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FCS Game Notes

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by daytonadan1983, Sep 13, 2010.

  1. daytonadan1983

    daytonadan1983 Well-Known Member

    Well, the in-house writing contract got a little more interesting when the SID quit three before kickoff ...

    So guess who's writing game notes, and here's the argument:

    We're FCS ... we have two daily newspapers who cover the game ... I'm not writing a frakking opus.... get the basic facts, copy and paste the key stats, use the notebook approach and finish with "storylines to watch" or "seven points to follow" and you can get it done nicely in 2-3 pages. I can get it done in an hour and still crank out some real copy.

    Also, you do it in this format and you also kill two pages in the game program at the same time.

    Any other feedback you superior journalists have? Do you still really use pre-game notes? Should we serve red wine or white wine during the pre-game meal? Frak, I don't know anymore.
     
  2. Sports_Scribe

    Sports_Scribe Member

    I'll take beer for pre-game.
     
  3. zebracoy

    zebracoy Guest

    I find pregame notes incredibly helpful for anything that I may have missed - and certainly for larger trends that involve complicated numbers, historical things from a time before I was on the beat and, at the very least, to check against my notebook later that night. Also, though a lot of game notes are useless fluff, when I'm on the road, that useless fluff is valuable to help me understand what's going on.

    Simply, yes. I love 'em.
     
  4. BYH

    BYH Active Member

    It's I-AA (fuck the FCS), serve pizza!!

    As for the game notes, make sure to include all the archived stuff--recaps of previous games, news blurbs going all the way back to week one--so that late arrivals to the beat and/or folks there just for a feature can refer to them. It'll be a beast to put those together this week, but once you're done, it's just a matter of printing them out every weekend.
     
  5. jfs1000

    jfs1000 Member

    Make sure stats and a depth chart earlier in the week are available please. Coming from frustration. You know how hard it is to make a gameday depth chart graphic when you have no idea who is on this FCS team?
     
  6. deskslave

    deskslave Active Member

    Well, are you serving steak or salmon? We can't help you if you don't provide these details. :D

    Have you asked your two regular beat writers? You don't have to do everything they ask, but I'm sure they'll have some useful feedback on what they do and don't want.
     
  7. BrianGriffin

    BrianGriffin Active Member

    In some ways, FCS notes are more important than FBS notes. I mean, it's hard to not know the storyline if you are a Crimson Tide writer in Alabama. You can't turn on the radio, TV or pick up any form of print media in that state without seeing them. If you are covering Coastal Carolina, however, you might be looking through notes just trying to answer the question real basic questions about therm.
     
  8. daytonadan1983

    daytonadan1983 Well-Known Member

    We had a nice baked chicken for our first game, for the record.
     
  9. Shoeless Joe

    Shoeless Joe Active Member

    I cover a DII team whose SID, in mine and many others opinions, is one of the best around.

    His football game notes are 22-24 pages each week. Not all of it is new each week, just updated, but probably 4-6 pages are completely new. He really does a good job. You could have never heard of the team but sit down 10 minutes with the game notes and be dang near an expert (or at least sound like you are).

    He previews the game with scouting reports, has some kinda factoid about every starter, full season stats, a whole page of "the last time" something happened, rosters, two-deep, etc.
     
  10. Mystery Meat II

    Mystery Meat II Well-Known Member

    Yeah, but what was the pre-game meal?
     
  11. Appgrad05

    Appgrad05 Active Member

    I'd include a list of every player on the roster who has transferred from a FBS school. Towson did that in its game notes and I thought it was a nice touch.
     
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