Before parents and high school sports boosters accuse me of having no regard for the importance of school athletics, let me say that I love to watch high school sports, such as football and basketball, as much as the next person.

But what Bangor’s WABI-TV is doing makes no practical sense to me.

Bumping live coverage of the NCAA basketball tournament’s regional finals on Saturday in favor of live coverage of some high school all-star basketball games is like pre-empting a World Series game for a Little League all-star playoff.

Actually, it’s not. The Little League game would at least count for something – the right to advance in the playoffs. These high school basketball games, the McDonald’s Senior All-Star Games, count for nothing. They’re just exhibition games.

That’s not to say they’re not worthwhile. But their importance isn’t enough to warrant displacing coverage of one of the most appealing and followed sports events of the year.

Let’s examine each event on its merits:

Aside from the Super Bowl, the NCAA Tourney may just be the sports event with the most wide-ranging appeal and popularity – even among non-sports fans. Just stop and think how many casual and non-sports fans participate in tourney office betting pools around the country.

The McDonald’s games are appealing to a fairly limited audience – high school sports boosters, players’ families and friends, and college coaches and scouts.

The NCAA Tournament games obviously count for something. Teams are battling for the right to advance to the Final Four, where an appearance earns teams respect, national exposure, big money, an invaluable recruiting edge, and the chance to win a monumental honor called a NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP.

There’s nothing on the line in the McDonald’s games. They provide their participants some exposure, albeit in-state, as well as respect. They are also a worthwhile way for Ronald McDonald Charities to earn exposure and financing.

Just to see if other CBS affiliates are opting out of NCAA games, I placed a call to Preston Farr, CBS’ managing director of affiliate relations.

“It (WABI) is basically the only one,” said Farr. “There is another one in the Midwest not covering them – for the same reason – because they’re carrying local high school action.”

Farr said the two stations were the only CBS affiliates not carrying the NCAA games out of between 190 to 200. He also explained that WABI had to ask permission to do so and that CBS only grants that permission if the substitute programming is a local sports event.

“It’s unusual, but local TV coverage is the basic guiding principal of local TV stations,” Farr added.

Local coverage is important, and I don’t begrudge WABI for the reasons behind its decision: a long history of providing coverage to local sports, the fact that some of the McDonald’s players from smaller schools deserve some TV exposure they would not ordinarily get, and a desire to gain some publicity for a worthwhile charitable organization.

But it seems that a compromise beneficial to both NCAA Tourney fans and the McDonald’s folks could have been struck.

Perhaps WABI could have shown the NCAA games live and the McDonald’s games on a tape-delay basis. Or maybe the McDonald’s people could have scheduled the games for a different weekend. Maybe this is all the result of conflicting schedules and won’t happen again.

Let’s hope so. There are probably a lot of fans who would like to see both events, but won’t be able to. – – –

Saturday’s NCAA West and Southeast regional final games will not be shown on local TV. WVII-TV in Bangor showed interest in acquiring the games, but could not because of prior commitments to network programming, chief among them the Dinah Shore Golf Classic.

“We wanted to try and get them, but are unable to do it because of our schedule,” said Jim Reed, WVII’s program director.

There will be no access to the tournament over the radio waves either. WZON of Bangor (620 AM) is also covering the McDonald’s games (A-B boys and girls) and joining the NCAA games in progress, if they’re still going on. – – –

WABI (910 AM) radio of Bangor will not air Friday’s University of Maine-Fordham baseball game. Another game will be broadcast later in the season.