Dear dimwit on the phone

Dear homeschool parent,

Yes, we did have quite a bit of coverage of the local teams that played for state titles. And congrats to your kids for winning the U14 homeschool state title.

But we aren't doing a story on it.

No, not because we hate homeschoolers. But because according to the website, the tournament was held the first weekend of February.

Sincerely,

Inky

 

Dear Grandparent of a soccer player who doesn't live here,
Yes, it's nice that your granddaughter is the first girls soccer player from her high school to sign with a college. Kudos, mazel tov and all that.

But no, we're not going to do a story on her because she doesn't live her and she signed with an NAIA school. And no, you being a subscriber isn't going to help getting a story done. Sorry.

KY

Dear Hunting Kid,
That's a nice photo of a deer you took -- in fucking November.

So no, we will not run the photo since you couldn't bother to get it in before Monday.

KY

 

I say only run photos of dead animals if the person can certify that they took down the moose, elk, duck, etc., with their bare hands.

 

In that case, front page.

 

I agree with the grandparents part (have your spawn send the clip from the hometown paper so you can show it off to your buddies at the doughnut shop), but wonder what the problem is with NAIA, other than it's not NCAA Div. I? The NAIA school in this area (moving to NCAA Div. II next season) has a good sports program and, more important (at least to me), a SID who's very prompt with results.

 

Not for me. Band put our youngest daughter through college.

 

Dear Swim Mom,

I asked your daughter to show up for an all-star photo with the rest of her relay team, and to wear a school shirt. I didn't tell her she didn't get first team in an individual event. In fact, I didn't tell her -- or any of the girls -- anything else.

Please stop freaking out, and make sure she's at the office on time. Please buy lots of extra copies of the paper when the all-star teams come out next week.

Thanks so much!

PaperDoll

 

I love the complaints when parents call in angry that there kid made "honorable mention" but that wasn't in the paper anywhere.

That is correct. We only run first-and second-team all-stars. I'm sorry, but I don't want to relegate the space to printing the entire rosters for every team in the area, which is what "honorable mention" has become.

 

That's what our All-Star teams are, anyway. We have a league with 4-5 divisions (depending on the season), and 4-5 teams in each division. And they do their All-Star teams -- you guessed it -- by division, not for the entire league. Ridonkulous.

On the other hand, they do work so hard.

 

If it's a larger paper, I could see this. If we wrote stories on every kid going DII/DIII/NAIA, we would never have space for other things.
DI kids get stories...the rest are for the agate page.

 

We're not that big a paper, but we get tons of athletes each year who sign with small colleges like that. We wouldn't have the time or space to devote a story each and every time a kid signs with someone like Campbellsville or Union or any of the other non-NCAA schools here.

So they get a photo with an extended cutline. The kids who sign D-I get stories. That's been our policy for as long as I can remember, going back to before I was here.

 

The grandmother had a laminated copy of our little sister weekly's front page from when granddaughter signed ... the first week in February.

The granddaughter lived in our county til she was 5 years old. Both parents are local high school grads.

However, if grandmother is one of the only family members who still lives here and granddaughter's family hasn't lived here in more than 10 years AND grandmother already has a copy of the article (our small weekly even put the color signing photo and story online) ... it's pretty clear the people it is intended for ALREADY know about it. Grandma is better off showing off the color front page six-column story (and three-column photo) on her granddaughter to her bingo club or whatever than trying to explain the two-column black-and-white photo on our page 4.

As far NAIA and NCAA, our policy is D-I in any sport (sign or verbal) gets a front-page byline. Probably even teased on the A section page one. On signing day, one of our four sports writers or two photogs will be there.

Walkons don't get anything. Any other signee (D-II, NAIA and, egads, D-III) and it is up to the school/player/family to turn in the photo.

We cover just seven schools (OK, eight, if you include a small private school that doesn't even play in the state's main league of 200+ schools) and we have plenty of signees. Had one girl, who didn't even start or make All-Area, sign to play for one of the region's NAIA teams. Had two other girls from another program sign to play for other NAIA teams ... neither girl was All-Anything and would have a hard time even starting for at least two programs in the area.

Plus, one of the popular NAIA colleges signed fifty-six (56!) football players in its 2012 class. That doesn't happen with NCAA.

You gotta make a distinction somewhere.