Reporting on turnovers and missed kicks in high school football

Once I reported the name of a kid who booted a ground ball in a HS baseball game.

Now that kid is the Dodgers PR director ... And he never lets me forget it.

 

Especially don't call him the G.O.A.T. after he makes a game-costing mistake.

 

The best thing to do is get a quote from the kid and let him tell about it in his own terms.

Some team I was covering lost a basketball game when their best player missed two free throws. I talked to him about it and then was able to let him say in his own words that he was the goat.

 

i agree with the slapster. tell the truth, but wait to rub noses in an error -- if that's what you do -- until the kid is in college.

 

I think it's part of scoring, and while it's in the summary, I still mention it in the story.

Missed kick, I have no issue at all. Lost fumble? Depends on whether it's a game-changer.

 

Fuck they can be bastards in college too.

I was doing a local roundup last week of local players at major colleges and wrote something about one player making his college debut for a BCS-bowl eligible school. I wrote he did not record a tackle in the game.

Father wrote me an e-mail and called me chickenshit for doing it.

Well, he played a significant amount of time and didn't have anything to show for it daddy-o. People want to know that stuff. Especially if you're in the big time.

 

i think i would have called daddy out when replying to the e-mail.

 

We had a girl who signed with a major DI school last year. Fantastic player, great kid. one of the state's all-time leading scorers. she brought her team back from double digits down in the second half of the state semifinal game by scoring something like 33 points. Still, the only way her team could win or get to overtime was to get a steal and hoop, but there was only 1.8 seconds left.
She steals the inbounds play and gets fouled.
Then she airballed her first free throw. game over. high school career over.
i asked to tell me about the final sequence.
"I got to the free throw line, I choked and we lost."
I didn't get one complaint call about identifying her.
If it's a key point in the game, ya gotta ID the player.

 

yes. she did.

 

I got called out for mentioning a tiff a Legion player had with an umpire after giving up a walk to load the bases. Next batter, the kids gives up a the eventual game winning home run.

A few parents confront me, not the parents of the kid in question and ask why. If it plays a major role in game, I'm naming the player. I don't have to call the kid a bad player, but I feel as if the readers need to know how a game was won or lost.

 

what was their beefs? i mean how did they approach dogging you for telling the truth?

 

Absolutely did. And of course he backtracked.