I love middle school basketball coaches

On the subject of JV scores, I saw this in a competitor's paper. They would run the JV score at the end of the varsity summary. If the varsity coach (or manager) didn't have it when they called in, it didn't get in the paper. Friend of mine at that paper said they got tired of answering the "Why don't you run JV scores question," and this was the easiest solution. I suggested it in our shop, but it didn't fly.

 

That's what I do. I tell the varsity coaches at the beginning of every season to either send in the J.V scores or tell the J.V coach to do it if they want them in the paper. I typically get one and then never receive any the rest of the season.

 

Sounds like some coaches are after Bill Belichick's heart.

 

Shit, if I were a drinker, I'd steal that for my avatar.

It has been a while since I drank Bourbon. Hmm...

 

I've seen your former boss have that look at the poker table...

 

I've seen it after a typical Tuesday night in the office.

 

Ah JV scores. I usually tack them on at the end of the story.

What's worse though is when everyone wants a picture of little Junior doing something. I've been getting a ton of photos from parents wanting me to run pics of their kids first hunting trips. I'm not going to put bloody pics of deers on the sports page.

Or you get a photo "This is my kids flag football team." It's like "Ok......good for you."

 

The lovely dead deer photo. Eyes wide open, tongue pathetically sticking out and little Junior holding the bloodied head with a big grin on his (Junior's) face.

Yeah, we got so many of those -- and the publisher made us run them -- that I once ran it on a color page just to make my point. After that, the publisher relented a bit and said we could run them small and only in black and white.

 

I'm lucky. Most JH coaches at our schools have teams that suck so they don't want the public to know how bleak the future is at the high schools.

The 15-10 basketball games are more familiar to me than 66-2 though.

 

I once decided I'd run all the JV scores in a box outside the main varsity stories and put in a couple of the leading scorers so that the people interested in them wouldn't have to wade through the varsity summary to find it. You know, kind of give the JV kids a place of their own.

So two days later, a JV parent (anonymous, of course) sends me a letter outraged that the JV kids don't get the kind of coverage they deserve. She had cut out the box I had come up with --- this was the first day I'd ran it --- and had it circled in orange highlighter with "PRIME EXAMPLE" scrawled on it.

I never ran the box again. JV and freshmen have been at the tail end of the varsity, one paragraph each ever since.

 

that's still too much.