Unhappy preps

what you should have said at the moment the conversation began: "wow, ya know, it's a damn good thing you chose education as a career because you would have went bankrupt as a journalist"

and then simply have walked away.

 

The worst part when this happens is that my first instinct is to not cover that sport or that team anymore, and that's wrong. The team deserves some amount of coverage, regardless of how obnoxious the parents are. It's important to remember not to allow your anger or frustration affect how you do your job, at least part of which is to provide coverage to high school sports.
Man, what a great view from my soap box. From up here, I can't see any of the mistakes I make, just those of others. Uh oh, I'm getting a little light-headed; I'm going to have to get down for awhile.

 

In my case, the team has still gotten its news in the paper. I just don't go to its meets.
Looking back, I could have and probably should have handled it differently, calling or writing a letter to the AD or something like that. He can't really control the parents, but he can say something to the coach.
I've always tried to avoid doing that, however, because I've always been concerned it could make a bad situation worse.
At that high school there are 14 other varsity teams. There's really no point in wasting a lot of time and energy with a low-interest sport if you have to take too much abuse to cover it.

 

I had a nice run-in with cheerleading parents a few years back. Working at a smaller daily (24k circulation), I had the audacity to write a column saying cheerleading isn't a sport. In hindsight, the way I approached the column wasn't the best, but the argument I made was solid. Well, as you can guess, I was inundated with e-mails and calls, mostly saying I was an idiot and an a**hole and should never be allowed to write again. And one of our ad people got a call from a local car dealer saying he was going to pull his ads because his daughter was a cheerleader (He didn't, thank God, or I'd have been canned). And a local cheerleading sponsor called our publisher, a long-time family friend. Oh good times, good times.

Anyway, the way I approach all this stuff is like this: If these parents think we're going to cover their games like football or basketball, they're insane. However, no sport should be ignored. There's a story out there somewhere, and I firmly believe that for every team and every sport. Maybe it's a star player who lost a parent when they were young. Or a benchwarmer who will never get into a game but is a National Merit Scholar headed to MIT. Or maybe the story is about the fact that this team has only won once in three years, but the seniors keep coming out, facing ridicule from the kids at school and trying to build a program even if they are hamstrung by poor talent/lack of interest/low funding/crappy coaching/whatever. There's a story to every team, every sport. If you have the resources to write it, you should. If not, then explain to them that's why.

But before you do, think about how much time you or your reporters or your desk guys or your reporter/desk double-duty folks spend surfing the Internet in a week. Sometimes we pass on going out to do a story because it's easier to be in the office. If that's the problem and you're spending time in the office that you could be out at a game because you don't like soccer/softball/tiddlywinks, then the parents have a point. I'm not saying it is in any of the cases cited here because I don't know. But sometimes it is.