"Where does it say I can't cheer at the press table?"

When I first started covering NASCAR (during the era of David Poole who I leanred a lot from) one of the many valuable lessons I was taught is that its ok to cheer (not loudly of course) for the STORY, not the driver (or team or player)...since then I've covered other sports including F1 and its a good mantra...cheer for a good story, not for the driver, player or team...just sayin'

 

Agreed. I'll also applaud if the PA asks current/former servicemen in the crowd to stand and be recognized.

 

Amen!

 

I golf clap for players who have been injured as they either get up or are assisted from the court/field.

 

I was covering a high school girls game a few years ago. Home team decides it's a bright idea to have one of the students be the PA announcer. Kid comes strutting to press row like he owns the joint. Gelled up hair, popped collar on his pink polo shirt. (At this point, I recall a line from Major League: "Look at this fuckin' guy...")

Anyway, during the game, he's more preoccupied with sounding cool than doing his job well (surprise, surprise right?). He's butchering calls and announcing substitutions right in the middle of visiting players' free throws. A few people try to straighten him out, but he's having none of it. A visiting player named Moran comes into the game. The name is pronounced how you'd expect - "Muh-RAN" (like the actress who played Joannie on Happy Days). Jackass PA kid pronounces it "Moron."

Visiting coaching staff finally loses it and says something. Kid has the nerve to shoot his mouth off back at them. I thought I was going to need to find a shoehorn to get the visiting head coach's foot out of the kid's ass.

 

We are a two-paper town. So I always get a chuckle when I see my competition's stringer at games.
He is a grad of one of the local high schools and rarely strings any games that aren't for Hometown High.
He comes to the games he covers dressed head-to-toe in school colors, does the PA announcing for some of the sports (and REALLY gets into it), or else helps do color on radio. He is the biggest jock-sniffer ever and will just follow the team into the locker room after a game and start high-fiving players or giving them one-armed hugs in a loss.
Then, he turns around and writes. Yeah, I'm sure those are "balanced" stories, huh?
This paper also has another guy that is pretty much the same for another area school.
Community journalism at its finest, hey?

Side note...you know what drives me nuts. Having to share "media row" with stat guys (not kids...adults) for teams that scream at the ref/ump the whole damn game! Those people should have to sit behind the team bench...so if they do yell, they can get T'd up as a bench foul.

 

You know, I've never understood the unequivocal love some people have for their high schools. What was so special about that four-year period, which may have begun at age 13, that is worth carrying at least a decade later? I can understand a college, because people are capable of great things in college. But high school?

Maybe it's because I come from a place where high school athletics aren't very good, and there's little community spirit that brings anyone but family members to a field or a gymnasium. I just don't get it.

I also don't understand why a high school player at any level would find it acceptable for him/herself to hug anyone who's not a coach or a teammate, and that's leaving out the other side of that equation.

 

I could understand this point of view. Around here ( South Central PA) high school sports is big, as teams competing in basketball, wrestling, and football are routinely in district and state finals. Football and wrestling are big deals around here, and there's definitely a buzz during those times of years, mainly because alumnus love coming back to watch the new teams.

I'm sure anyone that's lived around here or really anywhere in PA can attest to the affection people have for prep sports in this state.

 

Even more so in Texas.

 

Can we take it, then, that these people, no matter where they are from, are living vicariously through the exploits of the children of their neighbors? (If so, sounds like a hell of a feature: The Peter Pan Fan Syndrome.)

 

Unfortunately, you're describing about half the PA announcers in the NBA nowadays (and, yes, I'm starting with you, Mr. "DEEE-TROIT BASKETBALL"). Are these guys just cheerleader wannabees, or WWE rejects?? I did PA work for about three years in college (mostly baseball) and had only two instructions: 1) play it straight, and 2) if either team's batting out of order, let them figure it out.

 

I was sitting at press row of an NCAA tournament game right next to the radio crew and the the producer guy (spotter, calls back to station whatever the hell his title is) was wearing the "colors" of the team and cheering and yelling and clapping and bitching about calls the entire game.

Is this acceptable, I mean, he is getting paid by the university?