University of Kentucky beat, Louisville, KY

So what's sparing Louisville the Boots-bashing that Jacksonville's taking on another thread?

Doesn't anyone out there think the city of Louisville sucks?

 

I've been to Jacksonhell. The only things Jacksonville has in its favor are the NFL and the beach.

 

Completely irrelevant. The job is in Lexington.

 

No, actually. When I was in Louisville a couple times I enjoyed it.

 

Not really.

 

According to Dr. Hunter S. Thompson, if you are gay you may want to avoid Louisville:

"Look." He tapped me on the arm to make sure I was listening. "I know this Derby crowd, I come here every year, and let me tell you one thing I've learned--this is no town to be giving people the impression you're some kind of faggot. Not in public, anyway. Shit, they'll roll you in a minute, knock you in the head and take every goddam cent you have."

 

More on Louisville from Hunter S.

"But Steadman was already in the press box when I got there, a bearded young Englishman wearing a tweed coat and RAF sunglasses. There was nothing particularly odd about him. No facial veins or clumps of bristly warts. I told him about the motel woman's description and he seemed puzzled. "Don't let it bother you," I said. "Just keep in mind for the next few days that we're in Louisville, Kentucky. Not London. Not even New York. This is a weird place. You're lucky that mental defective at the motel didn't jerk a pistol out of the cash register and blow a big hole in you." I laughed, but he looked worried.

"Just pretend you're visiting a huge outdoor loony bin," I said. "If the inmates get out of control we'll soak them down with Mace." I showed him the can of "Chemical Billy," resisting the urge to fire it across the room at a rat-faced man typing diligently in the Associated Press section. We were standing at the bar, sipping the management's Scotch and congratulating each other on our sudden, unexplained luck in picking up two sets of fine press credentials. The lady at the desk had been very friendly to him, he said. "I just told her my name and she gave me the whole works."

***

Later Friday afternoon, we went out on the balcony of the press box and I tried to describe the difference between what we were seeing today and what would be happening tomorrow. This was the first time I'd been to a Derby in ten years, but before that, when I lived in Louisville, I used to go every year. Now, looking down from the press box, I pointed to the huge grassy meadow enclosed by the track. "That whole thing," I said, "will be jammed with people; fifty thousand or so, and most of them staggering drunk. It's a fantastic scene--thousands of people fainting, crying, copulating, trampling each other and fighting with broken whiskey bottles. We'll have to spend some time out there, but it's hard to move around, too many bodies."

"Is it safe out there?" Will we ever come back?"

"Sure," I said. "We'll just have to be careful not to step on anybody's stomach and start a fight." I shrugged. "Hell, this clubhouse scene right below us will be almost as bad as the infield. Thousands of raving, stumbling drunks, getting angrier and angrier as they lose more and more money. By midafternoon they'll be guzzling mint juleps with both hands and vomitting on each other between races. The whole place will be jammed with bodies, shoulder to shoulder. It's hard to move around. The aisles will be slick with vomit; people falling down and grabbing at your legs to keep from being stomped. Drunks pissing on themselves in the betting lines. Dropping handfuls of money and fighting to stoop over and pick it up."

He looked so nervous that I laughed. "I'm just kidding," I said. "Don't worry. At the first hint of trouble I'll start pumping this 'Chemical Billy' into the crowd."

 

What kind of experience/candidate would they be looking for in a job like this? I've been covering local sports for a small paper for three years since graduating, but already won two awards. One from the state baseball coaches association and another from a state association.

I've covered the state's university a few times, too. Are they pretty open to candidates at Louisville? I have mostly high school coverage experience, but I seriously know everything about college basketball. I could definitely excel at this position.

 

I think they would consider a stud whose primary experience has been covering high schools --- but likely only from a major metro, and one with an APSE award or two in tow.

 

HST never went to Connection. Neither have I.

Not that there's anything wrong with that.

 

Or a heavy-hitting internship or two.

Other than that, methinks college beat experience will be a requirement ... big difference between the prep beat and going against Mr. Tipton.

 

That is extremely unfair of them if that's how they think of it when they are looking to hire somebody. There are many people capable of working at that paper on that beat. I bet I watched 200 college basketball games last year. I guarantee I know more about the Kentucky Wildcats than 99 percent of the applications - and I'm not even a Kentucky fan!

Let me ask you this - how is someone supposed to receive "college beat experience" if "experience" is a requirement of every one of those jobs that is posted!

It would be nice to see someone like the Louisville Courier-Journal take a gamble with someone who's work is outstanding and deserves a shot.