The world of HS track gets pissed off

You could say that about most any sport though, unless you're one of those writers who defaults to a play-by-play gamer.

 

Around here, I'd say baseball/softball might be more popular for readers, but track is definitely more successful. For example of the 10 area softball teams, only three are above .500. Baseball is a little more top-heavy, but it's a sharp drop-off after that. We typically have about 10-15 track individuals/teams to cover at state each year, but I think only one baseball or softball team has advanced to state since I started working here 4 years ago.

 

Olympics man. Olympics.
But yes, good points on both sides. Mike Gross wrote a good column, I didn't necessarily see anything too offensive about it. But yes, if I were a track and field parent....I wouldn't necessarily love the frisbee golf commjent, I'd laugh it off and tell him in person great column, no apologies necessary. But yes, of course I can understand how others can be upset.

 

The guy obviously knows little about the sport, and he points this out himself, by admitting to the poor quotes he gets time after time. That's a product of not knowing how to interview. Yes, he deserved whatever backlash came his way. The column is flimsy and uninformed.

Seems like a guy that likes his Friday night football and struggles to find value in other forms of competition.

BTW -- While my teammates and I were puking out guts out after a speed day on the track, we'd watch as the football team lined up waiting to high step through some ropes.

 

In 1993, IIRC, the California Interscholastic Federation cancelled the state meet finals after a day of rain. Trials were held the day before with no weather problems. Worse, they had no plans to hold the finals later until enough school protested. Eventually they caved and held the finals a couple of weeks later.

 

I'm not condoning play by play for every sentence of every gamer. But sometimes the game is important and needs to be told as it happened. Turning gamers into Quasimoto features often reads like the writer is trying too hard and it turns out stupid as shit. It takes a highly talented writer to make a feature out of a gamer worth reading.

Considering the level that most of the journalists here write at, I'd recommend they stick to the facts and tell the game story, using some creativity as best they can. There's no shame in writing some play-by-play. Not everybody can be Jeff Passan.

 

What about your teammates who were sitting under the tent, playing on Facebook on their phones?

 

This.

 

Do some work and tell me something behind the scenes or behind the strategy of the key moments of the game (as told from the players' or coaches' perspective, not relying on your own 'expertise). Give the readers something more than they saw from the bleachers. Play-by-play reports = lazy journalism.

And often those who fall into the play-by-play trap don't get to the winning moment of a game until their 10th or 12th paragraph. If I can't tell who made the winning play by paragraph 3, toss it in the trash can.

 

I don't think Doc or anyone is talking about falling into the play-by-play trap. But if you remove what happened at the event in the zeal to spin a story, that's every bit as bad, if not more so.

 

It's possible to do both, but as with anything you need to know what you're writing.
If you're writing a 500-word gamer in 15 minutes on deadline, save the fluff and deep analysis for a second-day story. There's no shame in cranking out a good, readable gamer with the nuts and bolts, and it's even possible to do it with a little flair.
Just remember that if you decide to go all Grantland Rice and not mention the score until the 12th paragraph when it absolutely cannot be more than 500 words, it's going to get brutalized in the editing process and no one is going to be happy -- the writer because his precious masterpiece is going to get shredded, and the editor who has 10 minutes to turn the masterpiece into something that makes sense.

 

Indeed, sometime the game IS the feature. I generally try to pick out a significant moment and sort of "featurize" that within my gamer to some degree, but all games are different.

I've said it before: Too many times I think sports reporters think they're writing for each other. If you're covering preps especially, people want to know who won, what it means (i.e. standings, streaks, who advances in the postseason, etc.) and what the key moments were. Pretty simple.

And with HS football deadlines giving us like 30 minutes to churn out a gamer and box, you almost have to go play-by-play like a running gamer. That's why we do a Monday Morning Quarterback feature, where we get into more details about each game from the previous Friday, like the details of a big drive, or a player or quotes that might not have gotten mentioned in the gamer due to space and/or time. We run stats leaders for the week, along with an "alumni snapshot" of what a former local player playing in college did over the weekend, and a 3 Stars box that dovetails perfectly on SM with Twitter.

Probably the best thing we do, honestly.

Anyway, try that with track. Can't do it.