E-mailing results

[Corky Ramirez up on 94th St.]

We have been told from above that starting in the winter season, we only will be accepting high school results in e-mail format. No more phone calls or faxes. If they don't e-mail, we are not to take their results nor will we print them. The rationale is that if they follow a template that we give them ahead of time, it will save them and us time.

I was just curious if anyone else on here, does this, and if so, what is the success rate? Although we do get some coaches who do e-mail in results, we think this will be a colossal failure to think that we can get 100 percent. "Everyone has a smartphone" is the line we get when we asked how they would do this from the road. Never mind that we cover 32 high schools.

Thanks for your input.

 

[HanSenSE]

Seems like we've been getting more mail than calls this fall, wonder how it'll go in the winter. With all the technology grants out there, they not only have smartphones, but iPads and similar toys as well.

We're about a 10K daily that covers eight schools. Finding it quite easy to copy and paste the body of the mail into a NewsEdit file. I also encourage coaches to use the notification service on Maxpreps if they're updating stats right after a game.

I also like it that I can blame the coaches if the names are spelled wrong .

 

[sgreenwell]

I wouldn't mind getting all e-mails vs. calls, but it does seem like a bit of a hardline stance to take. When getting game reports, I didn't really care which way I got them, as long as they were on time.

 

[Stitch]

If anyone thinks you'll get emails in a timely manner, you'll get a condescending laugh from me.

 

[Batman]

If anyone thinks you'll get emails in a timely manner, you'll get a condescending laugh from me.

Bingo. For every coach that's on the ball, this just gives another an out to use the old "we got back late" excuse.
Plus, what do you do if it's a big game that you need to write more than a box score off of? Or if you're on a deadline crunch? I've had plenty of coaches who don't add up their stats right after the game, but you can usually drag enough information out of them in a three-minute phone call to write a 4-inch brief.
This just sounds like a bad, bad idea.

 

[Football_Bat]

In volleyball we got more e-mails than calls. But in basketball the ratio is flipped, and the phone rings off the hook. Sometimes everyone's on a phone at once and we can't get to any new calls. So I'd be in favor of something like this.

 

[BillyT]

I just cannot imagine this.

They are making it harder for people to get their news into the paper.

Road games are going to be nearly impossible.

 

[reformedhack]

I'll add to the pile. This is a bad idea, unless your paper's position is that you don't really care too much about preps.

Rock-solid fact: Some coaches will submit incomplete or inaccurate results. At least with a call-in, you can ask questions to get the missing information you need.

Before the season starts, you need to make sure the coaches know what they're expected to submit. Give them a format to follow. This won't be a perfect solution, but it's a good start. Also, make sure you have their cellphone numbers, because you're likely to be doing a lot of follow-up calls on deadline.

E-mail is both a boon and a bane for the exchange of information. Particularly when it's information from people who don't submit information for a living.

 

[Gator]

We have four high schools that we cover, and we do accept JV results (which we liked emailed). But for varsity, we prefer calls only because we can get 8-10 inches for a brief with a phone call. As our news editor calls it, they're like "little stories."

And you might get a coach who simply forgets to email the fact that he lost his leading scorer to an injury in the first quarter. Getting all results via email will work, but it won't be very good.

 

[SoCalDude]

We still maintain a significant phone crew, but we require emails for some sports, such as tennis. I've heard a phone guy tell a coach on the phone, sorry, we only accept tennis results by email. I think by about midseason most of the coaches complied.
We've had schools take a photo of the scorebook or scoresheet and email that, which defeats the purpose of being able to C&P the results. We've also gotten PDFs of scoresheets. Sometimes it's easier to just take the call.

 

[Corky Ramirez up on 94th St.]

What is frustrating is that you spend all this time building relationships with coaches and schools, and now you're going to tell them my way or the highway? In theory, this could work great. I could understand sending this out and if you get 75 percent of them to adopt to the new style, great. But it's just that, theory. To expect every single one of them — including the coaches who have been there for 30 years and would prefer a slide rule to a calculator in the classroom — to e-mail in results, and then say we won't print your results if you don't, is asinine. I expect this to blow up in our face.

 

[NickMordo]

It's the future, though. Many coaches' assistants already keep stats on iPads and the like, so what is that difficult about e-mailing over results? It's not the end of the world, although it does eliminate the need for stringers over time (unless they just compile the results and write wraps).

 

[rpmmutant]

Everyone has a cell phone. Not everyone has a laptop with WiFi. Heck, I don't know of any high school with a wireless internet network. Good luck with that.

 

[Stitch]

It's the future, though. Many coaches' assistants already keep stats on iPads and the like, so what is that difficult about e-mailing over results? It's not the end of the world, although it does eliminate the need for stringers over time (unless they just compile the results and write wraps).

Have you been to North Dakota? Getting cell phone service or Internet access can be tough.

 

[ColdCat]

I'd rather have a phone call for basketball and football and an email for non-revenue sports.
If there's some wrestling meet, a phone call is going to take a while while I type in the names of all the winners in a dozen different weight classes. Just email that, then I cut and paste into agate.
The biggest problem I have is with my swim coaches though who fax their results. They all have computerized systems. They are all online thanks to the big ethernet cable they all have in the coaches office. Yet they still print the results off, walk over the the fax machine, fax them, then expect me to spend 45 minutes typing it all up.

 

[sgreenwell]

I'd rather have a phone call for basketball and football and an email for non-revenue sports.
If there's some wrestling meet, a phone call is going to take a while while I type in the names of all the winners in a dozen different weight classes. Just email that, then I cut and paste into agate.
The biggest problem I have is with my swim coaches though who fax their results. They all have computerized systems. They are all online thanks to the big ethernet cable they all have in the coaches office. Yet they still print the results off, walk over the the fax machine, fax them, then expect me to spend 45 minutes typing it all up.

The fax thing is just weird at this point - At my last place, the two CT tennis teams we covered faxed the results in. I think someone said that the state association required that vs. e-mail, but maybe that was just conjecture.

 

[flexmaster33]

We still take both, but I note that email is preferred for "call-in" results. It's a time saver on our end, and you don't have as many worries with misspelled names and such. I've noticed more and more stat guys losing the traditional stat books and using tablets or some such device, so it's probably easier on their end, too in most cases. I had three volleyball teams this fall where I would interview the coach afterward and they'd grab the tablet and start searching through for stat leaders, before turning to me and say "Why don't I just email you the full stat sheet?" Click a few buttons and I have complete stats in the inbox before I can get out the gym door.

 

[apeman33]

E-mail? I still have coaches who prefer to fax. The majority do use e-mail, but it's not that much of a majority. I just did an estimate and I'd say that 40 percent send e-mails, 25 percent still fax and the remaining 35 percent don't do a damn thing. If I told them all "You will do X or I won't put in your results," the percentage of those who don't do what I want (say the faxers if I demand e-mails) will become an additional percentage of those who don't do anything rather than switch over.

Basically, send it however you want to. I'll deal with it. Just send it on time. Don't send me results from a Friday football game on Tuesday afternoon and expect anything to get in.

 

[JimmyHoward33]

I have a few coaches that email. It's OK but I wouldnt want 100% One soccer guy had his team manager do it and every game was 0-0 tie, no cards were handed out today. Very helpful.

Two thoughts: 1) I like getting things on the phone. You can ask questions, develop a relationship and plant bugs or cultivate feature ideas.

2) So you have some old school coach that's used to calling in, and he/she still calls in. You're going to refuse to print that because its not in email format? Wait what? That's where you're going to run into problems, IMHO.

 

[flexmaster33]

Five or six years ago, I would say the phone tree held some value in building some relationship with coaches, but I'm in the office so little any more I'm usually just checking messages and doing callbacks if needed.

I find most of my interaction has moved to email exchanges and in-person at games/practices. The other advantage I'm finding is that many teachers check their messages often during the day, so I'm able to get a quicker return than I experienced with games of phone tag. If I see an unexpected result or something I'd like to get more on, I'll fire off a quick email saying "call me when you get a break in your day, and we'll talk about your game last night"