Community sports editor, Lawrence KS

Release the hounds!

From jjobs.com:
Company: Lawrence Journal-World
Position:
Community Youth Sports Editor
Location:
Lawrence, Kansas
Job Status: Full-time
Salary: Negotiable
Ad Expires:
July 14, 2006
Job ID: 647254
Description:
The Lawrence (Kansas) Journal-World seeks an editor for its youth sports weekly special section and online counterpart. The editor designs, edits, writes, plans coverage and assigns stories to a part-time staff.

The ideal candidate would have excellent writing and editing skills, have a strong grasp of Quark and truly enjoy youth sports. Game is a year-round publication covering a variety of youth sports, from soccer and baseball to gymnastics to football. To see what game is all about, see http://www2.ljworld.com/news/sports/game/.

We offer an excellent benefits package including a 401k, plus employee discounts on your newspaper and cable subscriptions, and telephone. Pre-employment drug screen and physical required. Send resume and samples of your work to hrapplications@ljworld.com. EOE

 

Yeah, while the real sports personnel cover something worthwhile. Like, oh I don't know ... the Battling Cupcakes of Baker University?

 

FWIW, I've heard Lawrence is a pretty good place to work.

 

I'm quite familiar with this job and this paper. Any questions, feel free to PM.

And anyone who thinks this paper stays busy covering Baker University doesn't have any idea what he/she is talking about.

 

Glad I'm not the only one who laughed at that.
Lawrence might not be the KC Star, but they are still a pretty damn good paper.

 

I've been impressed by their KU coverage when I've read the paper. Nice looking site, too.

 

Yeah....Baker's the big school in Lawrence :


This looks like an OK entry-level job.

 

An OK starting job if you like covering T-Ball and Middle School Football

 

The paper does a very good job of taking care of its people, but make no mistake, you will do little but drive by allen fieldhouse and you will spend all of your time thinking about 8 year old "sluggers". The last section I saw was probably 16 pages with 4 "features" about kiddies and about 150 photos of kiddies hitting.

They really do take care of their people though. The only thing I can say is sometimes they get a little too community journalism-ish, and this section may be an example. I mean really, it's a section with 150 pictures of little league kids ... it's a fantastic idea I guess, but I could see you sitting there wondering what the purpose of your life was. Very buzzword happy place.

But, like I said, if you can smile and nod and stand to get at least average money and good benefits, go for it.

 

What's the thought on moving up from a place where you have to cover kiddie sports? Do bigger papers respect little 11-year old Johnny hitting two doubles? I fear that when young people out of college come into jobs like this, they can get stuck.

 

Making fixes.

I picked a story at random. This is so surreal that it makes me wonder if it's not an offshoot of The Onion. Name changed to protect the ... well, you make the call:


Pink Angels shutdown red Hot Tamales
By Helena Hanbasquet (Contact)

Wednesday, June 7, 2006

One player didn’t show up, another was upset that her name was misspelled on the score card and another player was running late — and this was all before the game started for the Red Hot Tamales at Broken Arrow Park on Thursday.

But those glitches didn’t prove problematic as Red Hot Tamales came out red hot in the first inning, plating the maximum five runs.

As the game progressed though, the Tamales lost their sizzle and eventually fell 13-10 to the Pink Angels in a Lawrence Girl’s Fast Pitch Association 12U league game.

“This was very disappointing because they weren’t ready to play,” Tamales head coach Dave Augustine said. “There’s not a lot of positives.”

After the first inning, the Tamales held a 5-3 lead. Angels pitcher Katy Davis walked the first two batters but struck out the third. Four runners scored before she hit batter Ashley Bailey on the leg, which advanced her to first base. As Bailey stole home to give the Tamales their fifth run of the inning, another wild throw hit her on the leg.

“Uh, I got hit twice with the ball,” she said as she left the field. “Look! I’m going to have a bruise.”

Once she barked.

“I barked like a dog to scare the batter, but it didn’t do very good,” Kilburn said.

No, it didn’t, and Kilburn knew this as she turned toward her teammates in the outfield and said, “OK, guys, not doing that again.”

Two hitters later, Kilburn hit Angels pitcher Davis with a pitch.

Davis advanced to first base, and her teammates helped the Angels close the gap to 9-8. The Angels ended the second inning with no outs but again the five runs per inning rule went into effect.

After Davis gave up a hit, three of the next five batters either struck out or were tagged out at first base.

Kilburn was the only Tamale to score in the third inning to bring the score to 10-8 in the Tamales’ favor.

Coach Augustine made a pitching change in the bottom of the third inning. Jordan Noll took the mound with Kilburn as her catcher. Eight Angels batted in the last inning. Of the eight, seven were walked with only one striking out. Again the Angels scored five runs to end the inning and the game at 13-10, bringing the Angels’ record to 1-1.

If there was any indication of this, the girls begged Dever to change the team’s name or color of their pink uniforms to be more intimidating. The girls wanted to change their colors to blue or said they would settle for a new name: The Pink Sizzle.

Dever wasn’t so sure, saying, “We make ‘em think we’re the Pink Angels but we play like the Pink Sizzle.” The girls were happy with that as the scurried away from the dugout with a victory as the Pink Angels.

I dunno, guys and gals, if this is the future of sports journalism, someone hook me up with a time machine. NOW.

 

Oh my.
I guess you only have but so much to work with. What is this, 15-18 inches? What age group? I have a hard time seeing an SE at a larger paper loving clips about 8th graders.