All-Area (or county, etc.) teams

[Sam Craig]

I think we've run the line that said the teams are based on nominations from the coaches. But we've had two outs if we wanted to put a player on a team that the coach didn't nominate. First, coaches can nominate players on other teams. Second, we had a line — I forget how it was worded — where it said teams are also selected based on observations from the staff (something like that). So if a coach didn't want to nominate a player, I could easily get around it.

 

[doggieseatdoggies]

This may seem too complicated, but it works. With the staff reductions, we don't vote exclusively as a staff like we used to. One, there's not enough to cover every team enough - some of the perimeter teams we never get to.

So we allow the coaches to vote, but we handicap their votes on a percentage basis so where teams that played each other in a district/league/conference vote, their vote is equal to a vote of a team that didn't play everybody and didn't see anybody. It gives some input from all points of the map.

I've thought about using game officials and area junior college coaches, but do they really have time for that or remember the players by name in the case of refereees?

 

[doggieseatdoggies]

One of our dilemmas this year is a coach of the year (that's where the politics get involved): it came down to a coach who got his team to the state finals for the first time in 10 years vs. a coach who lost all his starters from a team that's consistently in the semifinals or finals, and got back to the finals. He's also won this in years past. I'm leaning toward the former, but the coaches will vote for this guy because he's popular. Thoughts?

 

[Tom Petty]

yeah, it was pretty apparent after the fact the coach was bent on ****ing over not only the kid, but us (the newspaper) by making us look idiotic.

But the SE, ME and publishers were in the pockets of the local school districts, so the idea of telling the coach to **** off never gained traction.

Of course we had to take hysterical raging phone calls for the rest of the school year, "you morons, why didn't you put Shaheem Superstar on the team??"

We did talk to Shaheem and determined that the post-game argument, as we suspected, was about 85% the coach's fault.

i made more than one of them cry actual tears because i made them ask uncomfortable questions.

you make me cry actual tears and you aren't even my boss.

mission accomplished.

 

[Appgrad05]

At my old paper, we took coaches' nominations and made them part of the equation. Our vote was valued more.
At my new place, where I am starting all-area from the ground up, we have nine schools in five different classifications. Obviously, most only play one or two.
I ended up just asking each coach, 'Who did you have to game plan against?' That seemed to elicit pretty good responses.

 

[jps]

One of our dilemmas this year is a coach of the year (that's where the politics get involved): it came down to a coach who got his team to the state finals for the first time in 10 years vs. a coach who lost all his starters from a team that's consistently in the semifinals or finals, and got back to the finals. He's also won this in years past. I'm leaning toward the former, but the coaches will vote for this guy because he's popular. Thoughts?

go with your gut.

 

[mike311gd]

One of our dilemmas this year is a coach of the year (that's where the politics get involved): it came down to a coach who got his team to the state finals for the first time in 10 years vs. a coach who lost all his starters from a team that's consistently in the semifinals or finals, and got back to the finals. He's also won this in years past. I'm leaning toward the former, but the coaches will vote for this guy because he's popular. Thoughts?

go with your gut.

Go with the first guy. If he resurrected a program, that's more impressive than taking kids from a strong feeder system -- or who've played on that successful team for the last two or three years -- and making another run.

 

[jps]

was gonna say just that, mike, but thought his gut would lead him that way. :)

 

[mike311gd]

was gonna say just that, mike, but thought his gut would lead him that way. :)

You can't always trust your gut. Sometimes it tells you McDonald's when you know it's an Arby's night.

 

[jps]

there's not a lot of good your gut should ever say about mcdonald's, my friend. and arby's new chicken blt is pretty darn good.

 

[doggieseatdoggies]

What we did this year was handicap the coaches votes - specifically, 1:2 1/2 against the writers and stringers. 1 1/2 times on designated perimeter teams we didn't cover but include in our circulation. Votes then were counted in reverse order from 10-1 in terms of points. It gave a minimum, but measurable, benefit to those teams who might have been at an unfair disadvantage if we didn't see them. We picked eight boys and eight girls this way and then added two wildcards who were left off the ballots but were the most worthy among those left out. It worked out pretty good. I could count five, maybe six coaches who had some idiot ballots. None can vote for their own kids anyway but the top of some of their lists included kids who were anything from best coaching buddy's girl to a boy who had a recognizable name. On one of those, I called the coach of the player and told him I had this kid ranked as the third best player on his team. He agreed. Maybe even fourth, he said. So I knew we made the right move by not voting for this kid, although if you'd counted coach ballots seperately, he'd been in the top five vote-getters.

 

[Starman]

Long ago, I worked at a paper which allowed coaches to nominate/elect its All-Area teams. One year, one of the players had the dead-bang best player in the state -- 30 ppg, 15 rpg, etc etc. ended up starting at a high D-I school and eventually playing in the NBA (not for long, but he did play).

Last game of the season, the kid's team lost. Some kind of shouting match in the locker room afterward. At this point I should mention the coach was a cockflogger of long standing -- one of these HS coaches with a runaway Napoleon complex, always moaning about coverage, he'd get in snits and refuse to call in games, etc etc.

A few days later, I call the coach to talk over All-Area. He starts running down the list -- a couple guys all-conference, a couple honorable mention All-State. "Those guys probably ought to be on your team," he says (he was right -- probably his whole starting lineup could have been our all-area team).

I'm waiting for Shaheem Superstar.... nothing.

"What about Shaheem Superstar?" I ask.

"Ahhhhh, I'm not nominating him."

"Hmmmm. Want to tell me why?"

"No."

"He played in every game, did you kick him off the team?"

"No."

"Well, he's obviously the best player in our area, it'll look weird if he's not on the team."

"Not my problem. I choose not to nominate him."

"Well, we're probably going to put him on anyway."

"No you won't. You state right in the paper your team is based on coaches' nominations, and I choose not to nominate him." (He was right again, our SE wrote columns to precisely that effect.)

"Well I'm going to talk to the SE about this -- that makes us look ridiculous."

Our SE at the time was one of the good ole guys who has been buddies with all the area coaches since Jeebus was a baby, and he'd sooner drink flaming sterno before overruling a coach.

"You are aware, aren't you, how idiotic we will look without the best player in the state on our all-area team, aren't you?"

"Rules are rules."

He moved on a couple years later, and I became SE. Just about the first thing I did was ditch the coaches' nominations/voting for All-Area. They provide input and information; that's it. WE pick the team.

One coach did the voting for you guys?

No, he refused to nominate his consensus state player of the year for our all-area team.

Under the "we've always done it this way" policy of the SE at the time, if a coach didn't nominate his own player, he didn't get on.

 

[Tom Petty]

then why didn't you nominate the player?

 

[Starman]

Apparently you didn't keep up with the thread.

 

[BillyT]

To me, wrestling was always the easiest of off.

With a few exceptions, you started with New England champs, then State Open champs, then Class meeting champs, then league champs.

The best kids in each class usually wrestled each other several times, so you had a record.

Perfect? No/ Johnny Jumpup loses to Gorilla Monsoon three times, but in the New Englands, Gorilla gets upset by some kid from Rhode Island, and Johnny wins the title. (Of course, it's easier if he pins the little creep from Rhode Island.

 

[spnited]

Long ago, I worked at a paper which allowed coaches to nominate/elect its All-Area teams. One year, one of the players had the dead-bang best player in the state -- 30 ppg, 15 rpg, etc etc. ended up starting at a high D-I school and eventually playing in the NBA (not for long, but he did play).

Last game of the season, the kid's team lost. Some kind of shouting match in the locker room afterward. At this point I should mention the coach was a cockflogger of long standing -- one of these HS coaches with a runaway Napoleon complex, always moaning about coverage, he'd get in snits and refuse to call in games, etc etc.

A few days later, I call the coach to talk over All-Area. He starts running down the list -- a couple guys all-conference, a couple honorable mention All-State. "Those guys probably ought to be on your team," he says (he was right -- probably his whole starting lineup could have been our all-area team).

I'm waiting for Shaheem Superstar.... nothing.

"What about Shaheem Superstar?" I ask.

"Ahhhhh, I'm not nominating him."

"Hmmmm. Want to tell me why?"

"No."

"He played in every game, did you kick him off the team?"

"No."

"Well, he's obviously the best player in our area, it'll look weird if he's not on the team."

"Not my problem. I choose not to nominate him."

"Well, we're probably going to put him on anyway."

"No you won't. You state right in the paper your team is based on coaches' nominations, and I choose not to nominate him." (He was right again, our SE wrote columns to precisely that effect.)

"Well I'm going to talk to the SE about this -- that makes us look ridiculous."

Our SE at the time was one of the good ole guys who has been buddies with all the area coaches since Jeebus was a baby, and he'd sooner drink flaming sterno before overruling a coach.

"You are aware, aren't you, how idiotic we will look without the best player in the state on our all-area team, aren't you?"

"Rules are rules."

He moved on a couple years later, and I became SE. Just about the first thing I did was ditch the coaches' nominations/voting for All-Area. They provide input and information; that's it. WE pick the team.

One coach did the voting for you guys?

No, he refused to nominate his consensus state player of the year for our all-area team.

Under the "we've always done it this way" policy of the SE at the time, if a coach didn't nominate his own player, he didn't get on.

So your SE was an idiot and as a result your paper look stupid by leaving the best player off the all-area team.

 

[mike311gd]

Pretty much how I see it.

 

[Tom Petty]

Apparently you didn't keep up with the thread.

no. i just took a different approach than spnited.