Dear dimwit on the phone

If I have to do this again next year for track, I might do just that. Or pick a boys and girls athlete of the year and be done with it.
I didn't think this would be too difficult. We're covering a small area (only four schools, which made this thing even more ridiculous), but have some good athletes. Several won state titles or were in the mix for them. I figured breaking them down into categories wouldn't be too tough -- two jumpers, two sprinters, two distance runners, two throwers.
Then I realized none of our folks made it to the state meet in the distance events. We had an abundance of sprinters, but only one or two throwers -- one of whom skipped the state meet to take an advanced placement test. Within a matter of minutes I was scrambling to figure out a solution, and the well-structured team concept pretty much went out the window.
God help me if we end up with a year where no one, or only one or two folks from each school, makes the state meet.

 

You know a letter is going to be good when it starts like this. Another wonderful "look what you missed" letter. Gee, you think, dear letter writer, that maybe you could have let us know about your non-sanctioned sport's big event BEFORE you left for.... rowing nationals?

Oh, congrats on your 4th place finish...in the JV race.

 

Wow, your rowing people sound like my rowing people. I've spoken to the coach-dad more than once about letting me know about events beforehand.

But I think the nationals they go to isn't for another couple of weeks. Unless the gigantic e-mail full of bad photos about qualifying is really late.

 

How do you guys respond to people who call up the paper thinking it's a sports talk radio station? One caller thought it was actually my job to have a conversation with him about preseason football! It seems like the fastest way to get them off the phone is to tell them exactly what they want to hear or agree with everything they say, even if they're idiots. You can't even argue with "But my friends think..."

 

The people who would rather complain about the lack of coverage after the fact, instead of making a contribution during the season ... there must be a special place in hell just for them.

 

No one's told you about the phantom "person at the front desk I need to see?"

 

Eh, if someone calls early in the shift and I'm not swamped and in a good mood, I'll talk for a few minutes.

Had one guy who would call every week during the winter and wanted to talk figure skating (elite international level). His now-grown daughter had been quite an accomplished skater in her younger years. So we chatted a while and I promised we'd run the stuff from national championships, worlds, Olympics, etc.

Now, if someone calls 20 minutes before deadline, it better be breaking news or a game result to report.

 

At my shop we have an older man who calls us usually something hockey related. We believe he's in a nursing home. Nice guy, there might be some disability with him but the key is let him say his spiel then answer him. He will then tell me to have a nice day. Mostly he's looking for confirmation of the information he has (a score or a start time of a game.).

 

From the results-dropped-off file:
No, coach, we will not include the name Tug Boat Jackson (none of that has been changed to protect the innocent) in the youth baseball recap.

 

We had a guy like that who thought the big three sports were boxing, baseball and horse racing.

 

Exactly! I'm sure we would have had the room in the last few weeks to spotlight something like this with a 12-16 inch feature (our college writers are always looking for shit to do this time of year). We just didn't know.

 

He probably grew up in the 1930s or 1940s.
Those sports pretty much were the big three back then.