All in the family series

I have decided to start a series featuring coaches who coach their children or siblings who play on the same team. However, I am struggling with how to make the series come across in the paper. Any ideas, tips?

 

You have different issues and try to highlight them with the different stories.

For some, the main concern is that coach's kid is being favored -- getting to take all the shots, play QB, etc. and the reaction among teammates, the community. In some places this is a hot, hot issue.

In some cases, the coach is harder on his kid than anyone else. What is that like for the kid, the family? Do they have to separate coach time vs. dad time? This should be more about parenting than coaching.

Also, kids with parents as coaches tend to have a big advantage. "Coaches' kids" are sought after in sports like basketball. Why is this so much of an advantage even over other kids who may work hard?

I think with each story you could break about a quote from the kid and/or parents.

 

Your lede:

NOWHERE, U.S.--It's called nepotism.

 

If you are going to right about All in the Family, make sure you use Archie's line about the pecking order of the races...

Meathead: If you're No. 1, what's the make Jefferson?
Archie: Well, he's No. 2
Meathead: Then what does that make the Puerto Ricans, No. 3?
Archie: Well, no see, they are No. 4 because you still have the chinks and the japs, 3A and 3B....

 

"Sticks and stones may break my bones but you are one dumb meathead."

 

Archie: "Back in my day, they wasn't called Chicanos or Anglo-Americans or Afro-Americans, we was all Americans so if a guy was a jig or a spick, it was his own business."

 

Make sure and use dingbat fonts in the story.

 

Whatever you do -- and this should be obvious by now -- don't use the phrase "All in the Family" anywhere in on or near the stories.

 

Or Family Affair

 

Archie: "You're the one that needs an American history lesson, professor. You don't know nothing about Lady Liberty, standing out there in the harbor with her torch held high, screaming out to all the nations of the world, "send me your poor, your deadbeats, your filthy." And all the nations sent them in here, and they come swarming in like ants, your Spanish P.R.'s from the Caribouan, there, your Japs and your Chinamen, your coloreds, your Krauts, your Italians, your Hebs, and your English fags ... they all come in here. And now they're happy, because they're all free to live -- in their own, separate sections -- where they feel safe. And they bust your head when you go in there. That's what makes America great, buddy!"

Oh, and don't call it Family Ties, either.

 

Facts of Life might work, though.