The "Homer" sports writer

Just curious if anyone knows or has worked with that "homer" sports writer that any professional journalist would hate. I'd love to read anybody's story on the worst homer or worst homer incident they've encountered by either a colleague, co-worker or someone they have come across in the business.

Anyone have a funny story?

 

Sorry I work at a nuclear power plant. Though I did once write a food column for the local paper.

 

Most of the homers I have seen work for small town papers where they grew up in the town and got a job at the paper, or just fell in love with the town. It's usually in small towns with smaller papers though.
No offense to those that work for a small paper in a small town and aren't homers of course.

 

Oh yes a story.

The only one I really have is the time I was at an OU basketball game. It was dead silent on press row as Taj Gray was trying to knock down some crucial free throws.
Suddenly this reporter just yells "Come on Taj! Hit them!" and everyone turns and looks at him like "Did we just hear that?"

 

I was at a second round playoff basketball game and I saw a reporter hug a cheerleader and a player before the game. Afterward, during the interview - of which I was the only one asking questions - said reporter high fives a player from the team he covers and hugs another.
Dude is real cool and I know he works at a tiny paper, but seriously. Unless it is a relative, that is unacceptable.

 

I had a co-worker try to high-five me once when we were walking down to the locker room after the team we were covering won a playoff game in overtime.
I believe I gave him the same look I would have given if he asked me to blow him.

 

I've had that. More than once.

 

I've seen a reporter hug a Division I basketball coach when it was announced the team had made the NCAA tournament. Big, dramatic hug.

 

It wasn't a sports writer, but it was the local radio broadcaster for H.S. sports. He would constantly use 'we' in describing local teams, and when the teams would eventually be eliminated in the playoffs, gush about 'how proud he was of them.'

 

Must be something with wrestling. I'm sitting in the press froom now for day two of our state's championships. Last night at the opening round, I encountered far more "fans" wearing orange press passes than I did working media.

Anyway, I could tell stories like the radio guy who walked into the girls state finals wearing a bright orange shirt that evidenced his hope for the local team, or I could tell you about his partner who has a t-shirt for every local team in our coverage area and wears them to each contest. I could go back to near my hometown where the "dean of XXXXX County sports" is a school board member for the area powerhouse. Then there's the twice weekly paper in our area who constantly rips off all of my quotes/stats/information about the ONLY local team in that paper's coverage area...and then she writes brilliant columns with lines like, "I was so proud of the girls. We didn't win, but we played so hard and showed great sportsmanship."

But the greatest example of over-the-top homerism, and the one thing that tested my neutral observer status, went something like this: I was a 20-year old college English major, looking to get into journalism for the first time. I got work consistently stringing for my old hometown paper, so I'd make the 1 1/2 hour trek home on Friday nights to cover games for the Gannett paper that covered me back when I was a three-sport athlete at Rural County High. Anyway, I cover a lot of different football games, including a few for my old high school, who becomes the biggest story in the area by rising to the state's top ten, winning a conference title and upsetting the perennial power in the area.

Oh, and one more important detail, my father was an assistant coach for the team who had a heart attack during two-a-days and it was well known that it would be his last year coaching after having done it for 30+ years. So, state tourney starts and I get assigned, did not ask, to cover the game. Rural County, likely looking ahead to a probable rematch with the perennial power, finds itself in a battle against a .500 opponent and eventually they lose a very close game.

I head down to the sideline to ask the tough questions about how a 8-1 ranked team just lost a home playoff game. My old coach is in tears, talking about how much the senior class (who I had played with) meant to him, how much he was going to miss them...and then, really fighting back the tears, how much my father meant to him and how he was going to miss him. I shook his head, no hug, and walked to the other side to talk to the winning coach. Smalltown guy who had been covering for the road team, and who had been saddled up beside me while interviewing the winning coach, practically gallops to the other coach, gives him a big hearty handshake and says..."Wow, it sure is fun watching you guys make people cry".

Easily the closest I've ever come to beating someone's ass.

 

I was covering a game when the reporter who covered the visiting team for its respective paper showed up in the press box wearing the visiting team's jacket and hat.