First football Friday ...

Our two big local schools start every season with a doubleheader. I just covered the first game, so it wasn't too bad. The bad part came afterward, when I ate some questionable cold cuts in the hospitality tent between games. Felt like my stomach was doing flip-flops for the next three or four hours.
Not good times.

 

My first football friday at this current job isn't until after Labor Day. I'll be covering Cape Henlopen at Indian River, the same two schools that played in my first baseball tuesday.

 

Good news: Football starts deep in the hearta' not till Sept. 1 (or Aug. 31 if you play on Thursday).

Bad news: You get 11 weeks to play 10 regular-season games, and then there are 6 weeks of playoffs till the finals.

Good news: The one state contender we cover got bumped up a class.

Bad news: Basketball for us will start earlier as a consequence.

Good news: We don't cover basketball as closely as football.

 

How about this one? Team A kicks winning field goal as time expires. Our writer asks the kid about how he feels to not even be in the roster on the program printed at the stadium. Kid says: I just joined the team two days ago. So our brilliant writer goes to the other coach and tells him the kicker just joined two days ago. Team B's coach says: Really? Only two days on the team? He doesn't have IHSA-mandated number of practices. I'm going to appeal the result of the game. All because our writer basically told on Team A. Anybody got any thoughts on this? When he was telling the story in the office (of course, right at deadline while we're trying to put out about 8 pages on deadline), I was about ready to go ballistic. I think he really made a mistake. Thoughts?

 

His only mistake was not knowing the rules himself.

 

just run toward the next living thing you see and kill it. that'll make you feel better.

 

How about being part of the story???? If I'm Coach at school that will have to forfeit the game, I'm never talking to you or your paper again. End of story.

 

Prayer. Wow. You clearly do not live in Canada.

 

clarkington, i don't have all the details, but i'm not sure your reporter made himself part of the story. maybe he went to the coach from Team B and asked an innocent question, "what do you think about getting beat by a guy who's just been on the team for two days?"

furthermore, your reporter certainly would have made note of that fact in his story, right? i mean a kid on the team for just two days makes the winning field goal as time expires. that has to be part of the story. the coach from Team B would have read that in the paper and still would have been able to appeal the result. and lastly, if that is indeed the rule, and your reporter discovered that a rule was violated, shouldn't you follow up and report, or were you going to ignore it.

i could be missing something, too.

 

Well, he's the one who cheated so I imagine you're always going to come out looking better than this guy, no matter if you don't cover his team the rest of the season or cover every game with a "Coach Dicksnort refused to comment."

 

It sounds like an innocent question that would probably only be caught by a seasoned reporter who had seen this sort of thing before and the losing football coach. If the reporter knew of the rule, I believe that then becomes the story. Tough, but true.

 

Every eventuality you state would indicate that you don't like covering sports.

Just sayin'.