Sports Writer, Springfield, Mo.

Story idea one: An expose about how a poorly-run search might eliminate candidates from the next, ahem, Missouri State women's basketball coach search.

It reeks of "I do it because I can."

 

you're hired

 

I agree with Playthrough. Heck isn't that what they have a 90-day trial run for to see if you can cut the mustard so to speak. I don't know about everybody else, but I have a lot on my plate, and don't have time right now to bother with that stuff even if I had applied

 

If you don't want to apply for the job, then don't, but make no mistake -- this is the biggest beat in town. Expect hell from the readers if you don't do the job right. They want someone competent on the job, and apparently, so does management at the paper.

This isn't just some Gannett rag. This is the major paper in a metro of 700,000. The student newspaper is written by students on assignment for various classes. Very few of them are "on staff." So if you don't want to apply for the job, don't, but quit complaining because they want you to come up with ideas on how to do the beat well before they even bring you in for an interview.

We all have a lot on our plates, but if they gave me the opportunity to prove to them I deserved an interview, I'd take it.

In my job, I'm trying to get a promotion and I still have to give my boss a cover letter and letter of interest to compete with outside candidates, but you know what, I worked harder on that cover letter and polishing my resume than I did to get my current position because that's what it was going to take.

So you're obviously in or out, but if you're in, give it your all and let them see what you've got. If you're out, then I feel for you because this is a great beat at a paper that's trying to improve itself with a sports editor who apparently wants to see improvement in her section.

 

i still bet the men's basketball beat writer wouldn't trade.

 

700,000 hmm? I just found something on the Internet that states Springfield's population at 151,000.
I worked there not long ago. One thing that amazed me about the place is that its gotta be the biggest city in the world with no real downtown. There's just a lot of industrial looking crap. If it wasn't for John Q Hammons, who built their AA baseball stadium, a new basketball arena, and refurbushed much of the MSU campus, that town would be completely atrocious.
Unless, of course, you find the Yakov Smirnov Theater in nearby Branson entertaining. ...

 

Springfield's population is 150,000. The metro area is about 700,000 if you include all the communities that back into Springfield, including Nixa, Ozark, Strafford, Aurora and a variety of other communities that are included in the "metro"

 

and all the folks who visit branson?

 

Those people don't count, on account of their inability to judge what's fun.

 

solid.

 

Rumor has it that Kyle Neddenriep, who was the beat writer at the Springfield News-Leader for Missouri State women's basketball, has landed the (preps) position at Indy.

Bet he wrote a killer essay to get it, too.

 

Amen. The only good thing is the funnel cake at Silver Dollar City.

Unfortunately, I was born in Springfield. Fortunately, I was two months old when we moved. Fortunately, I the majority of my ancestry is not from the Ozarks.