Anybody out there using Max Preps???

They still call in scores to our clerks after a game gets over. We just use MP for weekly stats.

 

I thought this thread was about feminine hygiene products.

 

www.ahsaa.com ... when it gets bogged down it's as worthless as balls on a statue, much like many of the people who govern it...

 

Yeah. That's how we do things, too. I'd never rely on MaxPreps for results on Friday night.

 

The rubes in my area don't know how to use the Interwebs. They don't use our site, they don't use Max Preps, and some of the really podunk 1A motherfuckers don't even keep stats for themselves.

 

One school in our coverage area uses Max Preps, and it's the basic "garbage in, garbage out." The coach never puts in complete stats (the opponent stats are always missing) and never puts in a scoring summary. We can milk three grafs out of a report for the roundup, and that's about it.

A few others use something called Pressbox that seems a lot more user-friendly. Again, we run into incomplete stats, but Pressbox seems a lot better program than Max Preps.

The old tried-and-true fax seems to work best for us, though.

 

One thing you need to watch out for with Maxpreps are parents that input the information. Often, they want nothing more than to make their little darling and their friends look good. So, for instance you might find softball players with a lot more hits than they actually have. Or pitchers with more strikeouts. We had a parent at one of our schools counting foul balls into hitting stats.

So whoever above me up there said garbage in garbage out is right on the money.

 

I'd wager that highschoolsports.net is slower.

Both are useful to help keep track of schedules, especially during the playoffs. But that's only if someone's using the site. Around here, it's a cap-I, cap-F if.

 

Unless your paper is in a situation like Buckwheat (e.g. MaxPreps or someone else has the market corner), the paper would be better off getting a Web geek to create a similar form that is branded to your paper.

I know that's easier said than done, but ... Quite frankly, taking MP, the old SportsHuddle (God was that thing slow) or highschoolsports.net is another example of newspapers taking the cheap way when spending a little more money (I know, I know) would get you a vastly superior product that you call your own. Futhermore, get the Web geek to program is so you can punch in the numbers and with one click, it has two outputs: One for the Web and one print ready.

 

to echo what another already said, our paper uses maxpreps to compile weekly stats that we run in the print edition, and our web site has a page with their content.

the SE made it a policy: teams that want to be included in our stats must be current on maxpreps or tough cookies for you. basically, the only ones who don't upload don't have any standouts anyway.

but maxpreps has really gotten bad in the past couple years. the stats, schedules leaders and other info is still helpful. but they've added all these videos and graphics and useless crap. that's why everyone says it's slow.

too many ads, too much congested crap. if it wasn't my job to look at it, i would never load maxpreps on any computer — even if i had a kid in high school athletics.

 

These are many of the same opinions that I formed during our teleconference yesterday. Wonderful for stat leaders, standings, etc. Horrible for game night stuff.

 

Just remember, it's only as accurate for stat leaders and standings as it is complete. If you only have 10 of 27 schools reporting to MaxPrep, you be screwed.