Reporting on turnovers and missed kicks in high school football

Ace, we staff all home games, and some on the road. The only time the school's "official" scorekeeper is when it is playing at home. The school does not send scorekeepers on the road, which is the only time we take call-ins -- when they are on the road. During road games, the assistant coaches of that team keep the books. As I said before, the coaches are fine...they aren't hesitant to give someone an error. I can't vouch 100 percent for them, for obvious reasons, but I know they keep more accurate statistics than these scorekeepers, if only to have records to justify their decision to a parent after benching someone.

 

I just think it's funny that the stats kept by the team are so poorly done when you are at the games but you are so convinced that they are accurate when you aren't there.

If some dumb parent is keeping stats at home game and doing a crap job, don't you think the coach or assistant would step in?

And I am not just talking to you. Most papers rely on call ins for the vast majority of their prep coverage.

 

I don't care one bit what the school's book has. if I staff a baseball/softball game, or one of my writers staff the game, his stats are the official stats. that's the way it is.

and, to add, yes, they are high school kids. but the thing of it is, they have willingly placed themselves in the public eye. everyone they know at school probably knows what they did/didn't do by the time it gets into the paper and most of them saw it live. the kid knows he/she screwed up. sure, don't pile on the kid or bash him/her unfairly, but if he did something that changed how the game went, good or bad, it's gonna be in there as a matter of fact.

(and if we can't do it, then someone should call the folks at the radio station and tv station and let them know. pretty sure I've heard errors, fumbles, etc., pointed out there, too. I wouldn't begin to call most of them journalists, but the point remains. this thing happened in an event we're there to cover. report it.)

 

I put whatever happened, whether it's a 4-for-4 game or a kid makes two errors that contribute to the outcome in some way.

Also, maybe I missed it earlier, but what if you and the official scorer have conflicting opinions about a call and they ask you for clarification or advice?

Do you give it? Say you can't? Tell them they are the official scorer and have to make the decision, but then write something different?

 

Well, the scorekeepers are probably right about 95 percent of the time, maybe more. And, I doubt the coaches care to alienate someone who is getting 10 bucks to "officially" record the game when they know I'm gonna write what I saw, anyway. I've yet to have a coach complain when I don't follow the books, and they know I don't follow the books.

 

I had a baseball game last spring where a kid on the home team sent a drive deep to left-center. Visiting team center fielder runs deep into the gap, lays out and gets a glove on the ball only to have it bounce out when he hit the ground. I scored it a double all the way. After the game, the visiting team coach makes a mention of the kid's error. There is no way on earth the play was an error, but that's how it got reported to visiting team's paper.

As for the original question, I think most folks have the right idea. If it comes at a critical juncture and directly affects the outcome, you have to mention it. I just try to make sure it doesn't read like that one play was the only reason a team lost. In football, was there a drive inside the 10 that failed to produce points? In basketball, did the team miss a bunch of free throws early? In baseball, how many times did a team have runners in scoring position with less than two outs and get nothing?

Basically, I try to word it as there were other missed chances, the one I'm writing about just happened to be the last one.

 

I'm wary of parents as scorekeepers, though some have gained my trust and I'll give them the benefit of the doubt.

There are some whose work might be "official," but it's still wrong.

Covered an early-round prep softball playoff series one year that went to the decisive third game. Just before deadline, and well after filing my story, I looked at the online stats for the home team, which lost.

Pitcher's mom was the team's "official" scorekeeper and had already updated them. Pitcher, despite throwing every pitch of that series, did not pitch in Game 2, according to the "official" stats. Mom gave that loss to someone else.

Pitcher had given up seven earned runs all year, according the "official" stats. She gave up six that day, by what I saw, and just two, according to the "official" stats.

Pitcher's ERA remains one of the best in state history, so says the state record book. The record keepers won't touch it unless the coach, who has long departed from the school, wipes it out. The coach doesn't want mom complaining.

I interviewed the pitcher after that series and asked about her success that day compared to the whole season. She gave a thoughtful answer, complimented the other team, etc.

I asked the coach. One player overheard the question, held one hand out and acted like it was a plane taking off. Coach asked if I wouldn't mention the pitcher's earned runs. I said I had to because of the pitcher's prominence in the state records and because the pitcher (and her stats) had been a well-discussed topic among area softball people. Coach asked if I would leave him out of the earned runs, which I said I could do. We finished the interview.

I retrieved my bag that was behind the backstop, turned and walked toward the car.

Mom, who I hadn't talked to the whole time, yelled loudly as I was walking away that she planned to attend the state tournament to watch a nearby out-of-area team beat the city private school that she felt we favored. When I didn't react, she repeated herself. I kept walking.

I want to say the team's stats disappeared from the Web site a few days later, but I might be mistaken.

I repeated the stats part of the story to the All-State committee. Pitcher did not get the votes.

 

Not sure if this is related or not, but what about assists in soccer that are sometimes added to the scoring after the fact?
I remember in my early days in this business having a kid throw a hissy fit because I reported that a goal was unassisted when the coach gave her an assist, later, maybe after watching the game on tape, and nobody bothered to tell me about it. The referee told the scorekeeper the goal was unassisted and that's the way I reported it.

 

I got called out in a letter to the editor (unsigned, of course) for quoting an area football coach for saying his team basically rolled over and died after their season-opening opponent scored a touchdown and ran a fake PAT for 2 in the third quarter in what ended up a (I think) a 4-point loss.
The same reader complained about the placement of the story in the sports section (Page 3, far right column, no picture) while the two teams from the town in which the paper is located had front-page stories with pictures.

 

I didn't read the whole thread, so forgive me if I'm repeating, but my one thought on "negativity" in young-person sports reporting: make an effort to avoid needlessly negative constructions. Instead of "Smith then gave up a home run to Johnson," make it "Johnson then homered off Smith." Instead of "Jones coughed up the ball after a hit by Tims," make it "A hard Tims hit knocked the ball out of Jones' hands." Few readers will notice, but the kid sure will.

Obviously obviously obviously report key missed kicks and big fumbles and other important screw-ups - yes, with their names. But in the cases where there's no clear screw-up, we can sometimes phrase things more gently than we do without sacrificing even a tiny bit of the truth.

 

Re: "official" scoring. In my area, at least one school's baseball coach calls in incorrect scores deliberately when his team runs it up on another. We only found out because someone from the office was there one day and noticed we had a different, lower-margin, score in the paper.
We've been wary of the guy since. Not sure how we make sure the scores we print are correct.

 

Had a starting QB/punter get ejected for throwing a punch in a playoff game once. Team's passing went to nothing and the backup punter couldn't handle a slightly off-kilter snap (that the starter likely handles), which led to a touchdown for the visitors in a 14-3 win.

I didn't write that he "threw a right hook" or "did his best Mike Tyson," but factually said he was ejected for punching Joe Lineman. I quoted the QB and the lineman.

Coach was quite agitated that I mentioned the ejection. The boss backed me all the way. The boss had taken a dinner break and was listening on the radio when the kid was ejected. The boss told me the first question he wondered was how the team would react.

I found out about five years later, after the coach left the area, that I was "banned" from their locker room for those last five years. The coach's replacement was a longtime assistant and wondered why.

It didn't affect the kid. He went on to the Ivy League.