Puking kids

I would not have mentioned it except perhaps if the kid who ralphed was a star of the game and played through being ill.

 

Do you mention all of the cross country runners who puke after a meet? You would have to use that as a lede every time.

 

Same with wrestling.

Although I don't think you ever forget being a kid and seeing somebody blow chow in the middle of a classroom. I'm still not really over that.

 

What if he got elbowed in the gut and it was part of the game, as opposed to just pizza/dehydration/megahangover?

EDIT: The more I think of it, I probably still wouldn't include it. We don't write about every sprained ankle or bloody nose, either.

 

I still remember a girl doing that in second grade.

 

It was a story when McNabb ralphed in the Super Bowl, not so much when Marshall Faulk did it right before getting into the huddle (in a regular season game).

 

I only think it's a story if the kid was the star of the game and played while sick, or if while he was sitting out, the other team went on a 10-0 run or something like that.

 

FWIW, the kid is a role player and comes off the bench. It happened in the first quarter and he left right away. I appreciate everyone's insight on this.

 

I see nothing wrong with it. It actually did impact the game, albeit in the most minor of ways. The note could be as simple as:


"The game was delayed for X minutes when XX vomited on the court. After the game, X attributed his sickness to blah, blah, blah."

While I understand the concerns, this protection from embarrassment thing can go too far. Why should the kid be embarrassed anyway? He got sick. So what? And what's wrong with asking him about it? Maybe there was a specific reason and maybe that does lead to a bigger story. You never know. But even if it doesn't, it may actually HELP the kid to talk about it and say something like "Yeah, that was embarrassing but coach told me later, not to worry about it, blah, blah, blah."

When I was covering high schools a coach phoned in a result once and told me a kid's error had lost the game in the last inning. He didn't want to give me the name and I told him, "Coach, I'm not saying we need to pick on the kid, but this happened. And we write plenty of great things when these guys succeed, I don't think there's anything wrong with just reporting what happens in a loss." To his credit, he agreed and gave me the name.

I know this situation obviously didn't have the same impact, but it's the same principle of not getting these kids so coddled now that we have to be afraid to say anything that could be perceived as negative.

 

The way I undestood it, it mainly impacted the floor.

 

So ... what did the kid have for dinner?