Have you ever wanted to punch your competition?

I would rather wear an orange jumpsuit when visiting my mom in prison than the colors of the team I am covering.

 

Ran into this issue a couple of stops back where the guy working under me had trouble accepting the fact I would not let him play or practice with the senior hockey team he was covering. Had big arguments over it. Kept telling me how he played for the junior team while covering them at his previous stop. I couldn't believe I was having to have the discussion, period.

 

This was 15 or so years ago. The SE of a weekly was writing for one of the area's dailies under a pseudonym AND married to the tennis coach. Then again, if my memory was incorrect, he was just a writer for the weekly double-dipping under a pseudonym for one of the dailies.

 

He had to be what 18-20 "when he covered his junior hockey team" and it must be the lowest form of junior hockey too. I can't see anyone making a line-change and telling their defensive partner that they have been traded to the Saskatoon Blades.

 

In my high school journalism classes, I don't even let kids cover their own teams (which is a pretty standard practice in HS journalism).

The pitcher for the softball team happens to be one of my budding writers. She actually asked me to not have her cover softball because, "what, am I going to interview myself on the bench?" Smart kid.

 

If I'm covering box lacrosse, I pretty much want to punch everybody.

 

He was 22. He was a goalie. He was playing junior B and writing about them. Then got a job at my paper, originally to do news then was moved over to sports, and wanted to do the same for the senior AAA team.

I'm pretty sure he's figured out now that you can't do that, but at the time it was like beating my head against a wall.

At my next stop, my predecessor competed in a tennis tournament, won it, and then did a story on it, complete with quotes from himself. No byline. This was in his first few months at the paper. He was roundly despised by everyone in the newsroom, but he somehow lasted like six years.