All-Area Football Team question ...

I worry way, way less about setting precedents in this kind of thing than I used to.

Each case is different. If you want to name him to the team in this case, do it.

You can't go wrong the other way, of course. But if you want to do it this way, go ahead.

 

If he was clearly an all-area prospect, why not do it again as a precedent? It's not like it will be an annual happening - a death that is.

 

A general rule I follow is that a notable story (even a death) should only be called up for a sidebar or looking back feature once in the next several years, pending other circumstances (in this case, his little brother or sister becoming an all-area athlete).

I'd say if you do a "year in review" piece at your shop or something similar at the end of the school year, consider which piece -- the review or the all-area team -- would better allow you to re-tell the story and observe its impact.

 

I would not do it. You might establish a spot for a kid, living or otherwise, who somehow deserves it -- would have been great but died, sucked but practiced his heart out for years -- along with the all-area team. But I'd be careful even with that though b/c this year you got the dead kid, next year you got a kid who's just fat, and it's going to be awkward equating the two. Presumably this was covered from a news and possibly a sports angle sometime in the summer/preseason, and that fact that the kid is dead is way more salient than the fact that he didn't live to make the all-area team. Some ideas are nice, and a sign of a heart in the right place, but that doesn't mean they roll out as good journalism.

 

: you're kidding, right?

 

Sidebar sounds like the way to go. You don't have to say he would have made the first team. Just talk about his accomplishments.

 

Ummm ... you suggested debating the equality of death and being fat is tough?