Dear dimwit on the phone

A couple of years ago, I had a JC women's basketball coach call me up after they got beat for the umteenth time in a row. I asked him the score and he stutters, and tells me it was something along the lines of 85-60, with a couple of ers and ums and yeah go with that. Since he clearly wasn't sure on the phone, I looked up the score on the opposing team's website, since the game was the day before. It turns out instead of a blowout of 20 to 25 points, it was more like 40- to 45-point blowout. So I printed that in the paper, not thinking much of it. I got a call the next day with "Spartan, why did you print that score." He sounded kind of dejected. I told him, I got it off the other school's website. "Spartan, many why did you do that? I didn't want to make the game sound so bad. So next time just go with what I told you and don't go on to other team's websites." I made damn sure I was at the home games to get the score right.

 

Pretty simple after that....you tell the coach you report the facts and if he doesn't like it, then you would stop covering them altogether and when someone called to asked why the team wasn't covered, you could direct them to the coach.

 

Amen to that spike...find something else to cover if the guy is going to pull that attitude.

 

This loosely applies here.

Found out today after seeing the player's name on Facebook that the volleyball coach here has been misspelling the name of a transfer student (RaChelle vs. RaeChelle) who has led the team in kills almost every game. Awesome.

 

Can't say as I blame the coach.

 

That one's on the parents.

 

Haha...had the same thing not too long ago with a kid whose name is Tylor. In both cases, coaches and schools had it wrong.

 

You guys are right, but in all honesty, the team was not one that I went out of my way to get into the paper anyway. It wasn't like our high school teams, which are a bigger deal in the town than the JC. Usually when I covered the games it was when there was nothing else going on that day. And the coach was usually very good at either writing something himself and turning it in or calling me, so there was very little work on my end to begin with. Although once I made it clear I wasn't doctoring the scores in the paper, he never did it again. Now I don't cover sports anymore and the coach quit, so it shouldn't happen again.

 

We have some Army National Guardsmen returning home from Iraq right now. A soldier's wife invited us to her workplace where she arranged a surprise homecoming for the soldier's parents. Great human stuff, mom's in tears, blah blah blah. I didn't notice any kids around, so I asked, "do you have children?" Yes, they said, daddy met the kids at the airport yesterday, and they're back in school. So I mention that in my story.

This morning, I get a voicemail ...

"Yeah, this is her ex-husband, and I want you to know that them kids ain't his! I'm the father! I'm really disappointed that you represented to the community that them kids is mine! I think you need to call me back and apologize."

Ugh. No way I'm getting in the middle of that one. Picking my battles and all.

 

I mentioned this a while back. Ran some little kid's picture in the paper that the dad sent in. The mom calls, yelling about how the kid should have her last name, not his. A couple of calls later, with my boss shaking his head, we told them to sort it out themselves.

 

I've been there. Ugh.

 

Dear angry parent whose kid plays for a prep football team that sucks ass:

Yes, I realize your team is having a horrible year. I know all about how the school hired a new coach at the end of July, and how a bunch of kids transferred to other schools, and how basically this is a lost season. And I also realize that your team scored its first points of the season on Friday. But guess who didn't return a call from us when we tried to reach him to find out who scored the touchdowns? Yeah, it's your coach.

Hey, here's another thing ... when you call on a Sunday night and leave me a message all pissed off that we didn't have the names, it night help if you -- and I'm just spitballing here -- told me who scored! Because after getting your message, I still don't know. And I can't call you to find out because you didn't leave your name or phone number. So basically, you're as useless as your coach.

But thanks for reading.