Dear dimwit on the phone

We're going to have that issue come fall and winter.

In the spring season, at least around here, most games start at 4:30. But in the fall and winter, everything is at 7 or 7:30. The 11 pm deadline is for the pages to be sent to press, not just for when the writing has to be done. See our problem?

 

Welcome to the wild and wacky game of NEWSPAPERS!

 

I would never even have thought to ask schools to change their schedules for the newspaper(s).

Our copy deadline is 9:30 p.m., except for Friday night football (and a random early night which occasionally moves around). We told our coaches in preseason they have to report results by 8:30 p.m. to be included in the next day's paper.

We usually have a handful which either run only online, or are in the next day's print roundup.

We've gotten more complaints from coaches about the early deadlines than parents about missing results.

 

We actually did that in Mississippi, successfully. A few years ago, a few sports editors from the larger papers in the state got together a letter-writing campaign to get the MHSAA (public schools) to move kickoff times back to 7 p.m. (the MAIS, aka the private schools, had already done that). The rationale was that with so many papers going to earlier press times, it would improve coverage.

There was some resistance, and for a few years, they did a 7:30 start for games in September, then moved to 7 o'clock in October and beyond. Last fall, however, they all went to 7 p.m. and now everybody's on the same page. It's only a half-hour, but it seems like it makes a bigger difference at deadline time.

 

It does make a difference. If teams want to be included in the paper's coverage, it's only fair to let them know what the rules are.

In a perfect world, we could all move deadlines back to, say, 2 am. If that doesn't work, it's not unrealistic to explain your plight to sports administrators. Some may help out and others may not. But I can't see that it's wrong to ask or at least explain.

 

One place I worked, we had a team playing for a state basketball championship. Tip-off was 9 p.m. in the last of eight games that day, meaning chances that the actual tip-off would be even later (domino effect).

We had a 10 pm copy deadline on a Saturday night for the sake of too many inserts in the Sunday edition. Managing editor was one of these who didn't care about sports and wouldn't help us push the deadline back. "Just run it in Monday's edition."

We even put in a request to the state athletic association to switch start times with another game that day. That was declined because it would create an unfair inconvenience for other schools to force them to play the late game and then travel home after midnight.

Well, here we have spent the entire season telling our readers that high school sports were important (mid-size market, paper about 25,000). And now we get to the most important game of the season, sent a reporter and photog 300 miles to cover it, and we can't get it our print edition?!?!?!?!

I knew I wasn't going to stick around long and the words "Monday's edition" became codespeak for "I don't want to deal with the problem."

 

When the junior college decided to move up the tip-off times for basketball doubleheaders, they initially went with 5 p.m. for the women's game. They decided after a year that was too early because people weren't showing up until halftime of the women's game. The AD at the time did come by and ask if 5:30 would work for me since that was what they were considering.

It was nice of them to ask but I also knew they were going to do what was best for attendance not for me. Still, 5:30 was OK with me. It gets me out of the gym after a doubleheader around 9:30-9:45 depending on how things went and that's still enough time to get things done.

 

I care a lot about sports, and prep sports in particular, but I'd have sided with the ME here. For one thing, you have no guarantee that the game is going to start on time; in fact, if it's the last of eight games, I'd be shocked if it did.

For another, time is money, and if you're paying temp labor to beef up the mail room staff, which is the norm in these situations, you want them stuffing inserts, not sitting around waiting for a high school basketball game to finish.

I'm guessing this is before the interwebs, but if not, you simply get a simple story for the website, then go for a bigger second-day story. In either case, you tell your writer and photographer to be creative, talk to as many players as possible, talk to some fans.

The point is, deadlines are usually there for a reason, and sometimes you just have to work around them.

 

We've gotten to the point where we just run game capsules in the paper and put the agate online.

 

For a normal game, I agree. This was a state championship game. Quite possibly the biggest game most of these players will ever play in.

We can argue forever about the relative importance of high school sports in a community. But if you are going to centerpiece a regular season non-conference game because "it's local", then you should be willing to be a little bit flexible for a state title game. It's not everyday. It's one time per year (or maybe every several years).
To do otherwise sends the message "we don't cover what is important. We just cover what is convenient."

 

How many of you have had this call:

Caller: "I'm Tom Tophand, volunteer tennis coach at Podunk Tech. Are you going to be doing All-County features in tennis like the other sports?"
HS: "Yes. But we won't be putting them together until after Memorial Day."
C: "Can I send in information about one of my players?"
HS: "Sure, go ahead." (While wondering why he's asking permission. What am I supposed to say, he needs a note from his mother and his primary care physician?)
C: "So what do you want, his record and stuff?"

It goes downhill further after this.

 

I did have a coach wonder why his girls softball players were not more highly-ranked since they were a "great base-stealing team."
Um, coach, when your team advances on a wild pitch or passed ball...that's not a steal. 6 of your players should not have 40-60 steals each. That's nearly impossible.