Driving me bananas

This is very important. You gotta get a system that works for you. When I was covering preps, I borrowed from a couple of oldtimers and made my own system for each sport--for play by play and overall stats. My focus was always the running play by play. That's the foundation. You can always go back and fix the overall stats off that running score. Tweets can flow from that process during breaks. That's how I did it, at least.

If he hasn't found his system yet, he's going to continue to struggle.

 

Something else to consider: Does the reporter mind this being talked about on a message board? I ask because "sports editor of a Big 12 city daily paper for almost 13 years" winnows the field down an awful lot. I'd be pretty disappointed to find out that my boss was talking about what he says are my shortcomings in a public forum for all, including friends, coworkers and competitors, to see.

 

I know you said that this is only a piece of your story, so it may be in a part you didn't post, but I'm curious about one stat that I don't see in your piece. Was this the team's first game of the season? Second game? I don't see a record for either team. If it's early in the season, then having that in the story would have added some context about the team's mistakes.

Also, it's girls high school basketball. How many girls teams convert more than 50 percent of their free throws? Besides, they won by 13 points. Had they shot 75 percent, they would have won by 17 points. Big whoop.

Had Jane brought up how unhappy she was by her free throws as something she needs to improve on, or her coach said something like if they shoot like that, it'll kill them someday, that's one thing. It's context. But the "they would have won by more if they were better free throw shooters," wasn't that great, especially when it didn't have any impact on the game.

The rebounds thing also lacks context. Did her second half rebound surge result in anything? Did her team pull away in the second half because of her rebound surge? Or did her team just out score them all game?

 

The way I would keep stats, especially in football, is to start trying to keep everything and then focus on the most compelling beyond the basic running, passing, receiving.

If someone is making a ton of tackles, I make sure to continue to keep up with tackles.

If someone is punting really well (or poorly) I keep up with that and highlight it.

If there are a lot of dropped passes, I try to monitor that.

So I go in tyring to keep everyting then really focus on basics and the stats that are outliers.

In basketball, I would rely on the official book for made shots and made and missed free throws. So I would try to focus on rebounds, mised shots, turnover, assists. Assists are a bit of a gray area, though.

If you are going to use the book for your official scoring stats, make sure to check in beforehand. Some scorekeepers can be grumpy.

 

I have a PBP style that allows me to record rebounds, assists, steals and blocks relatively easily. But the moment I find myself getting behind, I ax it and keep it to FG makes and misses. I'm a reporter, not a stenographer. If detailed stats are that essential, double-cover the game; hire a stringer to do the numbers while the reporter reports.

As someone pointed out, adding those stats can be a blessing and a curse; on the one hand, readers might appreciate it, but on the other hand, they might tee off on you because your 12 rebounds don't jibe with their count of 14, or Coach who says it was 15. Something I've discovered in covering high school sports: The more info you give readers, the more ammo they return.

I remember one game where I went in thinking "OK, high school basketball game between two middling teams, probably a 63-58 kinda game." It was 74-72. At halftime. Turned out the new coach brought in the Grinnell system. I didn't waste a lot of time trying to get rebounds and assists. I'm not sure any of us even got the final score right.

 

We had one firm rule (that was still broken once a month) that for high school games that you don't say it was the first district or regional or state title in school history.

Invariably, you say the soccer team won the school's first state title in any sport and the next day a reader points out that the girls' golf team won state last year.

Or you say it's the first time the school has ever won a district/conference footall championship and you find they won 10, 20 or 30 years ago.

You better have a record book to make that statement. Don't rely on the memories of the coach or even AD.

 

Seems as if the SE needs some mentorship in how to manage subordinates.

 

A-bleeping-men.
Our other sports writer covered a game this season where the local team won to improve to 5-4. The coach, who has been there for about three years now, said it was the first time they'd been over .500 since he'd been there.
Well, except for when they were 1-0 before a recent four-game losing streak. Or maybe a couple of years ago when they were halfway decent and might have been 9-8 or 6-5 or 2-1 at some point.
Also have had some parents with short memories claim it's the first time School A has won the district title in 30 years, except I remember covering them when they won it about 10 years ago.
Gotta be sure about these things. Omission is better than being wrong.

 

sprtswrtr, without knowing the specifics of your reporter, it sounds like a generational gap issue to me. I'd guess he is early- to mid-20s and had it drilled into his head in college how important it is to tweet, especially during games, and that more and more papers don't run stats anymore so they're not as important as they used to be. Maybe he covered sports before he came to your shop (either in college or for another shop) and was told to emphasize tweets and social media interaction. Now he's at your shop thinking that's the way of the future and it's causing a rift because you want to emphasize something (keeping complete running stats) that seems out of style to him, while he is bringing something to the table (tweets, tweets and more tweets) that seems to be the wrong emphasis to you. I'm thinking there is some common ground to be reached. Maybe a good heart-to-heart, civil discussion between you two. Maybe some compromise on both sides (for example, he only tweets at game breaks and maybe doesn't worry about rebound stats for now) while you both understand where the other is coming from and what the advantages of the other's process could be.

 

Kyle, correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't you post last month about the Gameday package you ran that ISU admins didn't care for? Seeing that, then seeing less than a month later you posting about looking for work in Michigan, raised my eyebrows a bit.
Linking it to the current discussion, what real world feedback did you get about the online and video emphasis? I'm not talking about hits and views, but around the community what were you hearing? Did people like the strategy, or were you getting grumbles?

 

Haha. Idaho State University didn't force me out of the job. Seriously. Let me be clear. Were they upset? Absolutely. But not to the point where they were calling for my head. (Not that it would have mattered. My editor was supportive.) My wife is in med school and I joined her at the conclusion of ISU's football season. May Bengals 2015 football rest in peace.

No grumbles from folks on our heavy emphasis on video. I'd like to think people liked the strategy. Parents, kids love photos and reading about themselves. Video is another avenue for friends and family to see their athletes in action. Also, our game recaps didn't change. We still provided the same amount of stats as before.

 

I was burned that way a couple of times; by the end, I always attributed firsts. "Coach Smith said it was the program's first conference title," or "Athletic director Jennifer Henderson said it's the first time a Tinytown program has been nationally ranked" or what have you. Better to omit than be dead wrong. That said, if everyone associated with the program is saying it, then their saying it should be part of the public record; better that than readers wondering why you aren't acknowledging a first whatever because you couldn't come up with a definitive neutral source to confirm it.