Unhappy preps

The last time that happened at my paper, our ME handed down an assignment to cover a cheerleading tournament.
Lesson: When a cheerleading parent calls, don't say "Cheerleading is not a sport. And if you'd like to argue that, I'll transfer you to my managing editor."

 

Hey, if there's a demographic to get into scraps with, I'd choose the swimming parents.

 

Had a cheerleading mom call up and want a brief to run in the sports section about a finish at a weekend pom-pom festival or something. Told her to send it and I would see that it got in the paper (notice the ambiguity). She demanded it be in sports. No, cheerleading isn't a sport, I told her. She said it was because Nike made shoes for it (no kidding). Best line I've come up with is: If there were no sports, there would be no cheerleading. Any sport could survive as the only sport, even gymnastics. But cheerleading couldn't. That's why it goes anyplace other than sports.
At her request, transferred her to EE. Ten seconds into conversation, he said. "We'll get it in news. Cheerleading isn't a sport." Click.

 

These people are readers. You need to treat them with respect. If you were buying something from a store, would you want the clerk to tell you to fuck off?

It's pretty rare that a high school athlete would seriously ask why their team or sport isn't covered more.

If they are serious you may explain the problems (they had a swim meet on a night you covered four basketball playoffs, for example).

Or the level of interest -- we just can't cover every soccer game but if you can talk to the coach and make sure we get a call or email, we can make sure to have a writeup in the paper.

Ask if there is anything going on with the team that would make a good story. Explain what that might be -- record-setting athletes, angles like milestone victories, winning while coach is in the hospital, etc., etc.

Make them thing of their team/sport in terms of stories rather than just getting covered for the sake of generic coverage.

You might find a story. You might enlighten a student and have a reader down the road.

Of course, if it is someone just being a jackass, you could always say you are waiting for them to win a game before you cover them.

 

I've had parents tell me that it's a sport because it's on ESPN. I guess I'll be running poker tournament agate any day now. :

 

What Ace said.

I have not once experienced a high school athlete complain about lack of coverage. Not once.

Coaches and parents, well, that's a different story.

 

I once had a football player ask why we only ran pictures of the offense.

It was actually a really good question.

 

With an easy answer. Tell the photogs to shoot the defense too. Or in the case of one photog at our place, I said to shoot the OTHER team's offense. That gave me plenty of good shots of the defense.

 

Not to mention darts, dominoes and the national spelling bee.

 

I agree with most of your response, but my experience is that the readers/athletes/parents who complain aren't asking for an occasional feature or notebook on their team. They want it to be treated like football or basketball.

 

Never had an athlete get in my face about coverage. In my experience, high school athletes rarely care about getting their names or pictures in the paper. It's the parents that want to see it. I've actually had parents insist that newspaper coverage can be a factor in whether or not their kid gets into college.
High school sports would be awesome if there were no parents.

 

Thirty years, I've had one school-age athlete say anything about coverage issues.