Most bizzarre story you have ever written

LOL, indeed. I literally laughed out loud. I can't even begin to imagine the sight of a coach walking up to a ref holding a box of condoms.

 

Correct me if I'm wrong, but wasn't it (allegedly) Pat Summit?


This wasn't my story, but it immediately jumped to mind. My sophomore year of college, a buddy at my school paper was given the assignment to write about the odd behavior exhibited by squirrels on campus.

The squirrels were crazy. They would run right at students and stop, sort of like a bully trying to make you flinch and all sorts of other bizarre behavior. So he interviewed students with their terrifying tales of psychotic squirrels and spoke with the animal sciences professors searching for explanations. It was actually a really funny, interesting read.

 

Local boys basketball coach gets named Coach of the Year after leading his team to the state final for the second straight year. I call him up to do a story and he tell's me, "I just got fired."
Huh?
"Yeah." Why did they fire you?
"They said I'm not a good coach."
Um, OK.

I also once covered a cockroach race.

 

Covered a guy who if I remember correctly was abducted by aliens (actually struck by lighting) and used that knowledge to win the N.Y. State lottery for like $100,000 (sometime in 1984). He took the money and invested in slum housing projects in the city and made a small fortune (again, he credited the aliens). He then ran for various government offices on the premise of harnessing he energy of teens to run the local electrical station and some crazier things to do with microwaves. He almost won a county council seat, which is scary.

 

Mr c-writer,

My luck. The aliens I was abducted by just sat around the mothership, reading The Hockey News.

I dunno how bizarre it was--probably more spooky than bizarre--and it was a series of stories across weeks, but on the outskirts of Ottawa barns were going up in flames nightly, maybe 10 in two weeks, and the volunteer fireman were in a state of sleep-deprived collapse (coincided with the hottest summer in recent history). Anyway, when they ran down the firebug he was a creepy guy who had stood beside me on the scene a half dozen times and handed out water and food to the fireman. Turned out he had been a volunteer fireman dropped from the service because he was a psyche job.

o-<

 

Bigfoot sighting. And interviewing leaders of organizations that hunt for Bigfoots (plural, because there's more than one, you know. How else could there be sightings all over the country?).

Then, a year later, a wildlife expert with a passion for hunting Bigfoots (a Bigfootologist, if you will), comes to give a lecture in town about Bigfoots. And I wrote the preview feature.

 

I did a story on the BFRO a while back.. The founder of the organization is from West By God.
I really enjoyed doing that story. I still check the group's website for recent sightings in our area for potential stories.

 

brilliant on hockey news.

Also, this may have to be a seperate thread, but when I worked for Gannett, we used to have some pretty insane tales of trying to track down mainstreamers at deadline. I remember one time a reporter quoted a woman named "Barbara Husband Killer" or something to that affect. (and no, we never got the great Sonny Sixkiller in as an expert) Other classic tales of calling small schools on the West Coast trying to find a minoriy expert when it was past five p.m. on the East Coast and the "source" saying, you do know you are calling Hawaii to ask about tourism.

 

Bump.
More.

 

In terms of sports bizarre, in Vermont I covered a girls hoops game in which the local team (which won 2 straight state titles) started the game on a 33-0 run.

 

"...Oh, and I also fucked a cheerleader in the fieldhouse. They mentioned something about that, too. But that doesn't need to be in the paper."

 

I've always wanted to do this.

What was it like? Creepy? Interesting? Both?