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Player of the Year and All-area selections: How do you do it?

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by Logan, Mar 17, 2010.

  1. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    Man, this is about the eleventy-thousandth thread on this, but what the heck, it's fun, so here's how I've done it when I've been in complete control:

    1) Make a concerted effort during the season to actually physically cover as many of the better teams in your area as possible. Make your own observations as to who are the better players. Have a staff meeting including all staffers, stringers, photogs, anybody who saw the teams, to talk over the list. If your paper purports to be an authority on prep sports coverage in your area, don't be afraid to act like it. (If not, you probably shouldn't be picking all-area teams.)

    2) Solicit "informational input" from the coaches: stats, comments, etc etc. DO NOT tell the coaches you are taking "nominations" -- they will assume that means their "nominations" are guaranteed to make the team. Allowing the coaches formal say into the process just opens it up to all sorts of politicking, favoritism, sandbagging, etc etc.

    3) Pay no attention to class standing, academics, etc etc. You are picking the best basketball players in your area, nothing else. Pay no attention to how good a guy, how hardworking, etc etc the player is supposed to be -- according to the coaches they will all be just wonderful young men or women. The only exception to this is, if the player missed any significant playing time due to academic, disciplinary (or these days, legal) ineligbility, do NOT, in any way whatsoever, give him any credit for how good he "might have been" if he had been able to play. If his absence hurts his team, grade him down accordingly. Give him credit for what he did do while he was actually playing in games -- everything else is a zero.

    3) Pick a first team (or 'dream team' or whatever fancy name you want to give it) corresponding to a starting lineup in the sport. Five basketball players, 22 football players (plus maybe a kicker), 8 baseball/softball players (plus 2-4 pitchers). Pick the team by position so that at least in theory, your team could actually take the field/floor for a game. DO NOT duplicate positions (4 QBs, 8 shortstops, etc etc) although it's OK to fudge positions a BIT if you need to do so to assemble your team.

    4) Pick a second team corresponding to a "full roster" -- 12 basketball players, about 20 baseball or softball, about 50 football players.

    5) Throw anybody else on the coaches' "input list" or who you even remember playing decently on honorable mention. We're not talking about a sacred institution here, it doesn't hurt anybody to put 2 extra kids on HM, but it makes 2 extra sets of parents buy a paper.

    6) Never ever ever ever pick co-players or co-coaches of the year. Have some balls.

    7) Once the teams are selected, run the stories, then "never explain, never complain." Anybody calls to bitch, just tell them, "we took all the info into consideration and we made our call." That's another great reason not to base the whole thing on a coaches' vote, because if you don't, nobody can call in demanding to see the ballots.
     
  2. novelist_wannabe

    novelist_wannabe Well-Known Member

    I always took nominations from the area coaches from their own team and made sure I got stats and any other incidental information they were willing to provide. For wrestling, I set up a points system (1 point for every win, 2 for tournament championships, 2 for area championships, and so on) that I thought worked really well. Then I picked my teams based on all that information. It takes some legwork, but I found it saved me some headaches later on. I just figured if their own coach wouldn't nominate them, they weren't worthy. I didn't get too many complaints. The most memorable one centered on my all-area quarterback one year. I had two guys with similar stats, similar college offers and were held in similar esteem by opponents. So I used winning as the tiebreaker. The other guy's mom didn't like it. That's the nature of the beast. She called, and we had a lengthy discussion in which I just laid out my case, and while she didn't agree with me, she at least felt like her voice was heard. Make no mistake, you're going to get phone calls. Where it gets bad is if you get that call and cannot make a case for your decision. Make your case, and be polite about it. Most people, though they may not like it, will accept that.
     
  3. HanSenSE

    HanSenSE Well-Known Member

    No matter who or how you make your picks, you're gonna get calls. Be ready. But how many of us have gotten this call:

    "Podunk Press sports"

    "Yes, my son just made the Bigtown Times All-Region team, and I was wondering if you were going to do a story."

    I'm always tempted to answer:
    "No, because they're our biggest competitior, but, you know what, we're putting him on our All-County team, so you can call them and ask if they'll do a story about that."
     
  4. Dan Hickling

    Dan Hickling Member

    Is there any real value to doing All Areas and POYs? If so, what?
     
  5. schiezainc

    schiezainc Well-Known Member

    Money. </Every ad rep ever>

    Pride in your work </Ever reporter who hasn't completely checked out>
     
  6. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    yeah, those two, and if you do a reasonably-decent job, it does somewhat enhance your paper's rep for prep coverage. Not like it's a huge, huge deal, but it's worth a couple work shifts.

    "No." Click
     
  7. spud

    spud Member

    I don't necessarily agree with this. If you have any conviction behind your picks, you've got it thought out already and, hopefully, the defense is either ironclad or at the very least it's good enough to make sense to the rational. Doesn't mean you have to get into a shouting match, or even an argument, but if anybody calls in questioning our girls' bball POY (and I know they will) I've got my defense, and I'm sticking by it.

    Sure, after a time there's only so much you can say, but I'm A-OK standing by our pick and letting people know why we went the way we did.
     
  8. Only if you like people talking about your section/product.
     
  9. crimsonace

    crimsonace Well-Known Member

    Here's how I did it.

    Take nominations from coaches, put together a ballot. There were four coaches and my staff (including stringers I trusted) was four people, all of which saw all four teams' games.

    Everyone got a ballot and a vote. Being able to put "the team was chosen by both the area coaches and the Podunk Press coverage staff" gave it legitimacy in the community's eyes and reduced claims of bias.
     
  10. cwilson3

    cwilson3 Member

    I have a question about this topic.

    Girl A is going to win the county player of the year. However, her school is the only one in our county that we don't cover. We picked a different POY for our paper, but should we put Girl A on our first team? We'll undoubtedly get calls if we don't but we have literally fewer than five subscribers in that town and don't consider them to be in our coverage area.
     
  11. Starman

    Starman Well-Known Member

    At every paper I've ever heard of, all-area teams include only players from your coverage area.


    Oh, if somebody calls and wants to talk about it rationally, of course you should have your rationale for your selections ready and they should be OK with it, but if they call in firing from the hip, very shortly you'll end up at "we took all the info into consideration and we made our call."

    Nothing eliminates claims of bias. Remember, we're now in the second and third generation of people who have been brought up since infancy with the public message that the dirty rotten media is out to get them.

    Plus, including the coaches in the vote won't save you, because invariably some coaches don't bother to show up or are out of town that day or 383 other excuses why they didn't make the meeting, plus of course all the fans know very well that certain coaches are big buddy-pals of each other and always fluff their players, while other coaches hate each other's guts and will do anything to torpedo and sandbag their players and keep them off the teams, plus everybody knows Sean Superstar was the best player in the area, no way in the world he couldn't have won the POY award, I think we just need to see the ballots, you must have counted them wrong and for all we know you might have tampered with them too....

    Forget all that shit. "We took a wide range of input from our reporters, coaches, players and other observers into consideration, and we made our decision." End of story.
     
  12. crimsonace

    crimsonace Well-Known Member

    Coaches get a ballot. They all play each other. They know each other's personnel. It's a pretty simple system.

    It did cut down on b*tching, although not completely.
     
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