Dear dimwit on the phone

[Mr. X]

Had a woman take time out of her Christmas Eve with the family to email me, send me a Facebook message, and comment on a Facebook post to let me know I'm an idiot for my all-county football selections.

How specific were her criticisms? Did she suggest player Y should have made all-county instead of player X? How many players did she suggest make all-county who didn't?

What are the specifics of your all-county team? Is it 11 on offense, 11 on defense, a kicker and punter? Any returners? When I was in high school, the system for the official all-league teams, selected by coaches, was that the player of the year was not on the all-league team, he was "just" player of the year, opening up at least one more spot on the all-league first team.

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

How specific were her criticisms? Did she suggest player Y should have made all-county instead of player X? How many players did she suggest make all-county who didn't?

What are the specifics of your all-county team? Is it 11 on offense, 11 on defense, a kicker and punter? Any returners? When I was in high school, the system for the official all-league teams, selected by coaches, was that the player of the year was not on the all-league team, he was "just" player of the year, opening up at least one more spot on the all-league first team.

Given the nature of this thread, you're overthinking it by several orders of magnitude.

 

[Della9250]

Had a woman take time out of her Christmas Eve with the family to email me, send me a Facebook message, and comment on a Facebook post to let me know I'm an idiot for my all-county football selections.

mine was there is only local sports in the sports section. They can find that on the isd websites, which is a lie for all but a couple

 

[MNgremlin]

One year we had two basketball players with the same name -- same spelling and everything -- who played on rival teams in town. Making matters worse, they were both key players.
It was tricky writing the game stories when they played each other, to say the least. They all got the full medieval name introductions every time they were mentioned.
"Joe Smith, of the Podunk Rapscallions, stole the ball from Joe Smith of Shelbyville."

Similar to something in my small home town.

Two John Smiths. Same spellings, both first and last names, but not related. Everyone knows them as Banker John and Farmer John.

 

[Batman]

Angry all-county parent sent me another message on Facebook at 11 p.m. last night, and also sent a long text to their coach at midnight. He called me this morning to apologize and said he was blocking her number.

One of her big complaints is that only one player from her son's team — the punter — was on the all-county offense. When I talked to the coach this morning, even he pointed out, "We went three games without scoring an offensive touchdown."
I told the woman that they had several players who made it on defense, and tried to explain our methodology. At that point it became obvious (as if it wasn't before) that her biggest gripe was that her son didn't make the team. Our competition posted some stats for him that she was pointing to, but if you had any familiarity with her son's team it was easy to tell the stats were wildly inaccurate. They apparently pulled them out of thin air.
So now we're at the "point every little typo as evidence you suck at your job" phase of the rant. Forget the Jelly of the Month club. This is the gift that keeps on giving.

 

[fossywriter8]

Several years ago, the biggest school in our coverage area had two boys on the track team with the same first and last names. They were unrelated. It helped that they ran separate races. I think we might have used their middle initials when they both happened to be mentioned at the same time or in near proximity to each other in a story.

 

[nietsroob17]

Etowah High School in Woodstock, GA has produced five athletes who are sons of Robert (Rick) and Scott Rechsteiner -- AKA pro wrestling's Steiner Brothers. Rick's three sons (including WWE's Bron Breakker) were football/wrestling, while Scott had one son in football (now at Jacksonville State) and another in basketball (now at Virginia Tech).

About six years ago now, there was also a top track athlete at Etowah named Rechsteiner. But amazingly, this kid was not directly related to either Rick or Scott. Smith or Jones is one thing, but the fact that there were multiple branches of Rechsteiners at one school was wild.