The college commitment/signing news conference

A lot of kids will never do it this way, though. They're getting called from the two scouting services, probably ESPN now that they're doing recruiting, their hometown paper and one or two newspapers that cover each school they're thinking about (depending on how seriously those papers cover recruiting).

The staged press conference is basically a time saver for them - take care of all of it in one fell swoop.

In a perfect world, yes, you work the kid and get the scoop. But it rarely happens that way. Our Rivals and Scout sites are hyper-competitive. When one beats the other on this, the loyal readers on the other site start accusing the competition of "stealing the kid's thunder." And vice versa when it goes the other way. Without fail, the losing site on a scoop knew about it, but chose not to report it "out of respect" to the recruit.

Not sure how much I feel like jumping into that muck.

 

That's a valid point. In the pre-Internet days I wrote up a scoop on a major-college basketball recruit, getting the confirmation the night before the news conference by talking to an analyst who'd just gotten off the phone with the losing coach.

I wrote the story, the kid went ahead with the news conference despite the fact that I'd taken the drama out of the announcement. Kid didn't mind my scoop at all -- I think he kind of appreciated the fact that I kept working for a story on him -- but I got hatemail from people for a solid month afterward.

It worked out in the end. I strong-armed the kid onto the writers' all-state first team at the end of the season. He deserved the honor but wasn't getting a big push of support from other voters because we were a traditionally weak basketball town.

 

yet there are thousands of people who'll pay $10 a month to subscribe to rivals or scout.com Web sites just so they can get this kind of breaking news ... I used to work for one, and I always would be amazed at the bazillion lurkers who would hang out in recruiting message boards waiting for these big announcements.

I remember when Tim Tebow was getting ready to announce, we had the Bama and Florida Rivals' sites up, and they were getting record hits on their football boards... crazy ...

 

The signing news conferences are good if you can get a picture of the kid showing emotion -- hugging a parent, high-fiving friends, etc.

If all you get is a photo of a guy signing a piece of paper with stone faced people lined up behind him and quotes you could get via phone ... not so good.

 

I had a signing day a few weeks ago, and although the pictures left a lot of be desired (yes, I'm taking my own photos as well), the q&a period with the athletes, coaches and parents was pretty well coordinated by the school. Chances of that happening again in my career are slim and none, but it did make the process a lot easier.

 

Hey, if you're there and the kid signs, that's better than if you're there because he is announcing that he is not signing.

/Terrelle Pryor

 

I always approached it with the idea that you're not writing about the college commitment. You're writing about the kid. The news hook just happens to be that he's decided where to go to college.
Makes it a lot easier for me.

 

Agreed. We did features on two football players in our area who signed LOI's. Neither had big conferences (it's not like they were going to Florida or LSU)

 

at my last shop, we simply had too many schools to cover to even think about attending "press conferences" at the high school level, which was nice.

we had two colleges in our coverage zone and had the beat guy from each school write who team X and team Y signed. we then had our preps guy do a wrap on the rest of the players who signed with other teams.

i blew the shit out of it on 1C or 1D, whichever section we were on those specific days. it worked out nicely and readers seemed to like the treatment we gave it.

 

Ok, first let me say I hate these staged events. I think working a story and sources to find the truth is clearly outstanding reporting, good journalism and people respect you for your ability to be good at it.

But I have got to ask this because this final sentence or two seemed strange to me. What difference does it make to you if the kid gets All-State, All-Conference, All-Region or All-American? I mean, it's your job to find out the story not work the mojo so that he gets named to all-star teams isn't it?

Frankly I vote on a few teams but I rarely share my vote with others and never encourage others to vote my way. In that respect, the voting is fair, unbiased and the teams are picked at least from my perspective in good faith and honesty. Strong-arming people or coaches into voting your preference is not the job of a sports writer to me.

Sorry to throw this on you, but it just didn't sit right with me.

 

The column I saw recently on this subject was written by the lead guy at The LA Times and focused not on the usefulness of these press conferences, but on the morality of them. The writer suggested it turns high schools and their officials into schills for the colleges who are signing these kids. I've probably covered hundreds of these signing day events and have never come away from them feeling used or like I've used anyone. Sure, ADs and coaches like to get their programs in the paper for getting their kids scholarships, but why wouldn't they? Ostensibly at least, it's why they do what they do. The Times story centered around a kid who arranged a signing day presser, only he didn't actually have a scholarship from anyone. He just wanted the attention and has a sense of humor, along with solid academic skills. The column turned this into a tragic story about how kids who get academic scholarships never get the kind of attention athletes get. Which, in my experience, really isn't true. I hear it all the time, though. "Why do you write so much about these athletes and I never hear about the kid with a 4.0 who won the robotics competition?" If the coach of the robotics team or the faculty advisor for the yearbook or the band director calls a news desk with something about someone winning a scholarship or competition, it gets covered. This is especially true at papers that because of their size and/or commitment to local journalism make a point of being at these pressers. Also, I've never come across one of these kids who didn't have a story worth telling or even retelling in a new way. You may need to report and write your ass off to convince your bored, tired, besieged-by-management editor that this story warrants top play, but if you look at it as a chance to show off how well you know your sources and how well you can tell a story, this should be one of the highlights of the prep calendar.

 

See, now I gotta wonder.

Say you're the principal and you have five kids who have been accepted to Ivy League schools.

Why *not* call a press conference and let the local papers know what a big deal it is.

Or, you have kids going on band -- or dare I say it -- cheerleading -- scholarships. Why not play it up?

Not as sports. But as a news conference to celebrate how well the school did in sending kids to big-time schools.

Sounds like the way to do it.

The nice thing is you can say, "I am sorry, we don't cover those, because we have too many."