HS coaches just don't get it

They don't care if it's accurate, as long as people are clicking it. If Johnny Tailback is visiting 100 times a day to update his stats and just happens to click some ads on the way, all the better.

 

... 'cause you're a baby and you don't know sh_t.

They used to call me Crazy Joe. Now they can call me Batman!

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Cadet, I'm sure there are many places where there is a shortage of officials. Furthermore, there are undoubtedly many more places where quality officials are at a critical shortage.

That latter point shouldn't overlooked. Some will do it, but how many will do it well given the proper training and how many are motivated to do more than go through the motions?

 

I want to preface this by saying I'm not "scolding." Really I'm not, especially because I have some of the same doubts the rest of you do.

But the tone of this thread troubles me, and it should trouble some of you, too.

I understand the anonymous blowing off of steam. I mean, there would BE no SportsJournalists.com without it. What I'm wondering, though, is, does this attitude about new ideas -- intentionally or not -- spill over when you're the one trying to get the public to embrace the idea?

Because if it does, folks, you're shooting yourselves in the foot.

It's weird that the 50-year-old geezer is reminding some of you younger people that it's not 1985 anymore. But it's not 1985 anymore. We can't come in to work and do what we've done for years, and walk out at 12:30 a.m. knowing that there's going to be a newspaper tomorrow, the day after, the month after, no matter how successful we have been at it in the past.

We can't bury our heads in the sand; the print business is in trouble, whether it's by our scorecard or if it's by management's scorecard. It really doesn't matter which one, because if management perceives it's in trouble, the hurtin' is going to trickle down to you and me.

You're going to have to try different things. In some cases, drastically different things than what we've been brought up with. Do you think 15 years ago, we'd be putting up a blog item on our top story for the next day at 4:30 p.m.? Hell, no. No way we'd let the TV cycle get a hold of the news. Now, it's common practice. If you get it out ANYWHERE first, you got it first.

Now, this interactive thing is going to take hold at some point. You can safely take that to the bank. And when it does, you should hope and pray that it's YOUR newspaper or YOUR chain that's at the forefront of it. Because if it is, you're one step closer to having a job through the duration.

If your paper comes up with something like this and all your energy is spent rolling your eyes about it ... you're part of the problem. If you get involved with it, try to figure out how to PREVENT Coach Cletus from gumming up the works, keep a vigilant eye with the rest of your staff on questionable entries ... you're part of the solution.

I'm going to try and shut up now and let you all have at it.

 

Their ADs suck, then. Our school uses that site, but the AD still took the time to e-mail me all the schedules.

 

Does anyone read the cold, scary truth in that? Do you really think the media moguls give a shit more about accuracy and journalistic integrity if it meant a few dollars to shareholders?

 

Well, I'm definitely not one of those anti-change people. I embrace new ideas, when I feel like they're good ideas. I actually embrace staff blogging, because I think that's a good way to connect with the reader. I embrace live chats with beat writers. I embrace some of the video work I've seen.

I don't embrace this highschoolsports.net. It's basically a scrapbook for crazy parents/coaches. I have no problem with having a web site to keep track of all of your area teams, but I don't like the idea of parents/fans/players being able to make changes to the page or add pictures to the galleries. Because you know that eventually you're going to get some idiot or some psycho dad losing control and doing something that's going to embarrass his/her/its team and YOUR newspaper, because you're the one asking people to go there.

And I don't think there's any newsroom in the country that has enough people right now to police every school's page (talking about 50-somewhat schools just in the our area alone) and make sure inappropriate material is not being posted. And if that were the case, why not just give the sports staff complete and absolute control on what goes on the site.

I do like the idea of a site that keeps all of our area teams' stats and information, but I don't know if user-generated content is the way to go. But Gannett dumped a lot of money into this venture and it's going to be forced to work, until the next big thing comes along.

 

I tried an idea like this at a TV station as a Web editor ... and this was a TV station that spent a lot of time on prep sports. The sports director had 20 minutes of a 35-minute newscast on Friday nights during football and basketball season.

Corporate loved the idea. "Oh, that's great. We'll set up the site and the coaches, players, parents, etc. can run the thing. And when Podunk High parent complains about East Bumfuck High getting more coverage on the site, we'll explain they're more than welcome to submit information."

So we set it up. I inputed schedules for 80-some teams, worked on some design, figured out how to deal with video on the site (that was actually a challenge because they were cheap skates *SHOCKING*), created pages for each team, etc. On the main page and each team page, I had a note inviting players, coaches, parents, students, etc. to submit photos, videos and stats for their team's page. I invited students interested in journalism to send in game stories from their games.

I got jack shit. Nada, nil, zilch.

I still think it's a good idea in theory. There's someone involved with each football and basketball team that would be willing to input a little bit of information each week. The problem is, when East Bumfuck High is 0-8 going into the last week of the season, said individual has little reason to update the info. And when Podunk High is 2-0 and just beat Farmertans & Sluts High in what will be the biggest game of the year for each, said individual will be too busy drinking at the local watering hole to update the site that night ... then it'll get pushed off to Sunday and before you know it, it's Monday and it's not update.

In theory, great idea. In reality, I wanna see it work, but I don't think it will.

 

It's not that I don't object to changes in the industry. What I do object to is changes that are just thrown out there for the sake of changes, instead of being well thought-out and planned and it ends up backfiring.

 

If I understand the procedure correctly, coaches get the log-in information, including a dummy password, from the paper. Supposedly, that's the way they keep any Joe Blow from just getting on there and putting up any stats they choose. Remains to be seen how effective that's going to be. Shotglass is right, though, us dinosaurs might as well get geared up for this, because this is our survival in the business on the line. We can either get with the game plan and be out in front of this or plan on greeting people at Wal-Mart.

 

Well said shotglass. Particularly the part about not knowing if there's going to be a paper tomorrow. At my place, we were informed today that several people lost their jobs, including a couple of extremely dedicated, hard-working editors who for many years have been the backbone of our newsroom. These guys were the very definition of "company men." And they're now unemployed.

Nobody likes change. But if you're determined to be in this business, you'd better get used to it. That being said, I have the exact same feelings about all of these user-generated high school sports efforts. Gannett's is far from the only one. The problem with them is that you can't just toss one of those sites up and expect anyone to use it without feeding it some staff-generated material. You have to rethink the way you go about your job, and feeding the Web has to become a priority.

At a certain point, it simply becomes dollars and cents. It's become ridiculously expensive to buy newsprint. Energy prices are making it more and more expensive to run the presses. It's expensive to pay people to run the presses, and and get them on the truck and on and on. Compared to that, it costs next to nothing to put content on a Web site.

Yes, it's frustrating that we don't quite know the right equation that will work on the Web. I think that means there are some exciting possibilities in our business right now. Scary times, yes. But if you're not dedicating yourself to cracking that equation, you'll soon be dedicating yourself to finding a new job.

Props to shotglass.

 

Hey, we had a play where the "pulling" guard got the ball. Not 1,000-yard, 28-TD effective, but I'm just saying.

 

From HSSports.net:
# Your school's Athletic Director enters all information displayed at HighSchoolSports.net.
# Please call your Athletic Director or school directly if you have any questions about the information displayed on HighSchoolSports.net.
# All photos and videos uploaded to The Bleachers are reviewed and approved by your Athletic Director. This can take up to 48 hours from the time you upload.

Lucky him.

Likewise, "The Press Box" appears to be restricted to linking to legitimate news sites, although I have yet to research exactly what they include in their definition of same ...