Selecting All-Area team for my beat

I agree, rhody ... and bbam, this is last-resort-type stuff. if the kids are seriously equal in all respects and the staff vote is tied, etc., there's got to be a tiebreaker. someone's gotta be chosen, someone's gotta have their scrapbook and college scholarship hopes destroyed. so class and school work for me for that tiebreaker.

what do you use under those circumstances?

 

Bribery is a good tiebreaker.

 

Now we're talking.

 

and if you take the same amount from both sets of parents?

 

yup. name the best and then make an honorable mention list with every last damn golfer in the region.

it'd be a win-win for everyone, and it ensures that everybody involved will try hard again next year.

 

your idea sucks.

 

seriously, tom ... hate that thinking of 'get everyone one there!'

all-area football teams that have three quarterbacks or basketball teams with 4 starting point guards drive me nuts. have some and pick the best. make a decision. otherwise the thing loses value. the harder it is to get on the team, the more it means for those that make it.

this applies to honorable mention, too. many coaches will send in every last one of their players or at least every last senior on the roster. I'm sorry, but when you've got players on the starting five (in basketball, for eg) with 18 ppg and then wind up with the top end of honorable mention getting, say, 13, sally trieshard doesn't make my honorable mention list just because she never missed a practice and hit an average of 2.3 points per night. You've got to have some sort of parameters.

definitely share some love on honorable mention lists ... but don't make them all-inclusive.

 

Is there a conference or area championship at the end of the season? If there is, my tie-breaker would be how they did in the "biggest" tournament in your area.

Other suggestions if there isn't a tournament like this:
Compare performance in any tournament they were all in
Determine their average score if you took out the best and worst performance (maybe someone's score is skewed by one terrible round)

 

well, you're taking a lot of scholarships away from the kids.

 

it's what I'm paid to do.

 

To break ties, I'd go with the kids who work the hardest. And to determine that, ask their parents.

 

Tom is joking by the way. If'n you didn't know.