Most of us know that Coe College is a fine liberal arts school right here in Cedar Rapids, but did you know the Kohawks have students from 20 foreign countries?

Did you know the average GPA of incoming freshmen is 3.7 on a 4.0 scale?

Did you know that half the 1,400 students are from out of state?

Did you know the annual cost (gulp) to attend Coe is $43,590 if you have to pay the full price, although most students receive financial aid?

I've lived in Cedar Rapids since 1982 and thought I knew a little about the college, but I didn't know any of that stuff.

That's one of the many reasons the Metro Sports Report is delighted to be adding Coe College to the lineup of schools and teams we're covering on our website. We'll be learning a lot about the school that's right under our noses, and it's always fun to learn new stuff. And oh yes, the Kohawks have a lot of really good teams and top-notch athletes.

We'll officially add Coe to the lineup on Monday, Jan. 13 with the start of the new semester. The Kohawks have 19 varsity sports, and we'll jump right in with basketball, wrestling, swimming and indoor track.

Coe will share the MSR Home Page with all the other schools and teams we're covering. In addition, the Kohawks will have their own Home Page and their own team pages for all 19 sports as we go along.

Coe is an NCAA Division III college that belongs to the Iowa Conference, which traditionally is one of the top leagues in the country. We'll try to keep a sharp eye on all the Metro high school grads who are competing for the Kohawks, but we'll be covering all the athletes on all the teams, not just the local people.

We launched the Metro Sports Report website on Jan. 3, 2011 with the seven major high schools in Cedar Rapids and Marion. We added Cedar Valley Christian in August of 2011, giving us all eight schools in the Metro area.

Not content to stop there, we added Kirkwood Community College in November of 2012 to give the Eagles the attention they deserve and had been sorely lacking. Then we added the Cedar Rapids Kernels in March of 2013, just in time for their exciting first year with the Minnesota Twins organization, and we added the Cedar Rapids RoughRiders this season.

We've had our eye on Coe all along, but we're a small company and we've had to take one step at a time as we continue to expand. We also have our eye on Mount Mercy University and hope to add the Mustangs in time for the 2014-15 school year.

You may wonder, why Coe now and not Mount Mercy? It's a fair question and deserves an honest answer.

We are very fortunate that two Coe students will be working with us as interns this semester and will help us cover the Kohawks as thoroughly as we possibly can. Their names are Wes Anderson and Kelci de Haas, and they are both communications majors at Coe and come highly recommended with impressive credentials.

We'll be trying to find students at Mount Mercy who can help us cover the Mustangs in the future, but it did not work out this semester.

Wes and Kelci will be working with the rest of our staff as we cover games, write feature stories, stay on top of breaking news and write columns. They are excited about working with the MSR as part of their college education, and we are excited to welcome them aboard.

One of the really fun parts about working with the Metro Sports Report is the interaction we have with the coaches, athletes and fans. We welcome your comments and story ideas, so don't be shy. You'll find my contact information on the Home Page, including my home phone number if you'd like to give a call.

To brag a little, we've had 3,079,724 pageviews on the website as of Dec. 31, 2013. We've had 336,176 unique visitors and 1,148,194 total visits, which we like to think are pretty impressive numbers for a small company that just celebrated its third anniversary.

In addition to story ideas, we'd also welcome your advertising dollars if you'd like to support our efforts and help us cover the Kohawks and everybody else.

We welcome everyone to come along for the ride. It should be fun.