1. Welcome to SportsJournalists.com, a friendly forum for discussing all things sports and journalism.

    Your voice is missing! You will need to register for a free account to get access to the following site features:
    • Reply to discussions and create your own threads.
    • Access to private conversations with other members.
    • Fewer ads.

    We hope to see you as a part of our community soon!

Waiting for the bomb to drop

Discussion in 'Journalism topics only' started by flexmaster33, Feb 2, 2011.

  1. WolvEagle

    WolvEagle Well-Known Member

    The funny thing is, neither is the kid....

    EMU football is so bad that most of the recruiting class is jucos because the need is so immediate. There were just three in-state high school recruits.
     
  2. Stitch

    Stitch Active Member

    Which is worse, writing a story on Suzy Noname signing with an NAIA school or JUCO Jimmy Jerkhoff holding a press conference announcing where he'll hang out for the next two years?

    What's the limit to how pathetic recruiting coverage can get?
     
  3. Flip Wilson

    Flip Wilson Well-Known Member

    What's worse is being the juco SID (which I was, full-time) and having to arrange the press conference with those athletes. Coaches would have freaked if we hadn't had that press conference.
     
  4. apeman33

    apeman33 Well-Known Member

    You arranged it? Around here, if the high school doesn't arrange it, no one will ever know anything. I guess it's the jucos' attitude that there's nothing for them to do if their coach can't even be there. It might also have a lot to do with the fact that the majority of jucos in Kansas don't even have a sports information department.

    But all the juco signings take place at the high school and it's the high school AD that usually makes the arrangements.
     
  5. budcrew08

    budcrew08 Active Member

    I covered a signing today... the athletic director called me to do it before I covered a different event at the same venue. girl going d2 for track. we don't have a ton of kids going to a lot of places, so it's not a big deal.
     
  6. RickStain

    RickStain Well-Known Member

    This thread is now directly next to "Live from Afghanistan" in my "unread posts" lists.
     
  7. BrianGriffin

    BrianGriffin Active Member

    I look at NAIA (we don't have any locally, but do in-state, including a national hoops powerhouse that routinely beats low-level D-Is) and Jucos as strictly a niche. The local Juco, which plays pretty decent basketball and (usually) pretty bad baseball, seems to have a good self-perception. They don't complain when the game they call in (and it's called in by the coach, no SID) is buried in the bottom left corner of page C8 just under auto racing agate. I think it creates perspective when you realize you are in a major college market (same town) that's also home to a couple of mid-major D-I programs in the same metro area.

    The JUCO almost belongs on our prep page because the teams are almost exclusively local kids. They are sort of in purgatory between their celebrated prep careers and what would be celebrated college careers. There are some D-I-quality baseball players there who went Juco for financial reasons (more scholarship money than the share of the 11.7 they'd get at the D-I school, which is also more expensive in general) and most of the basketball players there are four-year quality, but they are academic non-qualifiers (different demographic).

    So for these local kids, the entire JUCO career is about leveraging good progress during a couple of years in obscurity to get back to "real" college sports. Where our coverage gets interest is when it reflects that. It's not about whether local JC beat Meridian College of Mining and Aviation, it's whether last year's high school state 4A player of the year who was a passed over because he's a "prop" is playing well and whether he's still getting interest from D-I schools once his career is over.

    The ones who never get academically qualified go to that NAIA school on the other side of the state. NAIA schools will take anybody.
     
  8. dkphxf

    dkphxf Member

    National Association of Ineligible Athletes
     
  9. PaperDoll

    PaperDoll Well-Known Member

    Our football players' signing-day ceremonies all got snowed out, though we did have a compilation story.

    I covered a track signing yesterday because the girl's going to the University of Washington, which is a big-time enough program and unusual because it's all the way across the country. However, apparently at the last minute the coach made her share the ceremony with a teammate who, while he's going D-I, was not anywhere near that level.

    I'll be at another track signing next week for a national-level thrower.

    Oddly, the local volleyball player who went to Penn State a couple of years ago didn't do anything special for her signing. We'd covered her verbal commitment, so I think she was just part of the list of "others signing letters."
     
  10. KYSportsWriter

    KYSportsWriter Well-Known Member

    Covered a track signing Friday, and I think there's another kid in my area signing D-I on Monday afternoon. First kid is a damn good distance runner who signed with Louisville; the other is a state champ triple jumper who's going to Murray State.
     
  11. Flip Wilson

    Flip Wilson Well-Known Member

    I arranged the pressers when our current juco athletes signed to play at four-years schools. I worded that previous post poorly.
     
  12. apeman33

    apeman33 Well-Known Member

    Gotcha. Here, each coach is responsible for those conferences if they choose to do so. Baseball does it every year without fail. The then-new women's basketball coach did it last year and that's only the second time in the 16 years I've been here that program did anything. Football used to do it but now they just e-mail a release and mug shots. Men's basketball and volleyball* have never done so in the entire time I've been here. I don't think softball has, either.

    * - With good reason. The volleyball program has won about 50 matches (about 3 a season) in those 16 years, which includes an 0-30 season.
     
Draft saved Draft deleted

Share This Page