For $40.....

[Baron Scicluna]

From the Dept. of Best Laid Plans:
When Don MacLean was a high school basketball star at Simi Valley High, he was going to make his college announcement in the gym during lunch. We were a PM paper, so I could get his news into print same day. I arrived at Simi early and scouted out the terrain -- I found where the pay phone was and how to get to it from the gym.

Lunch bell, kids started coming into the gym, MacLean made his announcement, I grabbed a quick quote and ran outside to the pay phone. Dammit. There were at least 10 girls waiting in line to use the phone. I told the first one in line that I had to make a very brief phone call and if she let me cut in, I would pay for all of their phone calls. She did. I handed her a bunch of quarters and went back to the gym for more comments.

That was a long, long, time ago …

(Come on, it was hanging right over the plate)

 

[ChrisLong]

That was a long, long, time ago …

(Come on, it was hanging right over the plate)

That's what Woody said.

 

[Huggy]

I'm not even in the business, I did all the website stuff for the junior hockey team I worked for and when I quit the sports editor of the local paper - who used to run my stuff all the time - gave me $75 a game to cover minor league hockey and basketball, high school baseball and hoops and the world junior fastpitch championship. All I did were gamers, no social media or photos, was easy beer money then. Would never do it all people are looking for here for $40.

 

[BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo]

Most high school press boxes are inadequate and most high school athletic directors haven't the first clue how to prioritize seating.

Yes but other than that, how was the setup, Mrs. Lincoln?

 

[BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo]

From the Dept. of Best Laid Plans:
When Don MacLean was a high school basketball star at Simi Valley High, he was going to make his college announcement in the gym during lunch. We were a PM paper, so I could get his news into print same day. I arrived at Simi early and scouted out the terrain -- I found where the pay phone was and how to get to it from the gym.

Lunch bell, kids started coming into the gym, MacLean made his announcement, I grabbed a quick quote and ran outside to the pay phone. Dammit. There were at least 10 girls waiting in line to use the phone. I told the first one in line that I had to make a very brief phone call and if she let me cut in, I would pay for all of their phone calls. She did. I handed her a bunch of quarters and went back to the gym for more comments.

This brings me back to talking to my girlfriend, a couple years younger than me, when she'd call from the pay phone at school on her lunch break my freshman year of junior college. I remember an exchange that went like this:

(muffled voice says hello to my girlfriend)
Girlfriend: "Hi coach."
(muffled voice)
Girlfriend: "I'm talking to BYH."
(muffled voice)
Girlfriend: "Coach XXX says hi."

He was my track coach and I was already covering him and his football team.

 

[dirtybird]

Most high school press boxes are inadequate and most high school athletic directors haven't the first clue how to prioritize seating.

Inadequate for what?

 

[Tarheel316]

Most high school press boxes are inadequate and most high school athletic directors haven't the first clue how to prioritize seating.

It has been my experience that many high school press boxes are de facto VIP suites.

 

[Tarheel316]

Ah, acoustic couplers and a TRS-80. Always loads of fun setting that up in a telephone booth to file a story.

Ah the Trash 80. Brings back memories.

 

[Typist Clerk]

Ah, acoustic couplers and a TRS-80. Always loads of fun setting that up in a telephone booth to file a story.

Lean the TRS-80 against the phone, punch in the credit card phone number, then the modem number back at the office, listen for the squeal, jam the handset into the couplers, then gently move the TRS-80 so you can hit the right keys and trigger the filing, all the while hoping a semi doesn't roar by or the couplers don't uncouple. Or in one case, that storm on the horizon doesn't get to you first. Then disconnect it all and call the office to see if they got it and if there's garble.

 

[Shropshire Slasher]

In the late 90's / early Aughts the paper I worked for had a remote something similar to couplers except you could dial in via a POTS line. It seemed to be every bit as persnickety. Once I lost a whole story and had to retype it from the host coach's house.

My next paper was more advanced and you could file from any place you had dial-up. We did have a long-distance credit card, but most places were local calls. It became more challenging when press boxes switched to digital systems and you had to find a fax line.

 

[rtse11]

Inadequate for what?

Seating for media.

 

[Typist Clerk]

In the late 90's / early Aughts the paper I worked for had a remote something similar to couplers except you could dial in via a POTS line. It seemed to be every bit as persnickety. Once I lost a whole story and had to retype it from the host coach's house.

My next paper was more advanced and you could file from any place you had dial-up. We did have a long-distance credit card, but most places were local calls. It became more challenging when press boxes switched to digital systems and you had to find a fax line.

There were so many permutations. On a TRS-80 you could set up the calling chain (CC number if long-distance, computer line number, commas [I think] for delay to allow the connection to work, plus an 8 or 9 at the front if necessary) to do it automatically if you were direct-connected on a phone. I had a bunch of options programmed in and it worked like a charm. But then the digital era came in and it was chaos again. Or connecting internationally. I found out our company CC number didn't work outside the U.S. when needing to file three stories on deadline from Canada. A stringer took dictation for close to an hour. E-mail changed everything for the better.

 

[OscarMadison]

Different perspective here. I lettered in band, which is silly no matter how you look at it. Whatever. Percussion got to sit down front and I had a great view without the byline. The boys covered sports for the high school fishwrap and in Nashville we were lucky to have a handful of seasoned pros who had an almost preternatural enthusiasm for varsity sports. We were spoiled. They worked for the papers and the affiliates (all three of them!) at the time.

By the time I got back here, it was whoever was learning from John Gannon and Rudy Kalis and then it came down to Rudy until he retired. Good coverage of varsity level sports is a thing of beauty in the right hands. I know for many it meant long hours for horrible pay just to get clips and a foot in the door. There are a lot of 30.00 on down to exposure and a seat in the press box kids covering events at all levels. It's a damned shame because the quality of coverage my classmates enjoyed may have been a function of people getting decent paychecks showing up at Antioch and White House and Dickson to let their viewers/readers see why we were cheering - whether it was for good ball or civic pride or a mix of both.

This geezer moment was provided by The Banner, The Tennessean, WTVF, WKRN, WSMV, and posters like you. Thank you.

 

[JimmyHoward33]

Seating for media.

some dont even have coaches booths. You get there an hour before to carve out a spot ahead of the radio guy and the cable tv guy and just get elbowed out by the visiting team’s Steve Sarkisian wanna be in his headset

 

[2muchcoffeeman]

Seating for media.

You’ll walk the sidelines like the rest of us and send your story from the tailgate of your pickup truck … like the rest of us.

 

[Small Town Guy]

I was definitely supposed to get more than $40 for my first stringing job nearly 30 years ago. Think $75. Worked at a daily while going to JUCO and covered a playoff football game. The paper that covered the other team called the office one night while I was in and asked if someone could string the game for them. Since I was already covering it I said sure.

Friday came, I covered the game, came back to the office, wrote the story for my paper and faxed it to the other paper. Few minutes later their sports editor called and asked where were the quotes from their team's coach? From their team's players? From the people they cared about? Well I didn't talk to them, I explained. The other team, the school in our area, won in a blowout, and I wrote the story and sent it as agreed. He was now quite upset, cursed, hung up.

I explained to my boss what an asshole this other editor was on the phone.

At the time I didn't have Google to look up what a stringer did. I didn't have the wise elders of SJ to explain it to me. I didn't realize I was expected to write a story from the perspective of the school the paper cared about. Whoops.

I actually did get a copy of their paper and they used a lot of my info. Alas, I didn't get my check. Didn't blame them.

 

[Brian J Walter]

I'm amazed at how much double-dipping goes on now, even between competing papers. Writer writers for Paper A, does 450-500 words, ships it, then rewrites Paper B, with a new lede, a few other changes and maybe a couple different quotes. That never would have flown back in the day.

Speaking of the day, I just (thankfully) missed out on the couplers era, but did get the joy of the TRS80, which at the time seemed very high-tech (there's one being used in the plane in a late scene in Midnight Run, which made it very legit to me). And then eventually I had to deal with searching for a Panera Bread, which were for a while the only places with free wireless. And you had to hope they still had the modem on.

 

[User 11148]

Once I lost a whole story and had to retype it from the host coach's house.

At the bottom of a pond just off the 18th green at PGA National in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla., there lies one of those "advanced" direct-connect thingamabobs that came after the acoustic couplers. It shorted out my TRS-80 as I was putting the finishing touches on a 30- or 40-inch monster* for a special Sunday PGA Championship spread. Watching that sonofabitch slip quietly beneath the surface ... after I'd rewritten and then dictated the piece to the desk ... remains one of the more pleasurable moments of my sportswriting career.


*And, yes, it was monstrous in more ways than its size.

 

[sgreenwell]

I'm amazed at how much double-dipping goes on now, even between competing papers. Writer writers for Paper A, does 450-500 words, ships it, then rewrites Paper B, with a new lede, a few other changes and maybe a couple different quotes. That never would have flown back in the day.

Speaking of the day, I just (thankfully) missed out on the couplers era, but did get the joy of the TRS80, which at the time seemed very high-tech (there's one being used in the plane in a late scene in Midnight Run, which made it very legit to me). And then eventually I had to deal with searching for a Panera Bread, which were for a while the only places with free wireless. And you had to hope they still had the modem on.

I kind of wonder how many of them are "true" competitors. Like in Rhode Island, I think there is one town that has multiple competing print outlets at this point, and even that place (Newport), it's five days a week vs. a weekly that doesn't really cover sports.

 

[Roscablo]

I'm amazed at how much double-dipping goes on now, even between competing papers. Writer writers for Paper A, does 450-500 words, ships it, then rewrites Paper B, with a new lede, a few other changes and maybe a couple different quotes. That never would have flown back in the day.

Speaking of the day, I just (thankfully) missed out on the couplers era, but did get the joy of the TRS80, which at the time seemed very high-tech (there's one being used in the plane in a late scene in Midnight Run, which made it very legit to me). And then eventually I had to deal with searching for a Panera Bread, which were for a while the only places with free wireless. And you had to hope they still had the modem on.

You may be surprised how much double-dipping has always gone on. I am mildly ashamed to admit when I first started I several times covered the same event for two different outlets. One difference may be that I was stringing or part-timing for each and not an official employee of either. One was local to where I was and the other was statewide. So one had a local angle and the other a wider scope.

I was also young and dumb, kind of similar to Small Town's experience, and sort of didn't know any better. After one game where I did this, a friend of mine who was and still amazingly enough in the biz, looked at both and said, what is the difference between these two? More or less implying, how do you get away with this? After that I think I probably changed the stories up more, but still double-dipped on occasion. That was like 25 years ago.

I wouldn't do it now, or at least would tell both I was, but it certainly happened. I couldn't have been the only one doing it!