Does this irk anybody else about preps coverage?

The actual kick or fumble is included, but the kid's name is not. Actually had a situation recently where a kid missed a long (almost desperation) field goal that would have won a very big game, and we could not identify the kicker in the front-page cutline as the other team celebrated in the background. To me, it's just stupid. All his friends, family and teammates saw it, so what, it's going to embarrass him in the rest of the community? It's just a football game.

 

"It's just a football game" is never going to be your best argument against that. It's always going to be more than "just a football game" to somebody -- or nobody's going to be reading you.

 

What's really funny is when parents call you and want you to do an article 'investigating' why the freshman is getting more PT than the senior. They think the coach and the freshman's parent are meeting in a parking garage and exchanging money, or something to that effect.

 

They're getting together and writing plays for the freshmen, leaving me out!

 

If the kid's name would get in the paper for scoring the winning TD, basket or goal, then the kid's name goes in the paper when his fumble, bricked FT, botched PK results in the other team winning.

 

But the people to whom it's more than just a football game (his parents, friends) likely already know what happened. And as others have pointed it out, if he scored the winning TD or whatever he'd be named, so it cuts both ways. Now, I'm not in any way advocating ripping the kid, but if it's a crucial play either way it should be included. I just don't think it's going to scar the kid for life to say he missed a field goal in one football game when he was 15 years old. Sure, he'll feel like crap about it for a few days, but he knows it happened and there's no reason to hide it.

 

What paper covers sixth-grade kickball? Do they run agate?

 

No agate, but it is Twittered.

 

Home runs: Johnson 7 (112), M. Wilson 11 (184), B. Wilson 15 (273).
Sacrifice flies: None. Sacrifice hits: None.
Girls crying after hit by kickball: Langston, Holtry, L. James, S. James.

(That last one is the undervalued GCAHK for you sabermetricians out there.)

 

Here's my coach-railing story. The local girls team, a great team, was playing poorly in a national championship tournament; it needed near-perfection in three consecutive games to get back in contention. I asked the coach whether he thought they could do it - just wanted the cliched "it's never over 'til it's over" quote. Instead, he said something like, "Usually, in the past, I'd say absolutely. With this particular team, I don't know. They don't really show much heart."

This wasn't the type of sports-mad town where a coach could have been attempting to, you know, "motivate his squad through the press." (Actually, does that happen anywhere? With 17-year-old girls?) He was just an ass. But I quoted him - made it the lede. The girls proceeded to lose the tournament. Two weeks later, I was a spectator at another championship tournament - boys - and I happened to be sitting directly behind three of the girls team's stars in the bleachers. None of them saw me...they proceeded to spend something like fifteen minutes ripping the coach. (I contemplated acknowledging my presence two feet behind them...obviously, I decided against it.) Eventually, the best player said, "After what he said? No way I play next year if that fucker is back."

I don't have a point. It was just immensely entertaining to be a fly on the wall for a gossipy team conversation related to an article I wrote.

 

Two examples of prep coverage, one that I wrote and one that I didn't (but it came from our same shop)...

1. I didn't write this... It was a prestigious track and field relay held in our area, and it was a couple years ago. Apparently someone thought it would be a cute idea to use, instead of a baton, a banana during a relay. So here they are passing a banana. Obviously someone sees this (or the judge may have seen it on his own) and the relay team is DQ'd, and I believe it cost the team the overall title. Players are named, coach talks to us and voices his disappointment that his kids would resort to something so stupid.

2. I wrote this several years ago... during a girls basketball game, team doesn't do a good job shooting free throws or building a huge lead, so of course the game falls on the shoulders of one girl at the line. Needs two freebies to tie, but she misses the first (I believe there was under a half-second remaining, so no chance to get the ball back) and she makes the second. She's crying after the game. Coach talks to me afterwards, of course I explain I have to put the end result in the paper and he told me she never should have been in that position (shooting FT's) because the team did a bad job overall from the field and the line and put the pressure on her at the end. End result, her name made it in print, but said coach (now retired, class act) took all the pressure off.

 

I actually had parents come up to me and tell me I wasn't writing enough negative comments about one player.

Two years later, that player went D-1