High school coaches and many others involved with sports are a big help to the newspaper.

We ask a lot out of coaches so that we can highlight the teams, players and coaches and to put the best sports section together possible to keep everybody informed about how things are going with the teams in Washington Parish.

Before the season, we are asking for schedules and rosters. Once the season gets under way, we are asking for results and stats on games we do not attend. Those are sent by coaches or somebody involved with the team that has the stats. Let’s face it, sometimes, there are games you just want to forget and those you want to celebrate, but they work with us time-after-time.

After the game, we are asking for interviews with the coaches — and sometimes the players — to get their feelings about what went right, what went wrong, players that stepped up or a game-changing moment.

Their comments help make the article better, because the readers get to see things from their perspectives.

With football being a weekly sport, it is about previews each week. Usually around mid-July, we are working with coaches to get the football tab together that comes out each August — featuring team pictures, individual photos, schedules and preview articles with quotes from the coaches about their team.

Then after games, we have a tight deadline on Friday nights, so a lot of times, we are doing interviews just minutes after games end and they are willing to work with us to get that done.

The work coaches do for their schools, for their teams, the long hours, the travel and how well they work with us never goes underappreciated. We are thankful for all of their help and those involved with teams that work with us, day-in and day-out.