Actual V-ball mommy e-mail

The school in question got screwed over when placed in a district where all the other schools are in the big metro area. Our area schools have always played volleyball on Tuesdays and Saturdays and we've usually covered the home matches on those days. Big Metro slchools like to play Fridays instead of Saturdays. It works for them because everybody is within about a 20-minute drive and football and volleyball can be held on the same campus.

Of course, the scheduling is such that there is no way on earth volleyball finishes before football kicks off. Add in a lack of available stringers (on a Friday? Go figure) and you're looking at a phoner. Coach called in a score and little else, and the part-timers in the office apparently didn't think to try to get more info.

Meanwhile, other local schools continue to play VB on Saturdays and get covered if nothing else is going on. The fact that two locals schools played each other last weekend guaranteed they'd get covered.

I'll give this mom credit for offering to help out, but I can't believe she didn't mention how hard the girls are working. I let the supervisor respond, but made sure he pointed out that there will be 10,000-15,000 people at the football game this Friday and maybe 50 at volleyball.

 

If you get stats and a call, run the story. If not, don't worry about it. Be sure to tell the mom that college coaches don't care about what my newspaper prints about the kids because it doesn't make a difference if they get scholarships or not.

 

pb,

This could be written off a parent complaint template. I get a million of those. So what is the deal with the stats? Can you get them? If so, run them. If not, tell the parent that you can only staff so many games and you are at the mercy of the information the coach or whomever calls in the games.

 

Volleyball and football here are also twinned-up schedule-wise (at least during district VB play), but the varsity VB match is always played first at 4:30.

Still, we NEVER staff a Friday VB match unless a beat writer's FB team has an open date.

 

That was kind of my point, hence the disappointment that no mention was made of how the girls hard the girls are working.

 

I just think it's funny how complaints are often so much alike but I bet this person things she is the first to ever bring it up. But I always try to turn it back on them. Hey, if you can provide accurate stats, we'll run them.

 

You realize that if little Megan, Meagan, Meghan, Meaghan or Meg doesn't get into State U on a free volleyball boat, it's your f-ing fault. Live with that!

 

At the suburban daily I worked at, I had the prep swimming beat. Unfortunately, all the meets were held Friday nights and they always bumped up against basketball.

The solution was to write a short profile on a swimmer each week. A couple of the subjects were interesting enough to turn them into full-fledged features.

If a college coach is looking around for clips on potential players, those are the types of stories they might be interested in, rather than "Sally Smith had 12 kills and five digs as City High beat Suburban High 3-2."

 

And many college scholarships are given by stats in the newspaper, as opposed to -- you know -- watching and evaluating the talent.

 

No offense, but you're pandering with these feature-ettes. There's no news value there to anyone. And scouts don't care about clippings; the coach gets a scout there through connections, and not by cold-calling.

Plus, it's not your job to get them into school! Don't fall for coach-speak. Justify your own existence, not theirs.

 

I told a parent who used the "we send papers to colleges so they know how Johnny is doing" argument once that if a college coach was using the newspaper to keep up with how Johnny was doing, he wasn't a very good recruiter because he should be keeping up with Johnny with the coach or Johnny himself.

 

I got this the other day, from a swimming parent:
"Hello, recentAZgrad, it's [parent's name]. I was just calling to let you know that we have a home swim meet today at 4 p.m."
I look at the clock on my computer screen. It's 3:30.
"Thanks for the heads up, but I probably won't be able to make it today."
"You know, a lot of the parents on the team have been really disappointed in the coverage. We all have our scrapbooks out, and there's been nothing in the paper at all to cut out."
"What about the story that ran about the team today?"
"Well my son wasn't in it?"