Dear dimwit on the phone

Shee-Shee will have six kids by the time she's 24 by four different guys.

 

There's always a line. Shee-Shee may not be on the wrong side of it, but accepting shortened names does not make us honor-bound to accept anything the kid chooses to go by. What if a player declared their name was NumbahOne111!111onee!!!!EEE-leetPlayah! Jones?

 

If that's what everyone calls the person, then that's it. If you don't, then you're providing inaccurate information.
If you're printing Tiger Woods, and not Eldrick, then you've already established what you do and don't accept.

 

No, you haven't.

You've made a decision about Tiger Woods. That doesn't mean you forfeit the right to make future judgment calls.

 

But you have made it more difficult to defend your position when you are using nicknames.

 

This.

As I asked before, where do you draw the line? Another coach sees Shee-Shee and wants to get nicknames for his 3 or 4 players that don't like their real first name. Then another coach does the same. Where does it stop? We're a newspaper, not a team PR program. I don't care what their favorite activities are or what their grandma and grandpa call them. I just want their stats and their names.

If I was covering Tiger Woods in high school, I'd have likely called him Eldrick. I believe I read somewhere that the NY Times stopped referring to him as Eldrick around 1997.

 

Stereotype much?

 

Tiger also is a professional, and an adult.

These are kids we're talking about here.

 

Prove me wrong Shee-Shee.

 

ethically? seriously?

 

We go by what's in the program. If the A.D. and the school principal are OK with it, who are we to argue? (We assume they've signed off on it.)

 

Using Shee-Shee is no different than using "Shooter" or "Lucky Larry". Just because they're "known" by some piece of crap nickname does not mean you have to use it.

I personally go with whatever is on the roster but will make exceptions if I cover a team for a while and know that "Adrian" really is known by "Addie" ... even if I'd rather punch myself in the face than acknowledge someone's ridiculous nickname.