Cheering in the Clemson pressbox

I hate the cheering in the press box during Pop Warner games.

 

Writers are guests of the high school, and the AD should treat them as guests. That means, you give them a place to sit and work. You give them what they need. Writers don't ask for much.

Honestly, you are never going to stop cheering in a high school press box. As a writer, just ignore it. It's not a battle worth fighting.

But if a high school does not give you a place to sit and give your chair to the fats ass band booster, then bury their asses on page seven below cross fucking country. Do that every fucking week. Fuck them.

 

Oh, when I was in the high school press boxes, what pissed me off the most was when people bitched about the refs costing them the game. I would just quietly agree, and then ask them which games this season did the refs win for them and cost the other team the game.

It has to happen right?

Not once did anyone ever think the refs won the game for them. It was a really shocking.

 

No. Not this.

You are there to serve the readers, not carry out a vendetta.

You do your job as you can. The boosters will be gone after the game if you need to write.

I don't think boosters in the press box are appropriate at all, but neither is that attitude. The reader doesn't care. You need to serve the reader.

 

Bingo

 

Do we really have four pages of someone defending this? My quick thoughts:

1) Dan, you're attempt at making this a high school issue is disingenuous. You say it's to eliminate arguments at the periphery or whatever, but it draws it away from the initial point of the thread -- whether a college press box, staffed with paid employees of both schools playing and the media, should allow cheering. All professional organizations agree it shouldn't be for the reasons stated above -- it's a professional workplace. The only reason to make it a high-school issue is to try to win an argument you couldn't otherwise win. We all agree high schools are a different matter because they're primarily staffed with volunteers (i.e., non-professionals). To keep harping on high schools is to distract from the argument about colleges, which you can't win or I would assume you would have addressed.

2) I agree with Billy. You never bury a team if it doesn't serve the reader. But I don't see anything wrong with letting it effect future coverage calls if they're close. If School A and School B are of roughly equal reader interest, and School A will take care of you and make sure you have a seat and a place to send from, and School B won't hold you a spot or help you out, then go with School A.

 

Agreed. I guess I expect no cheering because every press box I've worked in -- minus the one at Podunk High, Dan -- has those pesky signs that inform visitors it is a working press area and NO CHEERING WILL BE TOLERATED.

Why?

Just because, I guess.

 

Dan, may I come to your office and raise a ruckus while you are trying to do your job?

 

I'm getting dizzy reading Dan's circular arguments. Do you really believe what you're posting, or are you just an attention hound? There are plenty of places for people to cheer at a football game if one wants to. And I don't think I've seen you explain why cheering in the press box is a good thing. It's like I told someone at a water polo match on Thursday who asked if the game between Springfield and Shelbyville was hard to write: I get paid the same no matter who wins.

At my current stop, I'm keeping stats, I'm updating the Facebook page and I'm also in contact with the other writers in the field so I can post updates. Who has time to cheer (unless, like Jim Murray said, I'm rooting for the lead)?

If someone gets too loud, I tell them I'm trying to get some work done, please keep it down. They understand and cooperate. Usually no one is out of line. Last year at one Homecoming, someone was leaning out the window to talk to a friend. I asked him to go out and talked to him, since I was working. He did. This year, a couple of high school kids standing behind me were looking at YouTube vids on an iPhone during the game. I asked them to go elsewhere, and they did.

 

Ah, good. Another troll.

As Devil said, writers don't ask for much: A seat, an internet connection and a little bit of quiet when I'm trying to pound out a gamer, notes and breakout information on tight deadline. It's not too much to ask for people to shut the fuck up and let that happen.

 

What's your point, because I don't see one? It's not fair to say journalists who want a quiet press box are overlooking larger problems in the industry. I'm not one for the "It's always been this way" argument. A better one to make is that it's a work area and good PR people know a great way to get on the media's good side is make them as comfortable as possible while understanding their ethical boundaries.