When the SID doesn't call you back

My course of action was in the instance the SID completely blows a reporter off.

 

good for you

i find it hard to imagine any sports info office shows more disregard for the media than Penn State's

 

I told the secretary or whoever answered what story I wanted to do and who I needed to speak with about arranging it. I believe I was transferred to the SID's voice mail.

I've waited too long - normally I don't wait two hours for return calls. Calling this dude in his office in a few minutes ...

 

this has nothing to do with your SID, but I'm just happy if the one I work with can get an accurate roster and final box score together.

It's Game 13 (including exhibitions) and we still don't have a media guide and the minutes on the box from last night's game were all messed up because they had a guy who scored four points, had two steals, two rebounds and an assist with zero minutes.

I haven't bothered working through him for an interview in more than a year. He once told me to call coach soandso myself instead of bugging him.

Now, aside from messing up the final box, his biggest asset to us on press row is to order the pregame pizza.

 

I'm glad, house, that you folks do it. I saw too many folks in State College fear picking up the phone and calling him.

 

To try and answer your question Smallpotato, we treat any media request we get the same way, which is to work to help the reporter get the interview they are looking for.

Having been on the other side of it, I know how frustrating it is to not receive consideration or communication. Basically, my goal is to show someone else the courtesy I would want if I was the one making a request.

 

I've had times when I've been so damn busy that it is hard to get all of the media requests done so I understand where you are coming from.

One of my pet peeves is relying on email to make a request because it is very easy to misplace an email request. Call the SID personally and make the request and make sure he/she knows your deadline. If the SID doesn't get it done, then you do what you gotta do.

 

When I was SID-ing, media guides had to be ready in time for media day, a month or so before the season started. I can't imagine the hell I would have been put through had the guides not been ready 13 games into the season.

And I was very, very blessed to have a great table crew to do stats; I know how important that is.

And I also think I did the best job of feeding the media, stat crew, hangers-on when it came to pregame meals. We rarely had pizza; it was almost always a meat-and-potatoes kind of meal. One of the chefs at the arena where we played even used her mama's recipe for spaghetti a time or two. The media loved eating at our place.

And back to the original question: If the SID doesn't call you back, absolutely go around him/her. It's the SIDs job to handle media requests; if that person's not getting the job done, it's shouldn't keep you from doing yours.

 

Yes it is!

 

SIDs are getting worse in my opinion, and it's not really their fault. Seems coaches are getting more and more paranoid/strict with the media, which leaves the SID with little room to maneuver. That said, I wish they'd just come out and say, "I'd like to help ya, but the guy calling the shots is a jerk." Instead, they just dont call ya back.

 

This is a growing problem. Too many SIDs, in my opinion, work for coaches, as opposed to with them. This becomes a real problem because many coaches don't understand how media works at all, which is the primary reason for a lot of the tension that comes up. I feel this is true at all levels.

One of the schools in our conference has a basketball coach that doesn't allow team stats to be posted on the Web site. Why this is acceptable, and why the coach has the clout to make that decision is beyond me.