NorCal high school announces coverage rules

The locker room thing doesn't bother me -- some teams will have kids that are 14, 15 years old and there's the various state of undress. I can understand a school district wanting to protect kids, and parents' worries about "strangers" being allowed in there.. They're not professionals, and I think that's the point. They might not know how to act and you can't expect kids at some of those ages to.

If you need to talk to a kid after they've left the field, a coach can pull someone out.

 

What are the odds one or more of the coaches is reacting to these rules with a big eye roll and "WTF?"

Many coaches I covered and who trusted me would have done things as they had always done it and told me to blow off any of this bullshit.

Also, I agree with the locker rooms being off limits. No reason to see Johnny Freshman's cock.

 

Well, when you put it that way.

 

Funny aspect of this is having to get permission from an administrator to talk to a kid who has been your next door neighbor for 15 years.

 

I've covered high school sports for a long time, and the only times I interview a player in the locker room might be well before practice. Usually if you tell the coach who you need they'll have them come to an office. It's quieter there anyway.
We do have some schools where the fieldhouse is more like one big locker room, though, and you have to walk through that part to get to the coaches' offices. Or I might pop my head into a closed-off portion to tell a player I need to talk to them when they get a minute. I think that's the kind of "off limits" rule that would hinder us in our jobs, and that makes us bristle a bit.

 

I also wonder how they handle call-ins for road games. Are Monica and Sierra, or someone else, providing stats? Does the reporter need to call them at 10:15 on a Friday night, so they can in turn call the coach and alert them, so the coach can then call the reporter?
If you show up for an interview after school hours, is Monica actually there to check you in according to the policy or does she leave at 3:30?
As always with these kinds of things, my thoughts immediately turn to the practical side of it and how I hate being beholden to the whims of someone who absolutely gives no fucks about putting in the extra effort required to make it work.

 

The selling of photos was one of the few things that really stuck out to me.
Having to go through a third party to talk to a coach was another one. You may be a big-time high school powerhouse, but at the end of the day, you're still just a high school.
The only time I've ever gone into a locker room as a reporter was when I was asked to by the coach because 1) that's how we accessed his office, or 2) it was after a game and that's where he wanted to talk. Post-game or post-practice, I've got better things to do than slink around inside a high school locker room.

 

So glad my prep days were when I could roll up to the school, walk into the gym, coach’s office, field house or sideline and get what I needed. Was fortunate to have good relationships with almost all our area coaches and staff.

Some of these policies seem reasonable. It will be interesting to see what happens when they hit a roadblock or late-unusual request.

 

I'm thinking of those nights when you get one of those games that goes on forever. Been a couple of times where I'd grab a coach or star of the game out of the handshake line, get my quotes and be out of there before the band fired up the alma mater. Do I have to wait 15 minutes now? Eff that, will skip quotes as much as I hate to.

 

There’s nothihg standard about contacting a PR flak to set up an interview with a high school coach. That is ridiculous.

 

I was working on a scoop once and the HS flak decided to send out a presser to all the TV stations before we went to print on it. I raised enough hell about it that that got stopped.

 

Look at it this way, I consider it a good thing it didn’t occur to you why it would be a problem. But some (a lot?) of us had that guy we either side-eyed directly or heard rumors about. Probably one in every coverage area.