Tips for reporting on high school athletics

Hmmm... never did that, although I have shagged balls at volleyball while waiting for practice to end. A little too large of an age difference for me to shoot hoops like one of the guys.

I tried to go to like half a practice... just enough to show I was interested and maybe pick up a thing or two, not so much that coaches felt I was an intrusion. And, let's face it, some coaches are easy to get along with and others are more of a challenge. One can pick up on that rather quickly.

 

The best advice is, like others have said, talk to people. Go out and shoot the breeze with the coaches as much as possible. Talk to the kids. Talk to the parents. The more people you know and talk to, the more knowledge you have. It pays off in many ways. A couple of you news people who never leave the building often ask "how come you sports guys always seem to know what's going on?" The answer is because we talk to people.

Don't try to make a name for yourself being "Mr. Journalist" right out of the school with your scalding pen. You're a sports writer. Enjoy it.

 

1. Call the athletic director a couple days ahead of time to say you're coming. Especially in football, call both schools and get rosters faxed/e-mailed ahead of time.

2. Before the game, introduce yourself to both coaches. Ask if you can speak with them after the game, and if you can speak to a couple kids.

3. Talk to the visiting coach/players first after the game since they've got to get on a bus and the other coach/players aren't in such a hurry.

4. The story shouldn't be about play-by-play. Yes, there obviously will be some in your story, but the focus should really be on things like a player's reaction to the big play or how this affects the league standings or how the kids enjoy the rivalry (if it's a rivalry game) - something along those lines. There are storylines in every game, even preps. Find them beforehand.

5. If it's football, walk the visiting sidelines if it's not raining or too cold to write. You'll capture the emotions of the game. Why the visitors' sideline? So you're close to the chains. Plus, conversations with the chain gang usually are pretty interesting. If it's raining or too cold, sit in the press box (remember to make arrangements, especially if it's the postseason and the state association's rules are tighter).

6. In basketball/volleyball, sit near or at the scorer's table. You can hear what's going on with both benches, and when the basketball refs come over to signal fouls, check on timeouts, etc., you know exactly what's happening.

7. Keep your own stats. That way, the truth comes out. You see errors and fielder's choice plays as they are - not as hits, as the team scorekeepers usually do. One baseball coach was embarrassed when I saw his team make 10 errors. I saw how truly bad the team was - he couldn't sugarcoat it.

8. If a team or player sucks, don't say that. Don't sugarcoat it, but don't emphasize the negative. The kids are just that - kids. These aren't full-time coaches, either. They're people who care about kids and care about the game. They're certainly not in it for the cash.

9. The refs never lose a game. Ever.

 

A good rule of thumb on how to write a kid who makes a bad play: you have to write the truth, but you also don't want to send the kid to a psychologist.

 

I'm not walking to the sidelines except to take photos at one of the stadiums this year. The press box is too nice to pass up, plus my joints have gone downhill since my high school days.

 

Maybe you should look for a better dealer.

 

I wish I had your town's stadium. The high school press box in my town is extremely small and very old. You have to stand during the entire game, and there is barely any room to move around. A piece of the rotten wood from the roof actually fell on my notebook once.

 

In basketball, find assistant coaches on each team and see if they keep any stats, like assists or blocks. Take the most important stats yourself, but don't overdue it. Some of these high school teams play so fast that somebody has already scored by the time you've recorded the last assist or rebound.

 

A lot of good advice here. I'll add a couple of things:
1. In addition to chatting up the coach as much as possible, see if you can arrange a weekly time to chat, i.e. during a planning period (if he teaches) or some other time that works best for him. As highlander and others said, get him to know and trust you. During the conversations you can ask about that week's opponent, injury updates, whatever.
2. Try to figure out a system for keeping stats (in any sport) and cover a practice/scrimmage/preseason game. That gives you a chance to see if your system works for you or if you need to make tweaks before it actually counts. For example, maybe you want to try keeping stats in a reporter's notebook. If you try that during a scrimmage, you may find it doesn't work and thus switch to a legal pad for the season.
3. Find if any current stars have older siblings or parents that were stars back in their days. That could always make for good feature material down the road, especially come playoffs.
4. Don't cheer. It may seem obvious, but I wanted to include that just in case. If a parent gets upset and asks why you didn't cheer for little Johnny's great block, patiently and calmly explain you're there as an impartial observer.

 

The tips in this thread should be combined to form a definitive guideline for all reporters on high school beats.

One of the most important things, especially early on, is just to be seen. Introduce yourself to a lot of people and get to know them. Be seen at games and, if possible, practices. The more comfortable they feel around you, the more info they will be willing to spill.

Of course, this sounds like a good thing now. It's good until little Johnny's swim coach, who got your cell phone number from someone else, calls you at 8 a.m. on your day off to give you his middle school swim team results.

 

Regarding rosters: I can't emphasize enough getting them yourself vs. depending on getting them off Maxpreps. One of my absolute lock rules is that Maxpreps is a secondary source for this info. Kids will always forget their uniform and may be wearing a different number one night. In the playoffs, coaches will call up kids from JV by the dozen. I've also had cases where coaches entered names, but not numbers, on Maxpreps as well.

If you're shooting a game as well, take a snapshot of the scorebook or lineup card to be safe. It's only a small file that you're gonna delete anyway eventually, so unless you have a ridiculously small memory card, it's a good safety valve.

 

Buy these in bulk...