Dear dimwit on the phone

It all comes down to how much money the kids/parents have raised for the senior class.

The gym is a lot less expensive.

By the way, the glories of small-town journalism.

I drove the 35 miles to work yesterday, shot the "Grand March" in the school gym, then came home.

Meanwhile, the kids were bused (Yes, in yellow school buses, been that was for 15 years), to the town I live in, so I went over and got some shots of kids dancing to "Daydream Believer."

One (nice) smart-ass kid wanted to know if I was going back to Gville to shoot the after-party.

(By the way, where we are, scheduled are done by the section committee, and thee kids have had no games since Tuesday/Wednesday).

 

1. We've got schools that won't schedule that week (common vacation), because of the potential conflicts.

I wonder when this changed. I know in the mid-70s you wouldn't even *think* of missing games or practices during the break.

2. To me, if a team wins without a number of starters, yes, that is the lead. Names? Unsure. But it is newsworthy.

3. I wonder about something else. You always read about high school football players attending Saturday college games. Would the assumption be they played Friday night, then traveled? Are they usually regional schools.

We don't have a lot of (umm . . . any) big-time players, and in the places I have worked over the years, there are still a lot of Saturday games.

 

The problem with a lot of these parent or fan generated stories is they tend to be self-serving.

For example: Podunk East booster calls saying we should investigate "illegal" player at Podunk West. After they've vented, I start pumping them for details, like, their name. "Oh, I want to remain anonymous." OK, have a nice day ...

Or the other one: Podunk West fan calls wanting to know all about penalties imposed on Podunk East. "How come they only got a one-game suspension? When we had our trouble last year, we had to forfeit games ..." No thanks, but would you prefer Swiss or cheddar cheese with that whine?

From the tone of the letter, and, considering it was sent late at night, the author just figured I'd let him use our pages as a bully pulpit. That's what letters to the editor and comments are for. And I keep going back to, why such a fuss over not playing when the team won? This could have been a Wally Pipp moment for someone.

 

One complication I haven't seen mentioned with the baseball, softball and lacrosse, and scheduling - if you get a rainy week, you really get effed. I think it was last year or the year before that there were so many rain makeups that the playoffs conflicted with senior graduation. The state association finally moved one final to a Sunday, IIRC, which was two days after graduation for one team.

 

At my high school, the baseball coach told the guys at the beginning of every season that if they weren't there for spring break, they should turn in their gear right then. Funny, but I don't recall him losing any players. And, he led the team to the state semifinals my sophomore year and state final my junior year.

No one challenged him on this.

 

How many of us have wanted to do this?

http://espn1420.com/rayne-reporter-loses-it-curses-out-coach-in-report/

 

http://www.sportsjournalists.com/forum/threads/90194/

 

Whoops...didn't see that one.

 

Speaking of rescheduling and not getting it.

Rainouts this week left Friday as the only day for a makeup between the two best teams in the league.

Saturday not an option, because of prom, and Sunday not do-able, because the other school requires an all-night grad party. Pairings meeting is Monday.

Big Science class trip scheduled for today, but the softball players (six or seven) didn't want to go. Trip had been moved, then reinstated, and the coach walks in to find the principal trying to talk the girls into skipping the game.

Principal didn't understand why the team needed to play, since it had already clinched the league title.

 

IMO this should be an important thing for every coach, and not just taken for granted that students and parents will know they have games or tournaments and travel during breaks.

When our son played travel baseball the coach was explicit in his details about when they would practice, for how long, tournaments, travel distances and weekends, and so on. With only one exception, an additional tournament everyone agreed on, we knew the schedule before the season began.

Prom or a family vacation during break is important to a lot of kids and families, just like the team is to the coach. It should be a two-way street within reason.

 

One of our high schools made the state finals in baseball one year, and there was something like 10 days between Games 1 and 2.
It was supposed to be Friday-Monday-Tuesday best-of-three, IIRC. Game 1 goes off without a hitch. That Sunday, an assistant coach for one of the teams had a heart attack and died. They waited a couple days for the grieving and the funeral, then got one or two rainouts on top of it. The following weekend was both schools' graduation, so they waited a couple more days.
Most surreal playoff series I've ever covered.

 

Talk about a one-pitcher series.