Swim parents *rolls eyes* aye, aye, aye

[cyclingwriter]

I tell them the band works hard, too. And there are more kids involved. They get no coverage.

I'm going to use that one.

 

[Walter Burns]

I was sports editor for a paper where the bulk of our coverage was preps and no matter how much we did it was never enough, even when half of an 8-page section was prep stuff. It was either "why didn't you do a story on so and so..." or "we have a player that's better and you don't write about them ..." and so on and so on.
But my favorite were the phone calls "you only cover us when we lose."
Like I'm sitting in the office with a crystal ball or just hoped in my Delorean to find the outcome of a freaking prep soccer game, and then decided we're going to cover it because you're high school lost.
Good times.

I've gotten that "You only cover us when we lose" line too. I've found that this response works the best:
"If I knew who was going to win before the games were played, I wouldn't be wasting my time here. I'd be at a sports book in Vegas."

And this whole thread is a reminder of Walter's first rule on high school sports: The insanity of the parents is in inverse proportion to the popularity of the sport.

 

[Ace]

if you did a trend story on local swimmers leaving for a club in another town, did you get a comment from the local club?

if you're going to approach this like a serious, newsy, trend story - which is a good story - you have to get some sort of comment from an official at the local club.

because she does ask a valid question: do you really know why those kids are not swimming for us?

you appear to have gotten an answer from the remote club, but it's not a complete story without all precincts heard from.

hey, we've all gotten emails and letters from annoying, disgruntled parents who pish us off. but at least they care what's going in the paper, and there's not enough of those people anymore.

i find this sort of contempt for readers that we see in these threads all the time kind of sad. i'd rather they pish us off than stop giving a crap

I am with write/drink here. You should realize that if you open that can of worms, you are going to catch heat. Not saying you shouldn't do that, but you should go in with your eyes open and fully report it if you are going to mention it at all.

 

[ink-stained wretch]

Inkstained Wretch in his loud Hawaiian shirt, shorts, T, sandals and straw hat leaning over the spit rail w/ stopwatch in hand, timing the girls 400 IM.

Asshat Reader/Clueless Swim Dad walks up and says in snarkest voice: "So I see your daughter won her race. Suppose that will be in the Daily Fishwrap?"

ISW responds after hauling exhausted swimmer from pool: Nope. T'ain't important to anybody but me and the missus.

Swim coach about chokes on his whistle.

Some days you do win one.

 

[Jake_Taylor]

I normally do a pretty good job just letting the stupid parents vent and then moving on. But a few months ago when I got tired of hearing about how hard some of the kids we weren't covering were working I told them if hardwork was what it took to get you on the sports page, I would go interview some farmers or construction workers and that my wife just finished a 30-hour shift at the hospital, maybe I should write a story about her.

The lady paused, then went on, "well the JV field hockey team practices for two hours a day after school, sometimes on Saturdays."

 

[anotherjrcsurvivor]

This is why if you give me a choice between a swim meet in the local pool or a minor-league baseball game or mid-major college basketball tournament 12 hours away, I'm filling the tank, hitting the road and checking to see whether I'll be stockpiling Marriott or Holiday Inn points. As much as I hear complaints from others about college and pro athletes, at least you don't (usually) deal with the parents.

 

[Ace]

I normally do a pretty good job just letting the stupid parents vent and then moving on. But a few months ago when I got tired of hearing about how hard some of the kids we weren't covering were working I told them if hardwork was what it took to get you on the sports page, I would go interview some farmers or construction workers and that my wife just finished a 30-hour shift at the hospital, maybe I should write a story about her.

The lady paused, then went on, "well the JV field hockey team practices for two hours a day after school, sometimes on Saturdays."

I don't think there is much to be gained by bashing readers but I think it's funny that their reasons for why a story should be in the paper are always the same:

1. They work just as hard.

2. You never have any good news. You think your paper would want to write a good story for a change instead of all that crime and stuff.

Is there a template for this or something?

 

[Mark2010]

I tell them the band works hard, too. And there are more kids involved. They get no coverage.

Don't give people any ideas, dammit. I've already had to answer to those parents more than once.

 

[Jake_Taylor]

The thing that gets me is that most of the time the parents that bring up hard work have no idea what working hard means in terms of athletics. They think because there kid goes to the mandatory, organized practices they are putting out some kind of extraordinary effort.

It's rarely the parents of the kid that gets up a 5 a.m. to shoot 500 jumpers and 500 free throws before school, then goes to practice in the afternoon, then hits the weight room, then plays in open-gym pickup games at night that want to tell me how hard the kid works.

 

[Ace]

It's rarely the parents of the kid that gets up a 5 a.m. to shoot 500 jumpers and 500 free throws before school, then goes to practice in the afternoon, then hits the weight room, then plays in open-gym pickup games at night that want to tell me how hard the kid works.

That's because the parents have instituted a press blackout on that kid.

 

[pressboxer]

I tell them the band works hard, too. And there are more kids involved. They get no coverage.

Don't give people any ideas, dammit. I've already had to answer to those parents more than once.

I once dealt with complaints that band/cheerleaders/drill team/homecoming queen never got mentioned in the gamers. My response was that if any of them directly affected the outcome of a game, it would definitely be reported.

The good part is that the school in question had a basketball game where the coach was ejected with two technical fouls even though he behaved himself. The first T came after someone else on the bench tossed a towel in the air following a call against the team. The second came when a cheerleader went flip-flopping onto the floor on a deadball that wasn't a timeout.

Sorry, coach, but you're outta here.

 

[Stitch]

I normally do a pretty good job just letting the stupid parents vent and then moving on. But a few months ago when I got tired of hearing about how hard some of the kids we weren't covering were working I told them if hardwork was what it took to get you on the sports page, I would go interview some farmers or construction workers and that my wife just finished a 30-hour shift at the hospital, maybe I should write a story about her.

The lady paused, then went on, "well the JV field hockey team practices for two hours a day after school, sometimes on Saturdays."

I don't think there is much to be gained by bashing readers but I think it's funny that their reasons for why a story should be in the paper are always the same:

1. They work just as hard.

2. You never have any good news. You think your paper would want to write a good story for a change instead of all that crime and stuff.

Is there a template for this or something?

We should show people the stats for page views for good news vs. bad news.