The "Homer" sports writer

So, I'm about to graduate and I know that college journalists have a knack for being slanted – I’m guilty of it I’m sure.

This may not be under the “homer” category but I was at a baseball game for my college and the two play-by-play guys from the other school in our conference were in town and were mocking – on-air – the “voice of my college” announcer for the way he presented and called a game.

They were saying things like “Our team this…” and “Our college has great players that…”

I don’t think, in the three years I wrote for the school paper or called play-by-play or was on TV, I ever referred to my school as “my” school. I might get a little more excited when the team scored the winning touchdown or hit a big three but I never EVER said the dreaded “we.”

 

Now, stop getting visibly excited when "your" team scores the winning TD, and we might have something.

 

That was the story of my life for the 8 years I worked at a small-town daily.

Four schools in the coverage area, but if you weren't a homer for the county-seat school, you were the worst thing since Satan.

Because I managed to give the three other schools equitable treatment and do a semi-professional job of covering all four, I was cursed up and down in the county seat for being "against" them. The conspiracy theorists claiming the paper was "against" them came out of the woodwork the year after I left the paper, having been hired as a teacher & coach at one of the county schools.

An upstart weekly in the county tried to use our professional coverage against us, selling itself by claiming that it was a bigger homer than we were. I don't know how that was possible, given all of their stories were word-for-word ripoffs of our stuff, but alas ...

 

I love small-town writers (and usually, more often) radio guys who, when the game is over, come over and shake your hand and say "good luck to you guys the rest of the year."

Yes, "us guys" will do whatever we can to write the best stories & headlines and design the best section and kick your @$$ while you're waving pompoms, thanks.

 

Yes, I hate it when someone shakes my hand and wishes me well.

And it's pom-pons. Not that I have any to wave.

 

He's absolutely right. You're not with the team.

 

Yea, in the last year I have curtailed that habit... and lost a lot of friends. (don't you guys miss college?)

 

Key distinction: I miss college like hell. But I'd already mastered the "no cheering in the press box" deal by the time I was 16.

My junior year in college, I faced down the wrath of half the college paper staff when I told them there could be no cheering on the sideline at the big game if they were working it.

 

Actually, it would be pompon, no hyphen, but AP has now OKd pompom, too.

 

Yea.. I lost 6 of my staff members for that. Writers/reporters/on-air talent, you name it, they left. In fact currently, I am the only sports person in student media.

I take that back.. we have a plagiarizing columnist who is 20 years older than me.

 

They weren't wishing me well ... it was as if I was a part of the team I covered. "Good luck to you guys" means, to them, "good luck to the team you cover, so you can have fun covering them, since all reporters are a part of the team."

After games, I almost always wish the other reporters there well, and usually spend a lot of time chatting while we work. But it always cracked me up when someone assumed I was part of the team.

Sorry about the pompons issue. We forbade cheerleading references in the sports section.

 

Mpls Strib sports columnist Sid Hartman (mug above) is not a journalist. He's an advocate and a dinosaur and 3/4 of the great state of Minnesota above the age of 40 hangs on his every garbled word.

That's he's still doing what he's doing the way he's doing it is very strange is this day and age.