Running Football Tab Thread

Best advice I can give is this.

If you've been given X amount of time to produce the tab ... 1 day, 4 days, whatever ... make SURE that in whatever spare time you have in the weeks beforehand, you get as much done as is humanly possible so it's not part of your to-do list in the alloted time.

For mine, we have this done beforehand:

1. College schedules page ... all I-A and all state schools ... is finished. Ready to slap on the proper page and ship.
2. High school schedules page ... finished. Same.
3. NFL schedules ... finished.
4. Lists of local players in college football ... working on it as the schools make their rosters available on Web site.
5. Have made a list of all available file art of returning players.
WEST BUMFUCK
QB Joe Blow ... vertical.
RB Bob Wilson ... horizontal. GOOD shot.
LB Biff Bonser ... square.
6. Made sure the template is ready for inputting our high-school capsules, and that the Mac template for same is ready.

 

Very crucial.

 

just curious when deadlines are for different folks ... we've got a 132 page monster. Shoves on the 23rd, runs on the weekend of 27th. Copy deadline is supposed to be Friday (18th), but I'm thinking some area schools may filter in until the last minute.

 

Out to go take pictures in a few minutes. First time in a few years I've had to do so. Why? A third of the schools we cover scheduled photo days today.

At least I've got the weekend to drink myself into some sort of good mood.

 

I've got 32 high school pages, 16 college. The following Sunday, we do a 16-page NFL tabloid pre.

Copy deadline is pretty much Saturday, the 19th, although if some people have trouble getting coaches, we try to be flexible through Monday.

The 48 pages run off on Wednesday, the 23rd. I'm working slot Saturday, the 19th, and am going to try to have the ASE work out the pages so I can work on the daily through first edition, then be free to jump on the tab.

And that, essentially, is the time I've got. Saturday night late, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday. By myself, outside of proofing pages. That, of course, is why I say to get everything done beforehand that you can.

The NFL stuff, I'll get one day to put that together the following week.

 

I got a good one from the ad department a few minutes ago. I'll put it in one-act play form:
AD GUY: Which school is going on the front cover?
EXPENDABLE: Actually I haven't made my final decision yet [Knowing cover is basically 80 percent done]
AD GUY: Well, we need to be able to tell the advertisers.
EXPENDABLE: What?
AD GUY: We might be able to get a bigger ad out of some of these people if we can tell them its their school.
EXPENDABLE: Really? Do these same advertisers ask what's going to go on the front page every week?
AD GUY: No, but we need to know what to tell them.
EXPENDABLE: Tell them what I'm about to tell you. It's none of your damn business.

Yep, I'll get called into the big man's office sometime today.

 

Expendable, don't know you, haven't read many posts by you, and I understand the suspicion when talking to an ad guy. But seriously, what would be the harm telling him what school was going to be on the cover? That's not exactly ripping down the wall betwen church and state, is it?

 

Telling him and telling him so he can tell advertisers are two different things. Plus I didn't like his tone. Basically, what they want to do is find out and then go whine to the publisher that it's not selling well because bumfuck h.s. is on the cover and not turtleshit prep, or they could get a better ad if bumfuck was on the cover. Then, I get called in and pretty much get told to put all five on the cover, none on the cover, bow to their wishes or run one of those things form the Metro CD (what they'd prefer, I think).

I probably won't win. Wouldn't have won anyway, but knowing their motives (I've dealt with this for five years now), this way I get to tell them to go fuck themselves twice.

 

Unfortunately, that all makes sense to me.

 

If your lucky you get to run an annual generic crappy covers that won't piss anyone off.
Bill Bob SlackJaw has committed to play QB at OSU, but we don't to put him or the other good players in the area on the cover because someone will complain, says ME and Pub.

 

We wrapped up a 64-pager this afternoon. Printed this evening and runs Sunday.

Much of the planning and hard work on this one was already on track before i got back here. I'm just glad it's done.

 

we do a prep, college and pro 56 pager. it goes to print tuesday and will come out friday, the first day of high school season. copy was due this week, and we have an idea of how we want team pages. doubletruck of area's top players is done, as is cover. we're sitting rather pretty right now, which is nice. we starting planning this shit in late june, mainly for ideas, so i'm happy it's almost over with.