Coaches vs. student reporters

Not "was."

 

A former co-worker's tale fits in here. As a college senior, he covered the men's basketball team (this was more than 30 years ago, but the program now would be known as a mid-major) at his student newspaper. The team lost 20 consecutive games, and he (along with the beat reporter for the hometown newspaper) wrote columns calling for the coach to be fired. The coach never berated him -- he just stopped talking to everyone aside from doing his postgame radio show, which his contract required him to do.

The coach resigned at the end of the season, but the story didn't end until my former co-worker had a few years of experience and started applying at larger papers. Turned out one of the coach's relatives was a very prominent sports editor at a major metro my former co-worker very much would have liked to work for. You'd better believe the guy never got a response when he applied at that paper, and it's a safe guess that his applications went directly to the trash or the shredder.