All-Area headache No. 9,283: wimping out on picks

All Area tennis teams should not exist. Ever.

And unless your shop only covers five or six schools, why pick an offensive line specific to position? Too much work.

 

for football we do one QB, 2 RB, 3 WR/TE, 5OL, 1 K and 2 all-purpose - defensive: 4OL/LB/DB, one all-purpose and a punter.

I don't feel that is overkill, although it's a couple more than 11. i agree for other sports however, like volleyball and basketball.

and i try to avoid co-POY or COy whenever I can. So far, with two teams left to announce, have had no complaints. I hope that doesn't jinx me.

 

Uhhh, that's kinda like the only reason to do anything.

 

I couldn't agree more with you Star. At the place I'm at, it actually reached ridiculous levels in some sports, which led to a new standard for all sports.

It certainly has them down, especially for things like cross-country and track.

 

All the shops I have worked at did
Player of the Years and All-area teams in football, basketball, baseball and softball.
POYs in the other sports, with no teams.
We also always had a nominating system in place with the coaches, for players to be considered they had to be nominated and those who didn't make the cut, got on the honorable mention list.
Nothing shuts up a pissed off prep parent faster when they call to complain about Lil' Johnny not making the team was telling them that the coach didn't nominate him. And that the coach didn't nominate anybody since he/she didn't send in the form. Then the coach caught the blame, not me or the paper.
It made some of the coaches unhappy, but they got over it and then they sent in the form the next year.

 

Cross-country, track and swimming -- the stopwatch sports -- are the absolute easiest sports to do all-area teams. I mean, there's nothing to argue about.

Oh yeah, I've had cross-country coaches go into rants, "Limpwrist High runs their meets on an absolutely flat course, their times are all inflated because of that," but the easy response to that is, "Well, why don't you go run on their easy course and pick up some of those inflated times yourself?"

And, of course, you do get the numbnut coaches who refuse/don't bother to report results, and then after the season's over, start bitching, "Well, Freddy Fleetfoot ran a better 3200 meters than the guy on your honor roll, how come he isn't in?"
"Did you call it in?"
"No."
"Well, that's why." : :

But, otherwise, it's pretty clear-cut.

 

Here's what to do with cross country...Get the top five times for the kids who are fighting for the last spot. That way you give the kids who only run fast on flat courses a chance to have a big gap when they have to run up a hill or two. Then, average them or score them like a cross country race.

I'm in my first few months at a new paper and when it came time to pick the All-County volleyball player of the year, a coworker said, "Well, we should probably just have co-players of the year. I looked at him with a dropped jaw and said, "No way Jose."

 

You dropped your jaw and that's the best you could come up with?
no way Jose?

 

We just finished picking our all-area team. We ask for coaches input, but of course only 25 percent actually faxed the form back in. Then the three writers were supposed to all put a ballot. One of the guys could only manage to put about two offensive linemen, one wide receiver, three defensive linemen and switched up the positions of the two area studs (who play on the same team). One is a standup defensive end, the other a middle linebacker. Not sure how you confuse the two. When I called him on it, he said "I don't really notice." :

Long story short, a couple of schools he saw multiple times and I saw maybe once got screwed. Because I could, you know, pick out who the best players are, the three teams I cover most are probably over-represented. And the teams he covers the opposite.

 

Yeah, getting the coaches to fax in their shit is horribly difficult when doing these all-area whatevers.

The only school-year that I had to do it, I had 10 coverage area schools. Three faxed in players for the all-area team. While I asked for stats and comments, I just got pages off the fax machine that read: Joe Rockne, Fred Four and Charley Horseman.

No stats, no comments, not even the players' positions.

I wrote a column for that edition, explaining I didn't get much cooperation from the coaches on these all-area whatevers. That didn't stop the death threats. One dude came to the paper on his lunch break, wearing a jump-suit with axle grease on it and his name patched onto his left breast. It read "Burt."

He asked me quite threatingly if I liked it in his town. I said that I did. He said, "well we don't like you. Do you have a diffurnt oh-pin-yun about it now?"

"No."

"Well you better. You better hate this goddamn town by tomorrow, or else we'll make you hate it."

He then stormed out.

Right after he left, a guy called me and said he knew were I lived and knew who my girlfriend was. That's all he said and then hung up.

I ended up seeking other employment based on my editor's insistence on picking all-whatevers four and five times a school-year.

 

We do an offensive and a defensive player of the year for football. Completely different skill sets involved with the two, so it makes sense. But that's the only sport we go "co" in.

 

Time Magazine solves the whole problem: