Dear dimwit on the phone

Did you tell her that that's the newspaper's style for cutlines and that you'll instruct photographers to never use a picture of him again in fear of getting him made fun of or write about him again in case it might make middle/high school kids made fun of him?

 

When you transcribe the coach's results, you'll have to use (name redacted to prevent humiliation) whenever the kid does something noteworthy.

 

I'm anxiously counting down the days until signing day, just so I can get the complaints about why I wasn't out for signing day. The high schools in my area only out-number me 20-something to one. Plus, it's my day off.

 

Sorry, Bradley, but if you're a prep writer, National Signing Day for football isn't a day off. It's one of the biggest days of the year (at least it is in my neck of the woods) and you just have to suck it up. I sympathize, because Wednesday's supposed to be my day off too, but that's just the way it goes.

 

Our signing day protocol is coverage only for Division I. Everything else is in briefs.

 

can't you take a different day off that week?

I think how signing day gets covered depends on your paper and community. If you are the 3,000 circ. Podunk Press, maybe some guy walking on at the local JUCO down the road gets the star treatment.

If you're the Chicago Tribune with 600 signees in your coverage area at all levels, maybe it's just agate.

 

I agree with this. Our sports guy has four public high schools and a private high school to cover, and they're small to medium-sized schools. Even a player going to play at a D2 or D3 sometimes warrants an actual story vs. just a write-up in the briefs. (However, it's usually a "two birds with one stone" mentality, so it's more of a profile piece as opposed to being just about them committing.)

 

We've tried a bunch of different policies over the years. Anyone who signs D-I, of course, gets the star treatment and any four-year signing has always gotten at least a story. JUCO signings have, at various times, warranted anything from a standalone picture (the grip and grin variety) to a mug and blurb as our player of the day feature. A lot of it depended on how much notice we had from the coaches and whether we could set up a photo.
Our current policy -- and keep in mind we're a sub-10,000 circulation with only a few schools to cover; this certainly wouldn't work at places with even a couple of dozen schools -- seems to be working well. We do a story on all signings as soon as we can. For pictures, we try to get a more newsy picture to run on the front page, then use the traditional grip and grin with the family on the jump. As a story, it's worthwhile, flexible and easy. If the kid warrants a 20-inch feature, it's a good occasion to do it. If they don't talk much or are unremarkable, run through the standard questions and slap together an 8-incher. The assignment only takes about 30 minutes tops, so it's a quick and easy local story you can hold on to for a day if need be.

Football signing day is going to be a bit messy, though. We've got more than a dozen players signing, including a couple of D-I guys. We'll probably do a roundup for each school on Wednesday, then a "signing picture of the day" on top of the agate page for a couple of weeks to clear them all out.

 

We'll go all out for D1 and D2 signings. Juco? No thanks ...

 

As with anything, it depends on where you are. My state is one of the lucky few that has an excellent junior college sports league. A bunch of teams in a number of sports are ranked nationally, and a large number of players have gone on to bigger and better things. There's some caché to playing there (i.e., a lot of guys land there because of grades, not necessarily a lack of talent).
Plus, like I said, it's a cheap and easy local story you can stick in the queue for a day or two and people like and appreciate it. Beats the hell out of a random NBA story on the front page or having to do another story on YMCA basketball.

 

We have an in-town kid signing with the in-town D2 school, so I'm sure that will get some pub (even though we did a short writeup when he verbaled). A couple others in the coverage area are signing with the local school as well. On the D2 school side, we usually just run a press release from the school with all the signings.

The nice thing is that signing day is on Wednesday, when there are never any prep games we have to worry about bumping.

 

Exactly. There's four JCs within about a 50-mile radius from here, as opposed to other areas. Do keep an eye on the state website for potential features, though. I keep D2 in the mix since that's the level most local athletes rise to, plus the closest D2 school (still transitioning from NAIA) has a strong program.