Globe hire for Pats beat

That can't be a good sign for the stability of TSN. With that sale looming, the Globe seems even less secure a place than other major dailies.

 

The last college coach I covered would've told me to fuck off if I asked for a letter of recommendation. Just the way it should be.

 

Conde Nast will lose more than a billion $ this year

 

Not that unbelievable. More work, more stress, tough beat.

 

Know Albert a little from back when he was in high school and he was stringing for us as well as MetroWest. (We never really kept in touch, but he was a fuckin' stud back when he was 16, well before Mizzou created the term.)

This move has more to do with him being from Boston than anything going on at Sporting News, I'd reckon.

She's been at the Herald forever. They're still making money. (NYT says the Globe isn't.) Why bother?

 

If I were the sports editor here, I would disregard any letter of recommendation from a coach the writer has covered. It would actually lower my opinion of the writer.

 

I'm torn on that. I think it's fine to a certain extent. Coaches are sources for us ... some of the main people we come into contact with on a professional basis. I think as long as a coach is just vouching for a writer's professionalism, integrity, etc... then it should be fine.

 

Honestly, I wouldn't even think to ask the coach of a team I was covering for a recommendation letter.

 

If I were getting out of the biz for something corporate-y, maybe such a letter from a coach would impress the suits in a non-journalism field. They love those guys to give pep talks at their group breakfasts for $25K or more, right? Even then, though, they might connect the dots of what should properly be an adversarial or at least wary relationship somehow producing a cozy letter of recommendation.

If I were changing jobs within the business, no way in hell I'd ask someone I covered for a reference. And if I were hiring, such a move probably would invalidate the candidate for me.

 

I know someone who did that w/a baseball GM earlier this year. No idea if it produced the desired results.

But I fear you're WAAAAAAAY too optimistic about the thought process of people outside the biz if you're wondering if a potential employer would be put off by an applicant sending along a letter of recommendation from someone he covered. One hundred times out of 100, I'm sure the response would be "Holy shit, you got Bill Belichick to write you a recommendation? That is AWESOME!!!"

 

I don't endorse getting letters of recommendation from coaches. On the other hand, I'm not sure about the high-fives for being completely adversarial, either. It is more than possible to butt heads with someone because of your differerent aims and still maintain some mutual professional respect. In fact, I'd guess that's probably the case in the vast majority of coach-beat person relationships. Not getting along with your subject isn't necessarily the mark of a job well done. I've had plenty of clear-the-air sessions with coaches, sports information people and so forth and so on, and by the end we're usually laughing about last night's "Office" episode.

 

I would love to see what you have written to call this young man mediocre.