Editor, The Wolfpacker

The way things have been going for the Pack, you may also need to be a police reporter on the side.

 

Is this the job another SJ regular had, or am I getting my stories confused?

 

A Wolfpacker writer a few years back who was a UNC grad got fired. The fired writer is fairly sure that it is because football coach Chuck Amato learned of critical posts about Amato that the guy made on a UNC fan message board.

 

Guy who's leaving is No. 2 for the magazine -- wife has a grad college gig in Va. Former editor was an SJ regular, he's now with paper in Belmont, NC.

 

Rivals gigs are, in general, a good job for those just coming out of college or who are looking for bigger opportunities. They're a little different than usual newspaper work, though - not that it's a bad thing.

 

Word is a lot of those Rivals jobs are going to be headed over to Scout.com in the near future. A lot of those sites are getting tired with the Imperial rule of the site's Reichmarshals.

 

That may be true, but Gator Country's recent defection from Scout.com (to independent) caused major waves in the Internets world. GC took some interesting parting shots, too.

And, IMO, Rivals is far superior to Scout in site interface, message boards and all the bells and whistles like audio, video, photo galleries, etc.

 

Back to topic ...

Stu Coman has always come across as one of the good guys to me. Yeah, it's not a standard newspaper publication, but from what I've seen of the product, you're not required to wave an NCSU pennant with one hand while you're typing with the other.

Just be prepared to do a lot of the recruiting stuff as well. Stu is big on that.

 

I'm the one leaving this position so I'll clear a few things up. It's a good place to work. Good people, decent pay and very good benefits. You and another guy would run the Rivals site, but you don't work for Rivals, you work for Coman Publishing. I don't know that I would take a job working for Rivals directly, but it's not too bad when you don't really answer to them. My wife is finishing med school at Duke and will start residency at UVA this summer so that's why I'm leaving. I took the job a little more than a year ago, after making the long commute to Danville for close to two years. I knew when I started that because of the match process for residency I might be there for five years or I might be there for one. The way it turned out it was one.

There is a LOT of writing involved. You might produce 10,000 words or more of copy an issue, plus the writing you do for the Web site. If you like writing features you could have a good time with it. It's a lot of work, but a good environment helps make up for it.

I can't say for sure because I wasn't around, but I have a hard time believing that Stu would have fired somebody on the whim of Amato. Obviously you're not really doing hard-hitting investigative reporting with this job, but you're not forced to be much of a homer either. I've seen small papers that are worse about that. I think the fact that he's hired a UNC guy in the past is a little bit of proof of that. In fact, Stu is a UNC grad, though not a fan. He has one kid at State and one in Chapel Hill. I grew up in the Midwest and have never been a fan of any team within 1,000 miles of the Triangle, so I never approached the job with Wolfpack-Red glasses on.

 

I am close friends with the guy fired by the Wolfpacker in 2004. He had actually started work there. He was indeed fired, on Amato's say-so via Annabelle Vaughan, by threat to Coman Publishing's access to the program. He was told this to his face. A real newspaper laughs at this kind of small-time bullshit threat. Stu Coman, a bootlicker regardless of where he or his kids went to school, caved in to it. My friend was told to beg for his old job back and, if that didn't work, well good luck to ya. That's the kind of employer you inherit if you take this job.

 

The funny/unfortunate part about that story? The post that pissed Amato off was made using this person's screen name, but apparently actually was posted by this guy's roommate. The whole thing makes you wonder about that sort of publication.

If I'm a huge fan of a team/school, I want to read critical stories and I want my team/school challenged. I don't want everything to be positive with no balance.

I'll be perfectly honest: I've never read the Wolfpacker and it may not be like that. But the above story sure does suggest that you better not be critical of N.C. State athletics. It's also possible that, with Chuck Amato and his ego gone, that wouldn't happen again.

 

All I can tell you guys is that my experience wasn't like that. I made a few posts on The Wolfpacker message board from time to time that were critical, but fair and never had a word said to me about it. It's been my experience that if you are professional and work hard you won't have a problem with Stu.

The closest thing Stu and I ever had to that kind of issue was when he changed a fairly harsh headline on a story I wrote about Marcus Stone. It wasn't a big deal.