Player's mother e-mails in pictures/What I wish I could do

They know nothing. They do not even sense me undressing them with my eyes as they are properly obscured. As far as they know, I'm paying attention to every little dribble those kids make on the field like the World Cup is on the line and that my head would be impaled on a stake in the NYT breakroom if I so much as failed to pick up who got the assist the last time a ball rolled idly past the keeper for a goal.

It's all good, bro.

 

Hopefully you do a college update every week or month or so updating where the local grads are and what they doing athletically in college.

You could crop the team shot and turn her photo into a mug shot. That way you have a little bit of art to go with the round up.

 

You want to know something??

We do know.

 

I used to run such photos on a "community page" -- usually a day when we had a little bit of extra space and few things were going on the evening before. I'd sometimes get 2 or 3, sometimes more.

I set down guidelines. Your team or your kid had to win something to get in -- I wasn't putting in third-place teams or "kids who worked hard."

 

OK, all this talk seems mainly about youth sports...I have the problem of high school teams sending in team pics of them with whatever trophy they won from some 4-team invite or "tournament"...

That, in my mind...is a waste of space.

I always tell coaches, we already ran your team picture, in the (season of sport) preview section that we do before the season starts.

The only other time I even think of running a team pic outside of the preview section is if they win the state title...and even that is usually reserved for an ad that says "Congrats Muskrats: 2008 Pingpong Champions".

 

i'd ask my publisher to go watch the paint dry and then ask him if i should waste my time showing up. i'm sure i'd get a raise.

 

Not being a journalist myself, but having been close to the business for a time, I have to say that I have seen both sides (both journalistic sides, not referring to the mother's side at this point). Both have valid arguments. I have to say I'm on the fence on this one. From my perspective, I suppose a lot of the decision would be based on the particular paper and the type of information that is normally produced therein.

Having said that, Mr. X should have at least responded in some way to the mother. But more than anything, his implication that only journalists can take decent photos is what struck me as most arrogant.

 

Busted.

 

They don't care if I look as long as their kid gets in the paper.