Dear dimwit on the phone

I'll usually tell our coaches if they ask, both in the spirit of cooperation (they call in scores all year, I don't mind telling them who got an award) and in case they're wondering which of their guys made it. Sometimes they order trophies or jacket patches for them and have a deadline.
There's also a time element to it. I did the POY and COY interviews a couple of weeks ago. There's a good chance the POY has mentioned it on Facebook or Twitter by now, even though it hasn't been published yet, so it might be something of an open secret by this point.
In this case, though, I told the coach, who obviously then told the parent. That part annoys me. Hopefully, he knew his guy was a candidate based on our conversations about it, he mentioned that to the parent, and they asked, and one thing led to another.

 

It's a no-win situation. Whomever doesn't get picked is probably going to complain --- even if the complaint comes in the form of a twitter post saying "It's just the Podunk Press and I really don't give a s***."

I avoid those things like the plague.

 

Re: nicknames ...

Baseball player, last name Packer. Coach told me teammates had nicknamed him "Fudge." I had to explain why I wouldn't use it in print and that he should re-think the encouragement of the nickname.

 

Especially if the ballfield is located anywhere along the Hershey Highway.

 

Really? The coach didn't know?

 

Does anyone's shop have an actual policy regarding nicknames? I always played it straight, even with the college and pro players.

The worst was a Providence College basketball player named Shamgod Wells, who went by the nickname "God". I didn't really like that.

 

Not sure anyone has a real policy, but I would shy away from any nickname that isn't common, like Bo or Buddy or some such. Always hated Booger, and could never believe our writers would actually put that in copy. If I worked in Alabama I would lobby hard not to have used Ha Ha Clinton-Dix, either. Think it's case by case, though.

 

We had one of those NCAA baseball nights where w knew were weren't going to get the game in the paper, so I had out guy write one of those "Win or lose, here's what happens next" columns.

It wasn't a knockout game, and it teased heavily to the website and his blog.

Caller the next says, "Good coverage, but you didn't have the final score." No sh_t.

 

Best obviously fake names we've ever gotten: Frenchy LaCoque and Tommy Tebagge.

 

We don't have an actually policy at my ~30K daily, but we avoid using nicknames when at all possible. We actually had a staff member who went by a nickname and everybody called him said name, but when we published the city rec slow-pitch softball scores, we used his real name. When he became the tennis coach at a local Division III college the athletic website used his nickname, but we continued to use his real name.

 

I was thinking of a nicer way to veer around the outright label of "naive and sheltered" but I failed.

 

Didn't he officially change it? Remember him, had a few buddies who went to PC and watched a few games there.

http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/s/shammgo01.html