The reason for that emphasis is easy to understand: Prep sports are important to parents of those who play them, as well as to the families at the schools where they are played; the only place to find comprehensive coverage of these sports is in the family newspaper.

"High school athletics are a cornerstone of newspaper sports sections just as they are a cornerstone of community life," said Tribune Deputy Editor Tim Fitzpatrick.

In the early 1990s, even more emphasis on these sports showed up in The Tribune. Sports staffers were like wild men and women on Friday nights as scores and summaries of high school games poured through the phone lines.

Now through the infinite space available on the World Wide Web, The Tribune is able to offer even more information on prep sports. Take a glance at www.tribpreps.com:

Cool, eh?

And, according to Jim Patrick, assistant sports editor, it will get even cooler as fans and high school sports staffs log on and start making suggestions.

"Our planning began in May when we started talking about how we could conceptually and logistically have a great prep Web site," he says.

Sports staffers peered at other prep Web sites. "They lacked any sort of local flavor and local coverage of teams, including players' names or even just a schedule. Coverage was spotty at best," Patrick says.

He credits Michael Anastasi, managing editor for sports and features, with the vision. "He came up with a dozen different concepts for each team and for each school. We boiled that down and then worked with [Tribune Web producers] Manny Mellor and Antonio Ramirez to create the site."

And Mellor and Ramirez created a site that is intended to grow and change. "We are talking about how we would change the site even next week," Patrick says.

Readers will be able to submit photos or a short story about a team, opening the lines of interactivity.

The site will also include any prep story from The Tribune, including Close-Up articles.

At launch, www.tribpreps.com has stories and statistics, including team schedules, for soccer, volleyball and football. In the next few weeks, stories and other information about cross country and golf will show up.

"The reason we have not spread to all sports at the same time is we are trying to provide analysis for all the volleyball, soccer and football teams. That's more than 300 separate teams we are trying to keep our eye on," Patrick explains.

Reader reaction is welcome and will help to shape the site. "We want reader content. We want people to get involved. We have a football poll so people can vote on what additional game we should cover in addition to games we already plan to cover," he says.

For Web-savvy coaches and principals, there is a blog to talk to the students, parents and fans.

For information on how to participate, fax a request to 801-257-8950 and the sports staff will send you a reply. E-mail suggestions on the site to jpatrick@sltrib.com.

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* THE READER ADVOCATE'S phone number is 801-257-8782. Write to the Reader Advocate, The Salt Lake Tribune, 90 S. 400 West, Suite 700, Salt Lake City, Utah 84101. E-mail: reader.advocate@sltrib.com.