Why I love cross country

So, I received this email yesterday.


Dear Editor

Why aren't there more articles about cross country? Its all football this and football that. Over the past few years the (Shitkicker High) cross country teams have been very successful. Additionally cross country is a sport where the players can do it for the rest of their life whereas football ends when the players graduate. More cross country news please!

(Name withheld)
(phone number)
(Address)

He got this reply:

Mr. (Name),
Thanks for reading the (Podunk Press) and we value your feedback. It has been duly noted. If, in the future, you have ideas for specific stories you think might be of interest to our readers, feel free to share them with us.
Thanks,
(My name)
(Office phone)

Here are some facts:
First, for the first time in at least 10 years, we did season previews on the cross-country teams. Second, there have been two cross country meets in our county this season. We covered one and the other had just one local team on a Saturday when there were two high school football games. Third, we never mention high school football on Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday. Only Friday lead-up and Saturday re-cap, plus Monday if there are Saturday afternoon games. The rest of the week we try to cover everything else.
And what the hell does it mean that they can play the sport for the rest of their lives? How does that interest me or my readers? I guess this guy has never heard of college football.

 

I blame you for whetting the public's appetite for cross country.

 

The more you give, the more they want. Of my stops, the paper that did the least amount of non-football/basketball/diamond sports coverage got the least reader drama. The one that did the most got daily crap from butthurt readers who said we never covered them, or put so-and-so on the cover but never them. Non-revenue sports coverage is like crack, only without the nutritional value.

 

Let us not forget the team captain, who had a heart attack while running...

 

Next time write this back:

Thanks for the feedback. We have beefed up our coverage this year with season previews on area cross country teams. We also covered one of the two cross country meets in the county. You might find more cross country coverage Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, when we rarely run high school football stories. Hope you've been reading along and caught these stories! If not, please call our subscription department at xxx-xxxx so we can set you up!

Regards,
The Awesome SE

 

Thank god. For a minute there, I thought this thread was going to be written by some journo who actually, you know, loved cross country.

I guess I should apologize to the hobo I just bludgeoned to death.

 

There will always be someone who says something like "(My sport) never gets covered like football!"

The end result after addressing the problem is, as it turns out, the people who complain aren't reading the paper or aren't reading it every day and always seem to miss when their sport is covered.

 

It's the "I don't read the paper because you don't cover X" Not that they know, since they don't read the paper.

 

Of course, I'm from a part of the world where they build (and fill) 20,000-seat stadiums for high school football. The one cross country meet I've been to the past five or so years had more participants than spectators. I seriously doubt there was one spectator there who was not a blood relative (or at least boyfirend/girlfriend) of a participant.

If you want to know the reason we don't cover cross country the same way we cover football, that's it. I don't care how hard the little darlings are working.

 

Cross country is fine.. takes 25 minutes for the girls, 20 for the boys, sometimes they run together, get the agate,talk to the winners and enough for a 10 inch story in less than 1:10...

 

No one (read: parents of people who participate in these other sports) is ever happy. Why don't you cover more cross country? Why don't you have a story on the upcoming swim meet? Why isn't their more volleyball coverage?

And since I too live in the land of football, we got these this year: Why don't you cover Podunk's JV games? Why don't you mention the offensive line more, Johnny can't score without them).

Dear Podunk parent: When you son is on varsity, we will cover him. There's a reason it's JV, and I'd venture o say you never went to a JV game before your little tyke played JV football, and won't go after he's done.

Dear Podunk parent: Get your little tyke in shape, teach him to run or catch the ball and score touchdowns instead of being such a slow fat slob so the only place he fits in is on the line, then we'll mention him
"But, but someone has to play there."
Sorry but apparently you've never heard of the A-11 offense.