Dear dimwit on the phone

Had a guy call us last night to complain that the coach doesn't respect the seniors.

Shocker....his kid is a senior.

 

I was told today that someone called because I've spelled his kid's name wrong in the last three papers. But that guy didn't want to leave a note or tell anyone else who it is. He also said he'd call back around 2:00. It's almost 4:00 now.

My bet is that it's a name the coach has been spelling wrong. I do have one name I have trouble with ("Skyelar," which ended up "Skylear" a few times early on) but I doubt it's them because I finally just went to the girl and confirmed how she spells it herself.

 

The bane of my existence are coaches who email in scans or photos of basketball scorebooks but don't add up any numbers. You have to go through the line for each kid and try to discern how many FGs, FTA, FTM, total points he/she had. Which is usually impossible because the handwriting is so bad.

Just add up the fucking numbers, please. I can't be messing with one box for 10 minutes while I'm on deadline and there's like 12 other games I'm working on.

I'm not so nice with coaches anymore, especially the ones who've been doing it for 20 years and should know better. A nice, "Add these up and resend it, or I can't run it," email usually works.

 

I often also get pics of scorebooks with a big shadow across the pages, a sometimes they're out of focus.

 

Oh yeah, that's a constant. The "photo method" rarely produces a clear box, you just hope it's readable enough. I actually don't mind the photos, so long as they're clear, the writing is legible and the numbers are added up. But that's like 1 out of about 20 times.

Obviously, coaches who know how to use electronic programs properly, those are the ones you want.

 

You should've told him you heard that the seniors don't respect the coach.

 

Had one team that sent in photos of the book that were so bad, I fired off a note saying how illegible they were and that we could no longer accept them. And swear to Tebow, a couple of games later, I staffed their game, and some coach walked up after the game and took a photo ...

 

Dear coach,
If you have two sisters who have the same first initial, maybe put a little more in the scorebook than just "M. Jones" for each.


We also had a game reported to us tonight where the out-of-area team had three pairs of players with the same last name, and no initial at all.

 

We have an area team that uses a stat program that only gives us the last name. After a few too many times doing their stats, I realized that their entire stat sheet is organized in alphabetical order by the players' names, so obviously the first names of these siblings/cousins are in alphabetical order too.

 

I covered a high school baseball playoff game in which eight of the nine starters on the other team were named Cervantes. They were all brothers or cousins. Of the 15 guys on the team, I think 13 were named Cervantes.

 

Do we bitch about freelancers/stringers here?

We are desperately short on qualified stringers. As in, I don't know of any living anywhere close despite running several ads. A few parents from our local HS basketball team think they are perfect for the role, but I'm willing to try about anyone before someone with a kid starting on the team.

Anyway, this kid has helped us a few times. The results have been fine, requiring a little re-writing and a lot of pointers about style, but, ya know, fine. Game gets in the paper. All is well.

Until last night. He blew through every deadline he had and missed the paper. When he finally got in touch, he said a few long injury timeouts made the boys game go long, so that's why he sent his story an hour late. I replied and tried to be somewhat understanding. He's new to the biz, new to tight deadlines and the tricks it can sometimes take to get a story in when a game runs long. I offered a little sternness, but mostly tips on how to handle that situation better next time.

Then, today, he responded and complained that he didn't get to write the story he really wanted to write, which was all about how the players clearly don't respect the coach, how they gloated too much in the first quarter and some of them moped on the bench.

The very average team he was covering won by 20. So I guess that dysfunction wasn't such a big deal?

Plus, I don't give a freaking fuck about what a stringer is reading into body language on the sideline in a story like that. If coaches are screaming at each other, or players are screaming at each other, absolutely, go with it. But reading into how a kid's sitting on the bench? When you can't even come with an hour of the freaking deadline?

I'm not sure he gets the big picture. High school sports isn't a HUGE thing for us, as it is for most papers our size and in towns as small as ours. We're there to keep track of the season, give players something to click on and share on Facebook or wherever, and give grandma something to clip out and hang on the fridge.

Anyway, he was sorry he missed that deadline. "Maybe next time there won't be so many injuries."

So... I guess we're back to square one looking for a stringer.

 

Well, I've never done anything that bad, but one time I covered an Arena League game in Chicago for an East Coast paper. They told me the hard deadline was 11 p.m., they didn't expect a ton since it was going well into an inside page, close to deadline, etc.

So, I cover the game, cook up a running gamer as it's going, game is pretty close, have the story basically written save for a few details, look at my watch, it's like 9:50. Figure I'm in great shape, head down to the locker room to get some quotes, figure I can spend a little time getting something decent. As I'm doing an interview, my phone is just buzzing like crazy in my pocket. On the way back up to the press area, I check the message: It's the paper I'm stringing for, asking where the fuck my story is. The slot guy was pissed, said I was past deadline.

I call him back and say, "Hey, I've only got 10:20. You said 11. I'm just gonna throw in some quotes and send it off shortly." The response? "It's 11:20 Eastern time, asshole."

Well, after profusely apologizing, I run to the press area, stick like one quote in the story, make sure it's spruced up and send it off. I called the guy about 15 minutes later, just apologizing for my idiocy. I figured he was gonna tell me to fuck myself. But he was actually pretty calm and nice. Said luckily the story was well-written and fit the space perfectly, so he basically just had to plop it in and deadline wasn't held up TOO much.

Long story short, make sure you pay attention to time zones if it comes up.