How would you handle this?

[SixToe]

If you told the kids you worked at the paper and to stop or you wouldn't cover them, they'd tell you to **** off.

If you put their names in your story, or what they were doing, then you'd look like the previously noted douchebag.

I guess you weren't kidding. Blue font meter not needed.

 

[Baron Scicluna]

If you told the kids you worked at the paper and to stop or you wouldn't cover them, they'd tell you to **** off.

If you put their names in your story, or what they were doing, then you'd look like the previously noted douchebag.

I guess you weren't kidding. Blue font meter not needed.

For sunflower seeds, yeah, it'd be douchey. For ****ty behavior, nope.

Years ago, I covered a basketball game in which the local student section was getting really out of hand with taunting the opposition. Visiting coach complained, and the home school's superintendent went over to tell the kids to cool it.

Instead of shutting up, the kids start yelling back at the super. And the parents, sitting in a different section, instead of telling their own kids to shut up, also start yelling at the super.

Meanwhile, I, camera in hand, trying to be unobtrusive, walk over and take a couple of pics of the super telling off the kids, and eventually ejecting them.

AFter the game, a couple of angry parents came to me and asked if the pics were going to run. I was non-committal because I didn't know if they came out (pre-digital era), and I told them I'd discuss it with my bosses. They got pissed, and I told them that the kids' behavior was more newsworthy than the game.

Pics came out OK, but the bosses decided not to run them. The crowd behavior was the main focus of the story, although I did devote roughly half of it to the actual game. No names were put in, but it seemed like everyone got the message. They cooled down for the rest of the season.

 

[writingump]

Seems like there's a general lack of civility these days, not just in this example, but in others I've seen. Like some old guy laughing when an umpire got smoked with a pitch in the collarbone, or students taunting a softball player while she was writhing in pain with a leg injury which forced her to be carried off the field, or a coach no-commenting a writer only to show up on the 11 o'clock news that night after his team's district tournament final. Nice example others are setting for the rest of us, huh?

 

[WolvEagle]

1. Ask the kids to stop.

2. If they don't, move.

3. Then quietly talk to the AD or their coach about it. Don't publicly make a big deal of it. We're the storytellers, not the story.

A few years back, I was covering a prep girls' basketball game between a team from our coverage area and a league rival from just outside of our coverage area. Both teams were pretty good, and it was in our local team's gym.

After the game, I waited to talk to the visiting coach. As the girls were leaving the locker room, I went in and talked to him. He proceeded to change his pants. He was around the corner from the girls who still were in the locker room (one of whom was his daughter), but still ... (FYI - the girls didn't change their clothes in the locker room - they simply put their sweats and letter jackets on over their uniforms.)

I mentioned it to the home team coach in a phone conversation after the next game. I didn't put anything about it in the paper.

Well, the next time I saw Mr. Droopy-drawers, boy was he pissed. He accused me of telling a bunch of people. No, I didn't. I told the home-team coach - no one else. I could have said something after the game in question to the home-team coach, who was in the gym with several other people around. I did not.

Handling the issue quietly, and not making myself part of the story, was the best way to go.

 

[reformedhack]

I'd remind the sophomores of who I was, and tell them that if they wanted me to cover any of their games when they move up to varsity to cut it out.

And if that wouldn't work, then I'd tell them that what they were doing would make for a good note at the end of the game you were covering. With names.

And yeah, I'd let the AD know as well.

Dear god, don't do this.

Playing the "don't you know who I am" card NEVER works out. Ever. Ever. Ever.

Beat me to the exact words.

 

[HanSenSE]

I'd remind the sophomores of who I was, and tell them that if they wanted me to cover any of their games when they move up to varsity to cut it out.

And if that wouldn't work, then I'd tell them that what they were doing would make for a good note at the end of the game you were covering. With names.

And yeah, I'd let the AD know as well.

Dear god, don't do this.

Playing the "don't you know who I am" card NEVER works out. Ever. Ever. Ever.

Beat me to the exact words.

And just remember, the last laugh is ours when none of them get scholarships.

 

[rpmmutant]

What did the reporter do to draw the ire of high school sophomores? Sophomores don't need a reason to act sophomoric, but I assume the reporter was asking for it one way or another.

 

[jr/shotglass]

Calmly tell them they brought sunflower seeds to a chaw fight. Proceed as necessary.

Just took a drink as I read this. I now need paper towels to wipe off my monitor.

The way my old SE used to put it: "I've got the cannon, and you've got the peashooter."

 

[That 1 Guy]

What did the reporter do to draw the ire of high school sophomores? Sophomores don't need a reason to act sophomoric, but I assume the reporter was asking for it one way or another.

What did the reporter do to draw the ire of high school sophomores? Sophomores don't need a reason to act sophomoric, but I assume the reporter was asking for it one way or another.

In the interest of full disclosure, I was the reporter in question. I was doing nothing but taking notes on the game and keeping my book. I said nothing to no one.

 

[HanSenSE]

What did the reporter do to draw the ire of high school sophomores? Sophomores don't need a reason to act sophomoric, but I assume the reporter was asking for it one way or another.

What did the reporter do to draw the ire of high school sophomores? Sophomores don't need a reason to act sophomoric, but I assume the reporter was asking for it one way or another.

In the interest of full disclosure, I was the reporter in question. I was doing nothing but taking notes on the game and keeping my book. I said nothing to no one.

Questioner nailed it ... sophomores being sophomores.

 

[jr/shotglass]

Incidentally ... if you were an adult taking notes at a high school baseball game, why would those sophomores NOT already figure out that you were a sportswriter?

 

[That 1 Guy]

Incidentally ... if you were an adult taking notes at a high school baseball game, why would those sophomores NOT already figure out that you were a sportswriter?

No idea. Didn't care or ignorance? They may very well have known who I was. I hadn't covered these specific kids before, though just a week prior I had covered their soccer team win a state championship.

 

[Double J]

Execute them. [/zag]

For the win.

 

[Ace]

That 1 guy, sounds like you guys handled it just right.

I would like to think I would have done the same thing. If I knew some of the kids or their parents, I would have spoken to them.

If they really made me mad, I might have done something I probably would have regretted.

I cannot stand teens who act like jerks and bullies.

If I see kids acting like that or picking on other kids in my neighborhood when I am out walking the dog, I will stand there until they get uncomfortable and follow them until they leave the neighborhood or go home.

 

[brandonsneed]

Just find someone responsible for them—the A.D., their coach, maybe a parent or two, whoever—and ask nicely if they could get the kids to cut it out.

Or come armed with a Super Soaker and show them what's up.

 

[Johnny Dangerously]

The original poster missed a golden opportunity to shoot video, tweet, do a podcast and post a photo gallery of the sophomores spitting the sunflower seeds (and maybe send out a link to see if Bleacher Report would like to rank the top 10) -- and involve all of his paper's social media in the project, including a poll asking people how they would have handled it.

Epic fail.

 

[txsportsscribe]

pay a junior to beat the **** out of them

 

[Batman]

Years ago we hired a new photographer. Young guy, just out of college.
His first week he was following our photo editor around to get the lay of the land. They show up at a basketball game I was covering, and at some point in the first half some kids in the crowd start getting rowdy. The refs stop the game, the AD walks over to warn the kids, they keep it up and the AD calls security to escort them out.
Our gung-ho young photographer decides this would be a fine time to practice taking perp walk pictures. He stands on the first row of bleachers and starts snapping pictures of the guys. Then he takes a few steps back and keeps shooting. He shoots until they're all the way out of the gym.
The photo editor is horrified. But she still needs to get some game photos, so she says "Sure. Whatever," when dip**** asks if he can go outside to see what happens next.
What happens next is this moron starts snapping MORE pictures of the ejected guys as they're milling around in the parking lot. When they tell him to stop, and get ready to kcik his ass, he starts yelling, "Press! Press! I'm with the press!" as if that's going to create some magic force field around him.
Thankfully, one of the security guards saw what was about to happen and shooed away the hoodlums before he had a stain to mop off the sidewalk.
The next day the AD called me asking who the photog was (I had no idea; the guy was such a newcomer I had never seen him before and assumed he was with the school paper or something) and saying how unprofessional his actions were. I transferred him to the photo editor, who assured him it had already been dealt with by firing his ass the same night.

So, I guess the moral of the story is, don't be a colossal douche. Don't bluster and threaten, through words or actions, to "put this in the paper!"
Things like this are often much easier dealt with in a subtle way.
In the OP's story, tell the AD or the coach. If either is worth their salt the kids will get the message while they're running 100 foul poles and a few dozen Ws after a three-hour practice the next day.

 

[Boom_70]

What kind of world do we live in when you have to second guess any response to one of the most vile things someone could do to you.

 

[outofplace]

What kind of world do we live in when you have to second guess any response to one of the most vile things someone could do to you.

The real one, which isn't nearly as nice as we would like it to be.