 out of our Top 20 online stories between Nov. 18 and 26 were about UH football.

That week we had almost 140,000 page views for UH football stories, 166,000 for Stephen Tsai's Warrior Beat blog (including almost 1,200 comments the day of and after the Boise State game), 140,000 page views for football photo galleries and 26,000 video streams. In addition, we sold 8,500 extra newspapers the day after the game.

The work is not easy. Tsai, for example, worked 12 hours on Thanksgiving Day to write his stories, missing dinner with his family. On game days at home, he and Lewis write their stories as the action progresses. By the time the game ends, they have about 10 minutes to file for our Neighbor Island edition and about 40 minutes for our O'ahu edition. Lewis wrote more than 50 columns or stories in November. Tsai wrote more than 40 stories and about 40 blog entries, which drew more than 15,000 comments for the month.

Tsai hopes for close games so he can write them quickly. Lewis likes fast games and great storylines (Tyler Graunke filling in for an injured Colt Brennan or Dan Kelly's last-second field goal) so he has the makings of a compelling tale."


About how he was hoping UH would make it to a BCS bowl, Murayama said:
"Since they're this far, it would be a total bummer if UH doesn't advance to a BCS bowl. This is once-in-a-lifetime. I want a victory regardless of all the work that we have to put in. In our office, we all cheer for UH." (HA)