Dear dimwit on the phone

If I covered four schools I would get a note in (and try to get a mug shot but not the terrible signing shots) of all the players who signed scholarships.

What you think of the team they are going to play for is irrelevant.

 

He was talking about funeral directors, not the families.

 

This is what happens when crazy sports parents raise NHL-level hockey players.

http://blogs.denverpost.com/avs/2013/02/19/ryan-oreillys-father-opens-up-on-his-sons-situation-with-avalanche/12635/#disqus_thread

A small excerpt:

"If my son was getting 95 in math we wouldn’t ask him to get 65 so the rest of the students in the classroom could feel better about themselves. Many parents have stories about their kids excelling in certain areas but they are asked to tone it down because you’re making the other kids not look as good or feels good about themselves. Is this not a Testament to the fact that we are not teaching our kids character. This would never happen in the classroom. So to a kid who isn’t as Academically gifted but in the arts or character, athletically Or proficiency in a certain skill why does it have to be devalued. So we ask the person who has a tremendous amount of character to take less money for his character yet it is the essential building block any team matter of fact the key Ingredient."

 

If that's what slips through after being "lightly" edited, I'd love to see the original.

 

Quotes like this make my shake my head and wonder where we went wrong as a society to start producing more parents like this. I know he's still the exception to the rule, but you always hear about the crazies.

 

Everybody gets a trophy.

 

I'll stick with getting them in within the next couple weeks as space permits. If it's a D-I thing, it's going in immediately. NAIA, JUCO and the likes... we'll get it in as soon as we can.

 

Ma'am, I think it's wonderful your son finished fifth in the state wrestling meet. Congratulations.

Why didn't we do a story on him? Well, the state association scheduled state wrestling - and swimming and diving - on the same weekend as the regional basketball championships. And it fell on the same day as the local D-II college was winning a conference title and the big D-I just up the highway was playing too. We ran the wrestling and swimming results on page 2 ... yes, the tiny type.

No, we won't be doing a story on him this week either. That's because state basketball started today. We have 21 teams playing in it across the classifications. If we were to have a free minute to do a story about state wrestling, we do a story on the three kids who won titles. And one about the kid who won a state swimming title.

Yes, ma'am, I'll gladly transfer you to my boss.

 

Yeah... Fifth place is meh, unless it's some ridiculously small school where he's the only decent competitor in 10 years. (In Rhode Island, there is a super small high school that will occasionally have a team, which is news alone because they have to ferry to games and what not; makes for a good profile / human interest when they do field a team.)

 

10-4 on that.

 

My variation on this is the e-mailer/letter-to-the-editor writer complaining that the story and photos on their high school soccer state championship appeared on Page 3B with only a tease from 1B.

In our fine state, these titles were decided on Feb. 2. Yep, the day before the Super Bowl. Funny, Sunday's 1B was kinda booked up.

 

Uh, yeah. Y'all had bigger fisher fish to fry on both those weekends, for sure.