High school football press boxes

He was actually upset because I wasn't giving the appearance of bias. He expected me to be biased toward his school and was ticked off that I wasn't. Besides, if he was picking up bias from me giving my honest opinion, nothing I say is going to please him anyway. So no, I don't have a problem with what I said.

 

A. Ignore stupid parents (which you did not)
B. Act like a professional (which you did not)
C. Lose the freaking attitude and grow some thicker skin.

 

Where I work, if the podunk little shitsville even has a press box, it usually has no room between a scoreboard operator, clock operator, public announce guy, a spotter, home coaches on headsets, at least one radio crew and the usual gang of parent hangers-on. There's just no room. Not worth the effort when the local team crowd can't muster 300 people for a playoff game. And this is a town of 40,000.

So I'm relegated to share the sideline with about four dozen other people who won't bother me one bit because there's mutual respect that everyone is there to work. No parents, no little kid ball boys, no one who doesn't serve some purpose to the night's event.

 

Yup.

 

Remain a moron if you wish. Or don't. Guy was pissed because you disparaged his team (and his kid, most likely). HS is not the pros. Not even college. It's kids playing for free and for the love of their school. You were trying to be a cocky smartass in front of a fellow writer. You'll grow up eventually. (Maybe.)

Years ago I went to a HS fball road game to cover our hometown school. I didn't care if our team won, but it sure makes for a nicer story. When the home team came out and was forced to call a TO on the first offensive play of the second half, I said to a fellow writer, "What were they doing at halftime, watching TV?"

Later that week I got a call at home from someone at work saying the coach for that team called and wanted to talk to me and sounded pretty pissed. So I called him back. He asked if I said that and he said he was embarrassed in front of everyone at their athletic boosters meeting when someone told him they heard me say that in the press box. He said there's a lot of people that work hard and make a living off working for the football team and they shouldn't be disparaged. Then he said most people wouldn't have the guts to call him back and we wouldn't have any problem working together in the future.

This was probably 15 years ago at least, maybe even a couple more. Guy's still coaching there. He wasn't some gimp coach.

The moral? Whether you agree with how the other people react, you're a lot better off keeping your mouth shut than making stupid, smart-ass comments. If you want to say something, have something worth saying rather than trying to show off. You never know who's going to hear it and you never know if those people might be able to help you out someday.

And if he and you are the only guys in the press box, who the fuck cares if the guy is rooting?

 

No offense Devil, I think you're a good guy and I've never had a problem with you but I find this flat out insulting.

Your parent and coaches will bitch if we're not there but you have no problem making our job harder and more irritating with petty press box problems. Press boxes aren't there for the convenience for parents and boosters. They're constructed to house scoreboard-runners, filmers, coaches and THE PRESS. Some of us from the smaller papers will be there for every game and put a lot of time and effort in to put out good copy for your school.


Back to the original topic. It's okay to get annoyed, but you've got to learn to block it out. AND, you have to watch what you say around parents. Be a grown up, and don't let this childish asshole have any more reasons to be a childish asshole.

 

This is why as long as the weather is agreeable, I'm on the sideline.

 

For starters, I would have said something to him about cheering in the press box the first time he did it. Then if he continued, I'd get security and have his ass moved out of the press box.

 

Really? Would you?

It's a HIGH SCHOOL "press box." People are in there cheering all the time. Christ, people. Why does it matter at the high school level? Just ignore it and do your job.

In college or the pros? Sure, call them out. At the HS level? The time you'd waste bitching could be used for better purposes. Like working.

 

A. Wrong, I ignored every outburst of cheering or screaming and never said a word to the guy about that. I wanted to, as did the other writer, but neither of us said a word.
B. Wrong. I handled it as calmly as I could.
C. Sounds like this was aimed at the parent.

Oh, please. Trying to be a cocky smart-ass? You have no idea what the heck you're talking about. I was simply having a conversation with the other writer about the next round of the playoffs. We'd been talking about how this team they would face in the next round was clearly superior to either of these teams prior to mentioning that, so the comment was a natural part of my talking to him.

It's kind of funny how the only people who think there was any problem with how I reacted are on this board. The other writer told me that he would have done the exact same thing and my editor just laughed when I told him what happened. I know I didn't do anything wrong, I acted professionally and I have no intentions of changing what I do.

 

Never, never be a smartass around high school parents. Don't do it. Ever - unless you want you want to be chewed out by an irrational person.

No cheering in high school press boxes? Yeah, right. Press boxes aren't exactly for the press, unless it's raining. I found that if it's not raining or it isn't cold enough that my right hand is frozen, I'm on the sidelines. You get a much better feel for the game.

 

That's the other thing, though it's a high school game, it isn't a high school press box. It's a college facility with a college press box. The first floor is for media, the second is for people working and the third for people to film. I'd be a bit more understanding if this were at a high school stadium, but it isn't.