KEN GRAHAM: ON SPORTS

So you say you want to learn to be a more humble person? May I suggest publishing a newspaper?

Everyone makes mistakes of course, but ours are printed in permanent ink - more than a thousand times. The closest we can come to fixing our printed mistakes is a mea culpa like this.

Last week in the Times sports section I called the Waitsburg-Prescott soccer team the "Pirates" - in a headline and several times in the short article that followed. I knew full well that they are the Tigers, but it was late and I was tired, and that's the only excuse I've got.

My apologies to Coach Mark Grimm and the entire Tiger soccer team. They're having a great start to their year, and they deserve better coverage than that. We promise to try harder to get our facts straight. 12 and 24 Those two numbers look nothing alike, and I'm well aware what jersey numbers Devin Acevedo and Chance Leroue wear when they play football for the WP Cardinals (I checked and that's their name).

Two weeks ago, we ran a photo with a ball carrier who had a big number "12" on his jersey. In the photo caption that I hurriedly wrote as we prepared to go to press, I called that player Chance Leroue, even though I knew that Leroue wears number 24 and Acevedo wears 12.

Again, my apologies to Devin and Chance and the entire WP Cardinals team.

We consider it an honor to be able to cover high school sports in the Touchet Valley, and we know that readers rely on us to find out what's going on with our local teams. Despite the recent stupid errors, I and the rest of the staff here at The Times really do take that job seriously. We'll try to do better.