Driving me bananas

Unfortunately, all of this effort to put some stats into gamers is like pissing upstream. Does little to develop writing skills on stories that will entice readers, and does not enhance a reporter's ability to report a story.

 

Be thankful your new hire is at least motivated.

I'm still a little confused about how high school sports are available so broadly. Can't find that on "SportsCenter" most of the time. But we also don't go beyond a basic scoring summary for football, and no box scores anymore for anything else (except agate sports like swimming, track, tennis, etc.)

Does the kid need more practice doing features? Or feature-style gamers? That's the best way I know of telling the story of what happened with minimal stats. But stories like that require homework beforehand, quite possibly keeping one's own season-long stats if there aren't reliable sources available. (MaxPreps is essentially worthless around here.)

If there's something specific you want him to do (or not do), you've got to tell him, clearly and unequivocally. After all, you're the boss.

 

This is maybe the most important thing said in this thread.

 

Yep. Does exactly the opposite, in that it forces the reporter not to see the forest for the trees.

The full-on stats/running used to have value because it was teaching a reporter something to know for his/her entire career. But none of that is required anymore, from the low college level on up. I used to see old salts still charting NFL games in the press box in the early 2000s and I couldn't figure out why, since PXP and full stats came at the end of every quarter.

It's an anachronism and a sign of assigning editors who don't want to adapt, not a mark against a young reporter.

 

Keeping stats during the game can be tough, especially in the flow of the game. Some paper required them. But even if they don't, it is good to have the details and good experience in keeping them. I worked with a highly respected sports editor/writer who kept his own stats at college games even though they were provided by the school. If you don't keep detailed stats, are they available from a manager or coach?You could ask for the leaders' full stats. And with technology now, they might be readily available electronically. Have you sat side-by-side with him at a game?Regarding Twitter, I really resent people who constantly tweet about a game and link it to their Facebook account.

 

Look, we're working it out, but it is the disconnect between me and him that I find so interesting and difficult and I was interested in everybody's viewpoints and I thank everybody for them. HOWEVER, there is now a disconnect between the points I have tried to make and many of the responses. Those who believe I want a stats heavy, play by play game story are crazy. I haven't written that way in more than 20 years. I just want the best possible game story I can get, and I want it to be clear that THE AUTHORITY on the schools and one university we cover is our newspaper. If you can write a great story without complete information, terrific; you fake it very well. But I don't want to fake it.

I've taken a piece of the story I wrote from my prep girls game last night. I've changed the name of the schools and players, but I want to make my point that I want who, what, WHY, where and HOW, and WHAT IT MEANS. I don't want the kind of game story so many seem to be mistakenly thinking I want. Enjoy.

-------------------
Already, the Podunk girls know that they do right and what they do wrong.

What the Podunk girls did right Friday at the Podunk Gym, led by senior post Jane Doe, was enough to knock off Podunk East 52-39. What they did wrong might well get them beat the next time out, at Podunk West Tuesday.

“Against the best teams in our class,” Podunk coach John Smith said, “all the things we’re messing up we need to clean up if we want to compete.”

Narrowed down to two issues, they are turnovers and free-throw shooting, a couple of things that would seem to be mostly within the Podunk’s control.

They have a season to figure it out.

Doe was everywhere Tuesday, finishing with 18 points and 14 rebounds, with 11 of those boards coming after the half.

She scored on putbacks, she scored in the post, she scored when the ball simply found her. She grabbed rebounds by getting position, she grabbed them through sheer anticipation and she grabbed them on both ends of the floor: eight defensive, six offensive.

“I just hope that my effort is contagious,” she said. “I think it’s showing.”

While the Podunkers turned the ball over 24 times, the Podunk Easters did 22 times. Many of the Podunk Easters’ were forced by constant Podunk pressure. Meanwhile, many of Podunk’s occurred when Doe’s teammates tried to throw her the ball when she simply wasn’t available.

While Doe wants her effort to inspire her teammates, Smith would love it if Doe’s hardwood IQ might catch on in the same way.

“She is by far the smartest kid I’ve ever coached,” he said. “She has an unbelievable feel for the game.”

The Podunkers would have won by more had they made more than 8-of-16 free throws, and Doe was a part of that, too, making just 2 of 6. It’s an old struggle for her, one she’s battling to get beyond.

“I go 9 for 10 every day in practice,” she said. “But there’s someone in my head that tells me not to make them in games.”

If Doe can get the voice out of her head and her teammates can quit seeing her when she’s not there, who knows where the Podunkers might go this season?

--------------------

 

The only stat you couldn't have gotten from the teams was maybe turnovers, and it didn't add much.

Your stats aren't authoritative. If you say the girl had 14 rebounds and the team says 16, nobody is going to believe you. And more to the point, nobody is much going to care who's right.

 

The team doesn't say anything, and we don't have time to get everything from the team. There's a boys game starting in 10 minutes. And we have to get back to the office to take a couple calls and roundup some other stuff. This ain't a weekly you know? Until the next day, I'm afraid we're the authority; and pretty much every day, because the team doesn't own a newspaper … I try to write very authoritatively. I think there's value in it and I think it gives even the folks who were at the game something to look forward to. They may have seen it, but it's still for the paper to define it. I believe in that. I always have. And to do that, you need to know what happened. You need to know the rebounding totals, the turnover totals, maybe the shooting percentage. You may never use it, but you have to know it. Maybe I'm older school than I realize.

 

You don't ***need*** to know that (especially shooting percentage, there is no expectation of that from your readers on a high school game story).

Sorry, man. In the halcyon days when you had three hours to focus on the game alone and your only priority was the one deadline for the dead-tree paper, AND when it was vital training because your reporter was going to need to chart his own stats as he progressed in the business, this made sense. In these days when there are other priorities and the print edition is way down that list (despite what you might think), it doesn't make sense.

If you're doing something these days that's the way you learned it 25 years ago, the predisposition should be to assume that it isn't the way to do it anymore. That isn't always the case, of course, but it's hard to think of something in journalism where the technique is the same after all that time.

 

I don't understand many of you. The original poster is right. You've got to have fricking stats of a high school game. Like he said, the players in high school and coaches don't say squat. The coach is either "proud of the effort" or he has "found many areas we need to get better." The kids? Bless 'em but they aren't saying anything of note 90 to 95 percent of the time. My gosh you need stats. And you have to keep them. I am NOT old school on this. What value to a newspaper are stupid tweets in a fricking high school game?? Give the halftime score on twitter and the final. You people act like Twitter is making money for newspapers. There's NO REASON to tweet much at a high school game.

 

And to all the non-stat lovers ... those who want to write a "good story" on a kid or something at the game. Well, what if the kid you are writing about scores 40, 50, 60 points? How are you going to know what great thing the kid did if you don't have his stats?? The only way to get it right is keep the stats yourself. High school writers must keep stats to figure out who the hell to write about. What if a kid has a triple double for gosh sake? Only way to find out is if you keep the stats yourself.

 

I don't think people here are arguing that you shouldn't keep any stats, rather which stats to keep track of. Obviously you're going to keep track of points scored and likely turnovers and rebounds. The argument is whether you should be trying to also track shooting percentage, etc. on top of keeping track of play by play.

Honestly, I'd be surprised if a majority of high school teams don't have a coach on the bench keeping track of all the stats, including shooting percentage. A little research before a game to find out if either team does do that, and thus have instant stats immediately after the game, can go along way in figuring out whether as a reporter if you need to keep track of more than points, rebounds and play by play.