The lost art of the 'gamer'

After a 7-year absence, tonight I am back at covering prep football as a reporter. The last few years, I was a desk monkey and only wrote small recaps from the phone.
The local city weekly posted they needed a writer for the games and I sent in my resume. She actually called me to make sure I understood this wasn't a full-time position, just a freelance spot and just for football. I said I knew and she was blown away someone with 20-plus years wanted to do it for peanuts. hahaha

This will also be the first time I have no deadline pressure. My deadline is Monday, 9 a.m. LOL I'm actually going to meet the coach after Saturday film to get quotes. I'll just talk to the kids after the game. I'm looking forward to actually having a narrative to the game, not just play-by-play. It should be fun to write "gamers" although it's not the traditional version.

 

For close to two decades, we would tailgate in the parking lot after deadline on football Friday nights. Grill, beer, assorted goodies.

It became so popular that when out-of-town writers came in to cover a game, they'd often file from our office and join us for the tailgate.

 

At the late, often great Dallas Times Herald, we used to do that in the parking garage next to the building. No grills, but plenty of beer, snacks and great conversation. Sometimes we'd be there until about 4 a.m. (which could be problematic because several of us had to be back Saturday in the early afternoon to prepare for the college football crunch).

This thread is a reminder how different things will be at work tonight from a desk perspective. Staffing of live games for print at our shop is down to a bare minimum because of early deadlines. Yes, it's less work, less stress and Fridays now will be more like every other night, but it's also a stark reminder of the changes in the business.

 

Tonight's high school design work likely will involve Sports centerpiece, one other staffed game and a roundup inside.

A far cry from doing a sports centerpiece and 3 open pages inside for one edition . . . and then changing your centerpiece to a bordering county's big game and doing 3 different open pages inside with that county's games for the next edition.

 

This thread is almost making me nostalgiac for football Friday nights. Almost.

 

A couple of outlets around here asked me if I'd string for them this fall. I told them I'd rather just go watch my old high school team play as a fan. I've rediscovered how cool that can be.

Well, it's partly that ... and partly because of how this thread started, the death of the game story. I don't want to go to tweet, put together a video and write a five-highlight blurb on the game.

 

"Hey bro you forgot to tell him how Joey Star Running Back wasn't really sick last week, he got suspended for showing up to school drunk!"

 

For the better part of three decades, nearly every Friday night from early September through mid-December, I was out covering a high school football game. I'm going on four years of strictly news-side work at my current paper, and it became obvious to me a couple of years ago that — in case I had any notion otherwise — I've written my last prep gamer. Our sports editor was showing me how he and his staff work a game: left hand holding up a smartphone (horizontally, of course), recording video of each play, in case it's a big one. Right hand scribbling play-by-play notes and stats. Laptop on for Twitter and other things. Post short videos when possible. Write a gamer, post a relevant video and social-media links.

I remember that the stat-keeping system I learned at 22, while being the best I've ever seen, keeps a person busy right up until the next snap for every play of an entire game. There's no chance I could cover a game the way they do and write a decent gamer. Just not wired that way. My hat's off to people who can multitask like that and produce quality work without going insane.

 

The writers at my old paper are discouraged from keeping live stats. That is supposedly secondary to the tweeting, videography, etc.

They're just supposed to pick up a few odd numbers from the home-team stats guy after the game and rely on him to call in the box.

 

This is probably my clearest indication that prep game coverage has gone down the shitter.

Twenty percent of those guys think you record punt yardage from the point of kick.