Dear dimwit on the phone

Did the AD's coach at least deserve consideration? Or was it just a silly push from fans?

 

It will be amazing how fast that might change when you start printing in the paper that the school failed to submit results with the inclusion of the coach's email or the AD's school phone number.

 

I've had a coach or two get angry before, but having them all not participate with reporters would be a terrible situation.

 

Does anyone get calls/emails from coaches with game stats from outside your coverage area?

 

It happens sometimes. There may be coaches who just put every paper on their email list, or coaches who call because they played a team I. Your coverage area. Or, coaches may not know your coverage area, and may not realize they are sitting outside the border.

My experience has been usually they get their score in and maybe a sentence write up, just as a courtesy for them calling and to help in case we ever would need them if our area team was playing them and our coach didn't bother calling.

 

Yup but rather get them just in case they play a local team and the local team doesn't call/email in.

 

Guy from a podunk town is advocating for my firing because I don't work seven days a week to cover every small school game under the sun. Also believes I should pressure my managent to hire more reporters. (I'm the only high school reporter at my place.) Not sure at which statement I should laugh harder.

 

We had a girls hoops coach who moved from one school in our coverage area to one just outside and kept on sending in her scores to us out of habit. It was nice, since half their schedule is teams we cover, including several with coaches who like to email their results the next morning.

 

We'll get emails from colleges not in our circulation area, but are followed here. But unless it's Podunk State or there's locals on Podunk Christian or Podunk JC, I ignore them.

One problem I do have is when teams go to a tournament and are told, "we'll call the papers," the coaches assume we're included and don't follow up with us. The tourney folks will usually only let the big metro know.

 

Always loved the cousin to that one, when someone asks "Will you send this to the Major Metro Gazette?"
They assume that since we're all media, we share content. I always just laughed and reminded them that, no, they were the competition and we wouldn't be doing that.
Of course, these are the same people who get all in a tizzy the once or twice a year our local teams play a big game in Metrotown, the Major Metro writes a 12-inch preview and a 10-inch gamer for B6, and they swear that the MM covers their team better than we do.

 

This.

Coupled in the wagering with "My spawn just made the BigTown Bugle's All-Area team, you should do a story about that." I've been tempted many times to say, "sure, happy to ... soon as the Bugle writes a story about our All-County team!"

 

Ever get people that call so often it gets to the point where you know what they're going to ask before you even pick up the phone?

One old guy calls because he's a fan of the baseball team, but how big of a fan are you that you don't watch or listen to any of the games but rather call us 162 times a year? He also calls about other sports and if a game is still going on and playing on national (free) TV I make it a point to say it's on TV. He won't watch, but he will call back in an hour for the final score.

Sometimes though these repeat offender callers seem to already know the answer to their question and must be lonely and just want to talk to someone. There was an old lady who every now and then would call to ask the exact same question she just called about earlier.