Dear dimwit on the phone

During last basketball season, local women's D1 coach, who's kind of used to getting her way, said that if any writer wanted a question answered during her post-game presser, they had better be wearing the pink breast cancer awareness t-shirts they had all been given. Shirt I was given was too small (and they're really thin, cheap shirts anyway), so I didn't wear it. She never said anything about during the presser.

 

A personal highlight of mine was a reader who asked us why we don't run a more expansive broadcast listings section in our 10K daily (I usually keep it to local preps and the pro teams in our state) like the one where they spend the winters.

They clipped out an 'example' for us to refer to, which was from ... the Arizona Republic.

 

Yes. Yes it is. A few years ago, it seemed like there would be one "pink" event a year. Now, *every* school has one *every* season. As a result, they're getting covered like any other game at this point.

 

An official asked me why I wasn't wearing pink to a volleyball match I covered on Saturday. You know, I wear pink quite a bit... but if the teams are going to break it out all month, it suddenly becomes an semi-official color and I've got to be neutral -- so no pink for me!

By the way, we're shooting a couple of upcoming "pink-outs" for our weeklies -- but not actually covering the events. The cause gets publicity (albeit well after October given our sked), the local teams get in one of our publications (though not the daily), and a freelance photog gets paid.

 

We get to use pink whistles for football friday night this month!

 

Dear mother of a high school football player whose team is 4-1 because the combined records of the five opponents is 6-19:

We haven't covered your son's team this season because every team you've played so far sucks. But we'll be there this week, and probably next week too, when you play two of the best teams in your league and get your ass kicked. Hope you enjoyed beating the conference's three perpetual doormats. The rest of the perpetual middle of the pack will be welcoming you home soon.

 

The first "pink" event in this area was last night. Rural Heights volleyball. There's already been a home Podunk Community College volleyball match where the refs had pink whistles and they've played a road game where both teams wore pink. This means I still have a PCC Pink volleyball home match sometime and Podunk High volleyball's Pink event remaining. And I know PCC will have another Pink night during women's basketball season.

I have nothing against the cause, but it's old.

 

Just my opinion, but I think the NFL has made it worse. Wearing pink for a day is fine by me. But for an entire month?

 

I've always had fun with the local high school's pink night. Do you really want me to be aware of breasts when I'm dealing with teenage girls?

 

You only cover us when we lose.

 

True story: My best friend from high school was running ComCast in Morgantown, Va.

Because of FCC regulations, they had to replace one of the home-shopping networks with BET, because of the black population, mainly at WVU.

The newspaper referred to him as "the most-hated man in Morgantown" and people burned tires on his lawn.

 

Yes. Yes. Oh God, yes. (TWSS.) I think they should wear pink the first Sunday of October and get it over with. Instead, they theoretically go nearly a third of the season with it.