Team photos

If someone has the policy to run team photos, that's their choice. Everyone has their reasons for doing things. I won't come on here and criticize anyone who does.

We have our reasons why we don't _ we would be inundated with them, we don't have the room, they are often poor quality, IDs are wrong, etc. We don't ignore the kids _ we'll do briefs with the game/event information and run the kids' names. But that's it.

What irks me is that the policy is stated frequently in our paper, and people still bring them in or argue that we should make an exception. That's not how it works.

 

We just have a page each Sunday devoted to "area." It's usually an ad-dominated page, but I'll just stack those photos (black & white) two columns at a time until the pile is gone. Fill up with some briefs about every high school coach in the area having his/her personal camp and away we go.

 

At a larger paper I can see it. There are definitely more interesting things in a place like Dallas, for example, than the 8-year-olds' champions of one of the two dozen little leagues in the city. And you have to put a limit on it or else that's all you run. But at a smaller paper, maybe 30,000 and under, I think there's definitely a place for them.

 

We run a page each week. Includes a community-based sports feature (lacross, curling, equestrian, rugby, Hispanic soccer are some of the features we've done), bowling scores, auto racing results, Little League baseball standings, etc. And team photos. Generally it's 3-4 per week. Readers love it and it gives me a place to dump just about anything once a week. Our only policy is items must be e-mailed for a cut and paste, no faxes or handwritten stuff that I have to retype. Most photos are e-mailed, too. It works for us (40K) and seems to keep the soccer moms at bay. Next week we are featuring a lesbian swim team that's competing in the Gay Games in Chicago. How's that for equal opportunity!

 

Tag-team photos are always more interesting.



























Gigggggittttyyy!!!!!!

 

At my 25,000 circ we have a no team photo policy that doesn't seem to bother many people anymore. In fact, we have quit covering little league and many youth sports pretty much altogether and hang our hat on strong prep and collegiate coverage and it goes pretty well (we still do the occasional feature on compelling story lines, but never do a little league gamer).

We do, however, still get the occasional parent or coach complaint about (my all-time favorite sports complaint) how the kids DESERVE to have some recognition in the community. It drives me crazy to hear so many parents talk about what their kids deserve... would it be nice for the kids? Of course. Would it give them some exposure they wouldn't otherwise get? Sure. But the mentality that they deserve publicity for sports drives me crazy.

I also cover a D-I football team that happened to go 0-12 last year... those of you with too much time on your hands can figure out who if you want. I get a ton of, "I see you still put articles in about them when they're winless but you can't put in this for these kids who actually won?" Well even at 0-12, the college football team averaged more than 5,000 people a game and our Web hits for those stories dwarf anything I've ever seen at a local t-ball game that gets pretty much just the families of the players who were there and don't really need to read about results anyway.

One way some of the parents are kept happy is our Sunday community page -- which isn't the responsibility of the sports department here or at pretty much any paper I'm aware of. Essentially, its our "YES" page. Someone calls in and asks if we can publish something, we at least have one page a week that we'll throw essentially anything on, including team photos. Best part... it's not a sports chore.

 

I think the key is consistency.

If you have a policy, it's critical to stick with it or the phone calls come out of the woodwork.

One of our local papers has a "No group phots" policy (paper-wide), yet you see them time and again.

 

Even though I work for a small paper, team pics are a pain. A lot of times the quality is just horrible. Kids are cut off, or they take the picture from across the gym or half the kids are not even looking at the camera.
Also when they include the names there will be 13 kids in the picture and 12 names written down or four kids in the front row with three names or the backup rightfielder will just be called Johnny ??? because the parents don't even know the kids last name.
If the parents don't even care enough to take a nice quality photo with all of the correct information, then why should I?

 

I have to run almost everything. Catch a fish? Two column photo -- three if you hold it sideways and it's big enough. Kill a deer? Two columns. Coyote? Same thing. Your travel team just won the bumblefuck 10-under title? Three column photo. Take it from 50 yards away, crooked and in low light with a Polaroid? Hey, we're your paper. Publisher's orders...But I do get to mutter my favorite phrase when submitter calls to bitch about the quality: "You can't make chicken salad out of chicken shit."

 

That's when we break out the old "Well, the picture itself doesn't look too bad but it just won't reproduce very well" card.

 

We have.    Of course, it's always a complaint about why we didn't cover Little Tommy or Susie's team.  Occasionally a local coach will call in advance and let us know about a team playing for a title, and we might actually get to it if we have staff available.  

Most of our summer results (50,000-circ. paper) are submitted online, compiled into a roundup by a staffer, and run twice a week.  We're accepting submitted photos too, some of which have shown up in print and some (I think) on the web.  The (non-sports) editor who loves this stuff said we're getting lotsa traffic for the youth results.

I don't know if we have a set policy.  Perhaps by next summer we will.  But once the high school kids come back in mid-August, it's all varsity sports, all the time.  Everything else gets shifted to a zoned weekly section which is not produced by the sports department.

 

Some of you guys are varying the size of these photos. I think you have to stick with one size and go with it. It's leaving yourself way too open for the complaints.