Hiring standards for stringers for high school sports

We were fortunate to have several really good stringers over the years, people like teachers, a corporate PR guy and college students from a local journalism program. Then there was this older guy who retired to our area and approached our SE about stringing games. He first informed the SE that he was a better writer than anybody on our staff (from his clips, he was not), then when he was sent to cover a fairly insignificant prep game, totally ghosted us. He had been given, say, an 11 p.m. deadline. He didn't answer his phone, so I called the coaches and got enough for a brief. When the ASE reached him the next morning, his excuse was 1) he was tired and wanted to go home and go to bed, and 2) he figured his deadline was 11 a.m. Saturday, but would be a couple of hours late getting his story in. No surprise here, but we didn't call him again.

Edit - At least the guy didn't die as what happened to Playthrough.

 

to cover high school games? Just doesnt seem like the maturity to cover ones peers would be there at 16-17.

yes some kids will be capable but I also think it risks looking unprofessional to the coaches. We’re trying to replace a 20-year vet that stepped away with a child? Doesnt look great

 

I'm with Jimmy.

Are there people that age that are mature enough and dependable enough to handle it? Sure. But they are in the minority, in my experience. There's a hell of a lot of college-age students who aren't that mature and dependable.

 

The best case scenario is that you get the fresh-faced youngster mentioned on P1 of this thread, or to humblebrag for a moment here, someone like me for a year or two. When I first moved to Texas in 2019, I didn't have a job, since my wife was the one with the big time gig we were moving for. I worked as a reporter for about a dozen years in Rhode Island, but almost no one is hiring full-time in journalism at this point. So, I jumped on a freelance posting on this board from my area, and did it for one school year. (I think I did an OK job - really liked the sports editor I was working for, great dude, but the paper was a mess and they still owe me like $200. The check was due like the first or second month of covid, and I had finally gotten a full-time gig, so I didn't press much for it.) However, I pretty much stopped doing it once I got a decent writing job.

In the past, I was one of the people who would screen the sports freelancer applications for our region of Patch, and it was a very mixed bag. Ultimately, our two best freelancers were the two types I described in the preceding paragraph. One was a high school student that loved sports, very organized, good work ethic - he eventually went to Marquette and last I knew, he was working for NBA teams. The other guy was someone I knew from college who had gotten laid off, produced good copy, but eventually got a full-time job on the copy desk of a newspaper.

As a result, I'd say that for any freelancing position? Cast the widest net possible. I also had to hire freelance news reporters and opinion columnists at Patch, and from resume and interview alone, it was very hard to tell who would be good or bad. Our hardest working contributor that got the best feedback was a mother with 8 kids, no college degree, but an inexhaustible Tracey Flick / Leslie Knope type that did features and profile pieces. The woman with a writing degree from Brown? Technically precise, but awful with deadlines and zero idea of what resonated with an audience. As others have mentioned, do your best to give them a low stakes assignment at first, something you can completely kill / don't need, if it turns out to be trash.

 

Right and to be honest the odds of finding the lottery ticket high schooler just seem lower, and with all the stuff on our plates I dont want to take the chance of having it go shit side up and needing a new one week 2

 

Agree 100%.

I recall my former shop hiring someone who had written for a decent sized college paper and was taking a “gap year” living back home, due to some sort of family health situation. So to keep his hand in writing, he agreed to cover some high school football games for us in addition to his daytime job.

First week went OK with decent copy and usable stats (I was working the desk). Week 2 the SE needed him to cover a game at his alma mater — would that be a problem? No, he assured us.

When he files the story, it’s awful with a few rambling quotes from the coach and almost no game details. We found out later that our stringer spent most of the game in the stands catching up with old friends.

 

There are some Podunk Presses I'm aware of that use high school students and the situation is, to be nice, awkward. To be blunt: unprofessional. But those publishers don't care.

The youngster I was blessed to find (he actually found me) was already well-known to several area coaches because he played middle school sports and the family owned a prominent business. The kid didn't have the physical ability to excel at the high school level and knocked on a door, so to speak.
Rare, sure, but this kid had credibility with coaches because he could comprehend what he had just witnessed and asked reasonable questions. Plus, the coaches liked his agreeable personality ... he wasn't an arrogant little turd. Another additional asset was the guy was pretty well-versed in not only local sports history, but university and pros.
Yes, the odds are slim you'll find someone like him. However, start a conversation. As stated above, won't take long to figure out if the person is a prospect or not.

 

I tried to string for my daily McClatchy metro when I was in high school. Plan was nixed when the coverage coordinator found out I was 16.

 

Bernstein started at 16. What gives? Very cool you gave it a shot.
My kid was 16 when we found each other.

 

When I think back to some of the stringers we used, here are the current jobs of guys who I remember (from back in the '70s/'80s):
national baseball reporter for a large metro, assistant sports editor of a large metro, 30-year baseball writer who successfully retired, columnist for a large metro who is now a columnist for The Athletic.

Sadly, our standards dropped considerably. We had rules that our stringers had to be high school grads currently attending college (JCs counted), they couldn't cover the high school they attended, and a few other stipulations. Eventually, we were lucky to be able to get high schoolers who could only cover their own school. We got complaints from one coach that the high school kid covering his own school was too critical of his classmates. We had a guy covering a game who suffered a severe asthma attack and they had to stop the game so an ambulance could take him to a hospital. One guy came running into the office apologizing for being late and handed us a hand-written story -- he didn't know how to type.

 

It's probably asking too much, for sure in the OP's situation, but instead of throwing someone to the wolves, is a job shadow a possibility? Just so they can see what they're getting into (and what you may be getting)?

When I covered a juco in Central California on the mid-90s, had a game in Hayward. One of the writers from that area was talking about interviewing potential preps stringers and says she was asked "I don't get to cover the Raiders?"

 

Absolutely a case-by-case sort of thing. I KNOW that some high schoolers are equal to the task. I was. I was covering high school football by 15, semi-pro football by 16.

So yes, a teenager could turn out to be a fine stringer. Some will; some won't.