Dear dimwit on the phone

You didn't call in one game all season, and you wonder why we haven't covered your private school soccer team?

 

Huzzah!

 

Nothing shuts up the complaining parent quite so quickly.

 

I was talking with an AD after a kid did a college signing and I asked him about two other kids I'm sure will be moving on to play in college. He says, "Honestly, I have no idea. They don't tell me what's going on. And then parents get mad when they see other kids getting recognized, but I tell them, you have to let me know! A light doesn't go off in my office that says a kid just got accepted."

I was tempted to direct him to this thread.

 

How do you respond to someone who believes "since we didn't do a story about this signing we didn't know about, we can't do one about the one we got a heads up about."

 

It's further back in this thread (or, in honor of my Lon Simmons avatar, way back, way back ...), but I'm reminded of someone calling and wondering why their school is never in the paper despite having a great season.
"Well, your coach or representative hasn't been sending in results."
"I see Podunk and Podunk West in there all the time"
"That's because they're sending in results. Podunk East hasn't been."
"Even Tiny Christian is getting in and they had a big picture today."
"Well, they've been sending in results ..."

 

I'd say it's the fault of the family who told you their kid was signing that a different kid's family didn't want it publicized, so go ahead and write the story. And usually when people see these kinds of things in the paper, they tend to ask how they can get in the paper, to which you simply reply, "let me know."

 

Except it was someone in the newsroom with the initial reasoning

 

I should have broken those sentences up into different grafs. I meant that as two different trains of thought. But the logic still stands for newsroom person, if we publicize more of these, there is a higher likelihood that more people will let us know about the signings. And it doesn't have to be signings, it can be anything that we find interesting to put in the paper.

 

Ad dimwit ...

Guy writes in wanting his youth soccer league tryout info in our calendar but would be willing to buy an ad, too. Initial email went to an ad person. Ad person forwards to news, thinking it's a hot scoop we want. Never occurred to the ad sales staff to sell an ad. And folks in the newsroom wonder why they haven't received a raise in 10 years.

 

/Burns down office.

 

In the first case, that seems so silly. Most coaches worth their salt will be out scouting opponents who matter, at least know something about those who don't (especially a country club sport like tennis where all the good local coaches are involved with kids playing in summer anyway). The vast majority of these damn regular season games are almost decided before you show up, and the fact a .214-hitting kid in the eight hole drove in two key runs against your No. 3 arm probably didn't have much to do with the fact he knew the kid's ERA and strikeout numbers. (We had one basketball team that posted nothing online, and we always just figured he was saying, sure you can scout us, just gotta drive to the end of the world to do it.)

I've dealt first hand with a coach in the "kids obsess school," but he didn't let his baseball team see their batting averages ever. He'd share any other stat, but not averages. Granted I was writing about a kid who was apparently slumping, but it applied all around. Coach was actually pretty good despite being dull, so it worked out.