The Cult of The Coach

Wow. I need your autograph and I need it now. I'd pay a modest fee to see the look on that dufus' face. Jackass is probably one of those guys who won't let his wife leave the house and monitors her phone calls.

You guys have struck a nerve here, and I'm thinking mostly about our stringers on game stories. Like clockwork, you can count on two of them always having something like two quotes from the winning coach and one from the loser. Goddamit, earn your $40 or $50 and actually stop a player and ask a question.

 

I've had stories where I didn't quote either coach, not that I was trying, they just didn't say anything. I've also had a co-worker who would call a coach "helmsman" on second reference.

 

I was told by my editor at one point to just go to coaches because the kids "aren't smart enough to check themselves." And me being the enterprising writer I am, ain't smart enough to filter the shit they say.

 

your editor sounds like a burnout.

 

My SE had to set a firm rule about quotes for a part-timer. She would never quote players. Five or six quotes from coaches, but never any players. He talked to her about it, I said something about it once when I took an editing shift, didn't matter. Still no player quotes. SE sat her ass down for calls only for about two weeks, then she got the hint.

 

I don't have a problem asking for the cell phone number of a male athlete, though a number of coaches have refused to give it out and said they would have the kid call me (which is fair, I think).

I've never asked for a female athlete's cell number, though a few parents have offered it up when I asked if they could have her give me a call. It's just one of those things where I try to never put myself in a position where my motives can be questioned. It's a lesson I learned when one of my writers was falsely accused of stalking an athlete by an asshole coach with a vendetta.

 

ohhh, just from reading your posts, we KNOW you're a perv, "pern." don't try to throw us off your trail.





;D

 

Might as well pull this one out of the moldy moldy morgue, but with staff cuts, fewer games being covered live, the problem is worse than it ever was. We've got stringers and "citizen journalists" who, I swear, wouldn't talk to a player if their life depended on it. And the staffers are just as bad.

We've got one team around here, a perennial state power, and the longtime coach announced early in the season he was retiring at the end of the season. Ever since then, every single story about the team -- gamers, features, you name it -- are all about the coach. Every single one. Other than in the scoring summaries, you never read a player name. Every single story is Grizzled Ole Coach Looks Back On His Storied Career. Grizzled Ole Coach Remembers A Game From Nineteen Eighty-Six, etc etc.

Oh yeah, the team is ranked No. 2 in the state. Somehow or other I suspect some of the players might be doing something worthy of mention.

 

For a staffer, don't you require three different quoted sources?

Coach A
Coach B
and you are screwed if they quote an assistant

 

Starman, why don't you talk to the offending writers directly about this? The passive-aggressive approach you mentioned four years ago appears like it didn't work. Maybe there's something different you could do.

 

Quoting only the coach happens at lots of levels.

For example, I don't remember John Feinstein quoting many players in college basketball players in his stories in the past 15 years. I read his book on a basketball season in the ACC, March to Madness, years ago and I don't think he quoted one player. I think as sportswriters age they become less likely to talk to players.

 

I know I've made more of an effort to interview athletes this baseball/softball season. They seem a lot more media savvy than 10-15 years ago, in my first go-round in sports. I always start with complimenting them on their game, which really helps. Plus there are a lot of coaches who have trouble forming sentences more complex than "the kids played hard today."

If you'll pardon the Monday morning quarterbacking, best way to handle the coach thing would have been a big feature at the start or end of the season. This should be the players' moment.