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Club youth sports teams: Why should anybody other than parents GAF?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Starman, Jul 26, 2014.

  1. albert77

    albert77 Well-Known Member

    I think you can make anything work as a decent read if you go into it with the right attitude.

    I once did a mid-summer feature on a series of backyard rassling tournaments some people would put on in the area. A group of rednecks from out in the serious country (I'm talking the middle of nowhere) got together to rent a ring, set it up in their yard and charged a nominal entry fee for local joes to come in and rassle and a small admission to come watch. The night I went out there, they actually had about 30-40 people out there watching this stuff.

    I wrote it up in a combination of taking-it-seriously and tongue-in-cheek, and that was exactly the way to play it. It was a huge hoot -- some of the funniest stuff I've ever covered -- and it was all in good fun. I still see the kid they hired as the referee around town and we always get a laugh out of it. Turned out to be a good read and was one of the best features I did that year.
     
  2. Songbird

    Songbird Well-Known Member

    The best summer story I ever did was mid-aughts when I covered a local kid in New Hampshire's 50th Decathlon. Went to Nashua both days -- scorcher both days -- and covered all 10 events. It came down to the 10th event, and my kid, despite winning the race, finished 2nd. All he had to do was win the 1500 by at least 7 seconds to win the overall title. A Salem kid showed a whole lot of guts by finishing only 4 seconds behind even though he was about 15 seconds behind at the start of the final lap. That was one intense final straightaway.

    My kid handled it with pure grace. Such a great kid. I put everything I had into it. One of the best packages, maybe the best, I ever put together with words and photos and a few stat packs.

    Summer is supposed to be the time you catch your breath but you can still cover the sporting life without burning yourself out -- or shortchanging readers.
     
  3. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    nope

    that paper needs to be shut down.
     
  4. ]

    And that's awesome.
    I would read that.

    That was a great, novel idea.
     
  5. Uh, I think we live in the same town.

    This is my old sports section everyday in the summer. Nothing has changed in 15 years - except the section shrank.
     
  6. Tarheel316

    Tarheel316 Well-Known Member

    This.
     
  7. boundforboston

    boundforboston Well-Known Member

    What would happen if you didn't put any youth baseball in one day and didn't put in any MLB coverage another?
     
  8. ColdCat

    ColdCat Well-Known Member

    Then you get one group of people calling you in an angry mood one day and a totally different group of angry people calling the next.
    We take it for granted than every one can find a pro sports score online but we still have plenty of readers who are in their 70s or 80s and either don't feel comfortable going online or would prefer a dead tree edition. I got pissed off calls about the Cardinals not being in our paper a couple of days this week when they were playing in San Diego.
     
  9. Tarheel316

    Tarheel316 Well-Known Member

    I get that. I'm not arguing against including MLB coverage and thank goodness people still want to hold the newspaper in their hands. But local should come first.
     
  10. jr/shotglass

    jr/shotglass Well-Known Member

    If they don't get the local from you, they really aren't going to get it anywhere else.
     
  11. Bamadog

    Bamadog Well-Known Member

    When I worked in Florida without full AP, our summers were filled with days upon days of sweating in the blasted sun covering youth baseball. It was miserable. It wasn't Hell, but I could definitely see it from there.

    We'd get e-mails and letters from our readers asking why we went nuts every summer on youth sports and how they didn't give a flying rat's ass about it. They told our editors that they ignored our sports section until youth sports went away.

    I think some photo galleries and a few features are nice. But game coverage? No. It's about learning basic skills and having fun, not worrying about the result.
     
  12. RickStain

    RickStain Well-Known Member

    Photo galleries and box scores. Get names and faces in the paper so their grandparents will buy 10 copies each. Don't bother writing a @#$%@#$ story.
     
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