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Friday said newspapers should go beyond the game coverage to examine the issues behind the escalating "arms race" in sports spending. How much debt is incurred for athletic palaces such as UNC's planned $75 million expansion of Kenan Stadium? What's the cost to taxpayers of subsidizing scholarships to athletes by giving them in-state tuition status? What's the cost of tutoring programs for athletes? "Let's do a little bit more definitive reporting on what's going on behind the picture," he said.

The N&O did just that kind of reporting Friday with an article by reporter Robbi Pickeral examining whether private donations for Davis' salary will give boosters more influence over athletics decision-making. That story ran on the Sports front, appropriately, I thought.

I looked back over the papers for November, and there were six days when sports stories were on page one. Most were legit front-page stories -- the fact that the majority of ACC basketball coaches now are African-American, the surprising success of the N.C. Central football team, Carolina's suddenly escalated football coach salary.

The coaching shuffles at UNC and State also merited the front, given the reader interest, but not necessarily the World War III treatment they got in terms of headline size, picture and display.

And I agree with the readers who questioned the editors' front-page signal-calling Thursday. N.C. State's reported hiring of the Boston College coach made page one, while the Iraq Study Group report got only a summary that sent readers to page 3A for the story. (The Boston Globe, I noted, did the reverse -- Iraq on page one, with a teaser inside to the Boston College coach leaving.)

"Certainly I could turn to page 3," wrote Tarboro reader Bill Smythe, "but I don't understand why a newspaper of The N&O's stature wouldn't make it top front-page news."

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