Should I use this quote?

1. Down here in the south, it's a winter sport. It sucks ass. It was cold and wet and muddy last night, and I froze my balls off.
2. For criticizing the officials. That's pretty much a no-no no matter what level you're on. More than likely he'll get a nice lecture from the AD, maybe a phone call from the head of the state association. He might get a fine of $200 or $300.
3. If I hadn't had the player quote to fall back on, I wouldn't have thought twice about using it. But the guy has been a good source for us over the years and I didn't want to burn him unnecessarily. He might have just been blowing off steam. That was the dilemma — do you take a chance at pissing off a good source who was venting, just for the sake of a good quote on something that was fairly insignificant in the outcome of the game (not to mention fairly well-deserved; the coach should've gotten his yellow card much earlier than he did, and his players were playing physical)?
Hence, why I sought the advice of other professional journalists. Obviously, after reading these responses, using the quote was the right thing to do.

 

That's the other dilemma. I've covered a number of this team's games this season, and the coach does bitch a lot. I mean, A LOT. He got his yellow card about halfway through the second half, if I remember right, and he probably should have gotten it well before then. The officials showed great restraint.
The guy's reputation as a complainer is well-earned. I know he's gotten at least one other yellow card for it this season, and I heard one linesman threaten to eject him once.
When I was considering whether or not to use the quote, I was weighing whether this was a legitimate point he was making about the officiating, or just more whining.

 

What? Someone associated with soccer is a whiny bitch? No way.

In this case, I think using the quote was the right thing. But I don't think it's a no-brainer to use stuff like that every time, even if it is an eye-popping quote If the guy's just a constant whiner, you have to ignore him sometimes. The novelty of the number of yellow cards made the whole thing a story in itself, so any quote in relation to it is usable and the fact he told you to use it makes it an easy call, but I don't think the quote stands alone as a no-brainer.

 

this screams trend story

if there's a pattern of this happening, find out why

 

Couple things to consider. . .

1) I'd say 70 percent of high school coaches find some way to bitch about the officials after the game.

2) I may be in the minority, but this is my philosophy: generally, the only time i quote a coach on the officials is if I, an unbiased observer, deem the actions of said officials to be a central part of the story. That sounds like it may be the case in this instance. And if it is, then you should certainly use whatever the coach said.

As a side note, I find it interesting that the majority of quotes that are followed by "And you can print that" are quotes that coaches later find themselves wishing you hadn't printed.

 

Heh heh ... six cards? I had a match with nine. Worse, I had another where the officials lost control of the match and, in an attempt to regain it, issued four cards in 10 minutes, none of them for dissent/fighting/unsportsmanlike.

Batman, you gave the coach every chance to retract his quote. Good for you for thinking it over and understand it could have been a heat-in-the-moment, knee-jerk sound bite, but the coach is fair game.

 

A few years ago, a controversial call went against an area team in the softball regional semifinals and that team wound up losing.
THE PLAY: Back when the state still used the extra-inning tiebreaker of starting each inning with a runner on second. Leadoff batter either drops a bunt or hits a grounder (sorry, can't remember exactly at this moment). Either the first baseman or pitcher (again, going off memory because I can't find the game right now) tosses the ball to the second baseman covering first, who then throws home to gun down the runner who started on second. The field official ruled the runner to first beat the second baseman to the bag while the home plate umpire ruled the girl who tried to score was out. Meanwhile, the batter makes it to second on the play at home. By the way, in my opinion, the girl was out at first on a no-brainer call.
But instead of two outs and no one on, there's now one out, a runner on and an upset coach.
The team batting wound up scoring that inning and then shutting down the other team in the bottom of the inning.
The coach who lost mentioned the play in question and said the field official who made shouldn't officiate any more. No swearing, yelling, or ranting, just an upset coach who definitely knew what he was saying would get in the newspaper (he's a stringer in other sports for the same paper in which the quote appeared).
Well, the state high school athletic association was a bit put off by the comment and fined him.
It was no big deal to him, though. He mentioned the whole incident at a community fair shortly thereafter and soon had $100 in donations to pay the fine.

 

Maybe I've been doing this too long, but when I hear a coach go off in some inappropriate way, ala Jeff Ruland saying the only way then-UConn player Ben Gordon could be stopped was "with an Uzi," I smile. It's so much easier when they write your lede for you.

 

I covered a D-II game this year that had six red cards, including four on one team. The refs also gave a red card to the opposing team's head coach and ejected him as well.
It was bizarre and a near brawl happened after the game when the parents of some of the opposing players and players from the other team tried to go after the refs.