High School coaches blowing you off

Had a similar thing happen to me. Only the coach wouldn't let his kids talk. Win or lose. "Coach Joe Asshat does not allow his players to speak to the media." was in every story. And that drove him fucking crazy. Not enough to change his policy (which he carried on when he took over for his dad, who coached for 984847 years). But each time I asked him if I could talk to his players after the game, he got VERY rick about it, often telling me to go kick rocks.

After one game, it got really heated and ended when the coach's father (former coach) started walking briskly toward me in a manner that said he was about to start something he didn't want to finish. The other coaches grabbed him and he seemed content to scream at me for a minute or two, telling me how I'll never be good enough to work at the Washington Post (good one, coach!) and telling me how I'm the reason no one read our paper (can't imagine I was the ONLY reason, but whatever). I laughed, told him I had a deadline and left.

But ohhh, it made them so furious every game when I continued to ask if I could speak to one of his players. I took great joy in that. Fucking douchebags.

 

Having spent a cup of coffee (which I quickly spilled on myself) in Sonner's shop, I can attest to that. And the worst part was that there really wasn't much you could do about it. Coach was never going to change his policy.

You could say "well, don't cover their games if they won't give you player access, but that's a non-starter, because as it was, that school has a massive chip on its shoulder when it comes to coverage, particularly as it relates to one othe rschool. If Tinytown HS made the front page for any reason at all, you could be sure that someone from Littleburg HS would complain about how Tinytown ALWAYS makes the paper and Littleburg NEVER does. Most readers wouldn't give a damn why you weren't covering their kids, just that you weren't.

 

And he thought he was doing us a favor by letting his players talk to the media during the postseason. Thanks coach. You're a great American.

 

Had the local softball coach blow me off the day her team lost in the sectional championship, 1-0. I approached her after the game, asked if she was ready to talk. She sighed and said go ahead.

I decided to ask her to reflect on the whole season. She rolled her eyes, then walked away. The AD, who was there, told me to try her at home when I got back.

Get back to the newsroom, I call her up. She apologized, said she had made a mistake in originally agreeing to talk because she just wasn't in a very good mood.

She hadn't blown me off before, so I just chalked it up to one of those one-time deals. And she was always accomodating after that.

 

We had a football coach this year of one of the better teams in the area, who for the first few games, didn't want to talk to us, saying "Nah, it's all about the kids." I didn't really feel like putting "Coach Joe Schmoe declined comment," since he kind of explained to me that whenever he sees his name in the paper, he thinks that could've been another opportunity for one of his players to get some pub. After a few games, I explained that it helps to get the coach's point of view in addition to players, he relented, but every time I went up to him, I had to say "OK, I spoke to player A, B and C."

 

A person has the right to decide to talk to you or not.

Your paper's policy is 1,000 times dumber than some coach giving you a no comment.

 

I figure every coach has one night a year they can blow us off for whatever reason. After that, it's their problem. Had a football coach one year who cut us off at the weekly shop where I cut my teeth because my moron managing editor wrote a column saying his 15-yard penalty cost the team the game (even though it came after the interception which TRULY cost his team the game). So I just kept doing my job and didn't even mention him. Knowing what I know 20-some years later, though, I would have mentioned it every chance I had. As for the paper's policy of not quoting losing players: Just silly.

 

Not sure who this is directed to, but in my situation, that coach was the only coach in the coverage area who wouldn't let his players talk. Which means we had quotes every day from players on every team we covered except his. Our policy simply informed the readers why they weren't reading quotes from players on that particular team.

 

No. What you did was perfect.

I'm talking about Mrudi's paper's policy of no quoting kids after a loss.

If they do that, they should also not quote coaches after a win.

 

Exactly. As far as coaches refusing to allow their players to talk, much of that is ego. I love it when the season is over and the kid talks. Sometimes, it's the kid who will break the news on where he or she is going to college.

 

Sounds like a situation where I would have a meeting with the coach and Athletic Director to discuss opening up that policy ... if they refused I would at least consider dropping that team from my coverage.

 

But you open yourself up to criticism by people who don't know or care why you're no longer covering that team. And let's be honest, imagine how that comes across to people who aren't in the business: They won't give us the access we want, therefore we're going to ignore them until they give in, and it doesn't really matter what our readers want; it's what we want that matters. That's how it'll scan to a lot of people, and quite frankly, they're not going to be that far off the mark (I've never worked at a shop where anyone has overtly said "fuck the readers, it's all about me" or anything like that, but indirectly that attitude is more common than we imagine).