Dear dimwit on the phone

I got it once, and my response was something like, why would you want your child playing for a coach who is so lazy they recruit off newspaper all-star teams? The parent was clueless when it came to the recruiting process.

 

I have made the same point before to a caller or two, but I don't get this sort of line of attack very often. Thankfully.

 

Maybe not those exact words, but had that conversation last year with a parent whose kid was left off our all-county baseball team. To be fair, he probably should've been on there. It was part oversight and part running out of places to put him. We do it by position, and the people he was competing against for a spot all had great years. Even our DH and utility spots were guys who would've been even bigger omissions if we put this kid on instead of them. Still should've created an extra spot for him, but everyone gets some wrong once in a while.
Anyway, the parents got ridiculously bent out of shape over the slight. The dad, who I've known for a long time, said the kid had an offer to play at a D-III school, but turned it down because "if he's not one of the 10 best players in Podunk County, how can he compete on a college team?"
Kid was upset, dad was upset, coach (who was our coach of the year) was absolutely pissed.

The kid also had a bunch of knee injuries he'd overcome to have a solid senior season, so the dad was pretty level-headed and realistic about the whole thing. He was kind of glad to see his son hang it up so he wouldn't be in so much pain. I'd written a huge feature a couple of weeks earlier that, honestly, was more tribute to him than a mug shot and two lines of stats on the all-county page would've been. But, I guess that little blurb carries a lot of weight with some people.

 

That sounds like a he problem not a you problem

 

Some old guy called us to complain about the prep coverage cutbacks, but then started demanding we put stuff back into the paper that we never ran in the paper to begin with, like season schedules for our 100+ schools and all their team sports. I kept telling him we never ran those, but he kept insisting we did and needed to again. Turns out he had a granddaughter who made her way onto varsity and he just wanted more coverage of her.

 

Well, maybe you did .... in 1978.


I'm amazed when I come across a really old copy of my paper or our competitor and some of the stuff that made it into the paper in those days.

 

Closest I can think of is a baseball mom sending us a list of five kids she claimed the coach "forgot" to submit for all-league, and of course her spawn was on the list. We gave it an honest look. The kidlet was a catcher ... but the catcher we picked, from their biggest rival, batted about 100 points , plus was superior in other statistical categories. A no-brainer.

Uptopic there's the tale of a water polo kid who missed parts of the season, but dad sent me a spreadsheet anyway showing how the kid scored the bulk of the team's goals when he did play, and should be considered for MVP. Uh, no. I look at the body of work, and, even with his son's contribution, there's no way in hell I'm picking a kid off a team that went winless in league.

 

An offer to play at a D-III school? That's how you know the parent knows nothing about recruiting.

 

I've heard the "costing a scholarship" complain more than a few times. Usually it happens with our all-area teams.

One mother once claimed we were costing her son a scholarship when we wrote how he was going to miss a football game because of the concussion he suffered the week before. She even threatened to sue. Two weeks later, the kid's wrestling coach called us to let us know the kid had verbally committed to a Division I wrestling program. He's had a nice career.

 

My old shop had a nice moment one year with the all-area baseball team. We had no good third basemen and two good shortstops, one who had played third for half the season. We split the difference and put him at third.

Well that year, local coaches had established a organization that year and had their own all-area team. They went with a big-tent model, making up 5-6 extra awards to get more kids on. Our split SS/3B was given defensive player of the year (deservedly), and one of the less appealing options was at third.

Well mama sends us a fine and shitty email, saying it's just so unfortunate we couldn't recognize the accomplishments of her kid. We looked back, saw a .214 hitter with no power, on a good team that was already represented by its good players.

 

In five years I never heard an inkling of costing a kid anything. Anyone who got a scholarship from my necknof the woods was academic or a walk on, etc. I am glad to have never heard the dreaded phrase.

 

I only got that line once or twice but it was always in jest. What I did get, ALLLLLL the time was this:
"You know, I really wish your paper covered more of (sport my kid plays) because I know all of the parents would buy subscriptions to read more about it."
Uh, yeah, lady. I'm sure. I have a hard time believing that a couple of stories on the middle school boys basketball game in the middle of February is really going to make those papers fly off the shelf. And, sidenote, I don't give one percent of one piece of sh*t about circulation. That's not my job.