Dear dimwit on the phone

You answered your own question in your last sentence.

 

Dear dimwit mom,
We didn't mention your kid's touchdown because it came in garbage-time of a 40-point blowout. If your kid was as good as the starter, as you claim, he would rush for 300 yards and six touchdowns. Oh, the coach plays favorites? Yeah, his favorites are players he thinks can win him a state title.

Of course, managing editor sides with mom instead of his staff.

So in today's roundup, I wrote who kicked every PAT to be a smart ass. Probably going to backfire on me. I'll have to get in the long snapper and holder next.

 

Maybe she thought that since she already talked to you about it, you could pitch it to the editor?

 

I'm just a full time employee. I have no power. A caller with a complaint, that's the second most powerful person in the sports department behind the editor.

One time our previous sports editor got a complaint that we weren't doing enough to cover college track and field, and that weekend a stringer was sent to cover the local university's meet, even though there was absolutely nothing important about it. I don't think we've ever had someone cover a college track meet since then.

 

We mention everyone who scored a TD, even in our roundups. It's one or two lines. Not that much skin off your teeth.

 

That's what a box score and scoring summary is for.

 

Yeah, but I'm trying to check these kids' privilege.

 

Not on phone, but if you're an art association and you email a picture of your photo contest winners, you may want to send me one that is in focus.

 

We had something like that several years ago. I was editing our community sports sections and this youth baseball team that had done well in a tournament turned in a team picture. It was taken by a local commercial photographer who also umpired youth and HS baseball. He saw me at a game a few weeks later and complained, with a bunch of people around, that we hadn't run his picture. Mind you, he's a professional, etc. I looked him straight in the eye and told me we didn't run the picture because it was out of focus - badly.

 

Dear dimwit coach,

When we send you an email asking for the numbers of a few of your players we want to call to talk to...don't send their jersey numbers!

 

I covered a HS football game several years ago between one of the teams in our area and a brand new school from halfway across the state. In talking to the other team's coach before the game, I realized I didn't know that team's nickname. "What's your nickname?" I asked. "Most people just call me George," he said. Well, I wasn't specific.

 

I was going to share a similar story in the same situation with a new school. "What's your nickname," I asked. "They call me Gator," or that sort of reply.