Fake Reporter Calling Female HS Athletes

An imposter in the Milwaukee area calling female high school athletes attempting to obtain photos and interviews.

http://www.jsonline.com/news/milwaukee/fake-reporter-trying-to-lure-female-athletes-s97lbka-179388031.html

 

Wow. That's creepy.

About 10 years ago, Stanford had a kicker who did this trick, asking boys to send pictures of themselves for recruiting purposes. Naked pictures IIRC. He went to prison.

 

I am a student teacher at a high school, and just this past week the principal and a cop had to have a stern "talking to" to some guy who was coming to volleyball matches and taking pictures. He wasn't related to any player or anything ... just taking pictures for his own gratification. Gross.

Also, photo galleries from high school volleyball matches on our website consistently were among the most viewed, over any sport.

 

I was covering the men's juco state water polo finals in California back in the 90s. The coach of the home team, who was running the tournament, had to eject someone taking photos of the players, in Speedos, in the huddles during time-outs.
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There are a lot of fake reporters out there. Some of them aren't even pedophiles.

 

Th numbers for anything related to "cheerleading" make me uncomfortable to look at sometimes, because they're often two to five times that of any other sport's article except football and the local college basketball program.

 

One one of our local high schools, there used to be an old guy, had to be in his 70s, shooting photos on the sidelines. He took game pictures, but one night we realized every time he shot the cheerleaders, they were jumping in the air with their skirts flying ...

 

I have always worked through the coach or AD in getting phone interviews with HS athletes of either gender. Or failing that, a parent.

I've worked with a few people who don't -- after games, they'll be asking kids directly for their cell numbers.

Not much good is likely to come from that. Even if everything is totally legit, at some point somebody is going to jump to the wrong conclusion.

 

You don't need to look far ... just check the volleyball thread on this page.

 

When I was covering high schools I found that Facebook was often the quickest, easiest way to get in touch with kids, but I had mixed feeling about it. It was frankly pretty shocking and scary how quickly both boys and girls would add me as a friend, a lot of times having no idea who the hell I was.

 

Even Facebook is limited now, as some privacy settings make it so you can't even message the athlete. I don't want to see their party pics or get friended, I just want them to call me so I can finish the feature I've been assigned.