Actual V-ball mommy e-mail

Maybe her kid was just in it for the broomstick hazing.

 

College volleyball coaches, of course, pay little or no attention to HS volleyball.

Club volleyball is where college recruiting takes place. HS volleyball is pretty much irrelevant.

 

It's threads like these that make me get down on my knees and thank God I no longer have to deal with preps.

 

I'm going to find out where these people work and call them to complain about the jobs they're doing. That'll show 'em.

 

What bothers me about parents bitching about scholarships is that it is really their responsibility to pay for their kid's college, not anyone else's. It's like they're blaming the paper, or their kid's coach, or other people because they don't feel like paying for their kid's tuition.

And I know I may get ripped on for this, but it also bothers me when I read about inner-city kids who want to get an athletic scholarship so '"they can get out of the neighborhood." I understand the inner-city schools don't have the financial resources that suburban schools have, but when I read about that, I always want to yell, "How about studying, instead!"

 

when I played, i always felt fortunate if we got two graphs in the paper.

 

Well, to be fair to the readers who might be confused, space given to preps has gone way downhill at a lot of places -- along with everything else -- and they might wonder why, now that their kid is up, they have to be punished for the industry's mistakes.

When I was a kid (walked through three foot deep snow eight miles to school, yeah, yeah), a typical dual meet in my home town newspaper would publish results 10 deep.

My daughter's basketball team got more coverage five years ago than a similar team now.

So there is visual evidence that it ain't what it used to be.

 

Why the kidneys?

 

I sucked as an athlete.

 

Some jucos, though, aren't necessarily in a position to leave the scraps at the table, so to speak. The coaches can talk to me about club volleyball all they want, but the girls they have on their rosters aren't playing for clubs unless they're commuting 90-120 miles to do it.

It shows in the level of play. The good Division II jucos in Kansas are good enough they should be in Division I but see playing down as the way to a championship. The bad Division II jucos would have a tough time with high school teams.

 

The bottom line is some parents just don't fucking get it.

Their kid's golf score or volleyball match or tennis tournament does not matter except to a very small group of people. Three or four paragraphs is going to be it. They don't understand the need to cover other schools, seek a compelling story or why football garners more interest than a swim meet.

We can be as nice as possible and they'll keep coming back for more, just like Rainman looking for Wapner at 4 p.m.

 

Actually, I did, despite the best efforts of the local paper to keep me for getting noticed.