JV coverage

[HoosierLoser]

To me this is a no-brainer but I'm not high enough on the food chain to make these kind of decisions.

Parent e-mailed upper management -- not anyone in the sports department -- about a lack of coverage of JV sports in the paper. Our editor of course believes we should at least get in JV standings for football somewhere in the sports section.

My response was if we have JV football standings, then we open ourselves for JV standings for every other sport across the board. Then, why not Junior High sports after that. "Phone book" journalism is bull****.

Please, keep in mind the paper is 63K daily, 68K on Sundays. We shouldn't be classified as Podunkville but at times, I feel like our superiors take the "hometown approach" was too literally.

Are there any papers of this circulation that run JV standings, scores in agate form? Hell, are there any sports sections that run JV scores, standings? And if you do, what's your circulation?

We didn't run JV standings/scores in another of the newspapers I've worked at previously but maybe that's the reason for the downfall of newspapers because our editor said "this is just another great community read."

 

[Chi City 81]

Congratulations. You're about to open Pandora's box. Good luck.

 

[wickedwritah]

A lot of papers collect the JV score when you're already there for a varsity basketball game.

Let them call it in and run it on the agate page as a linescore. That's it. Doing more opens yourself up to more of a headache than it's worth.

 

[0-fer]

We're tiny. 10k circ. Run JV results if we get them, no sweat if we don't. We throw them in the agate. And no standings.
Obviously, a much much smaller paper. At 63K, I'm guessing you've got quite a few high schools with quite a few JV teams. Echo Doc. Pandora's box. Good Luck.

 

[playthrough]

At the paper I worked for that was 5x your size, we published the JV score as an agate one-liner at the bottom of the box of the varsity game, if a staffer happened to get to that game or someone called it in. Otherwise we'd never go out of the way to get JV scores, and we would never do %&!@*! standings. Sheesh, at the JV level I'd bet money that at least half the kids and a handful of the coaches don't even know where they are in the standings.

But ah, parents. And parents that go above the sports dept to upper management...they're evil, cunning, and far too often effective.

 

[TwoGloves]

Next up: Freshman scores.

 

[MGoBlue]

A JV score, if you get it. That's it. No more, but don't sweat less.

 

[wickedwritah]

Next up: Freshman scores.

If they call it in, sure. I don't have a problem with a line score on an agate page.

But beyond that? No.

 

[sweetbreads bailey]

We're a non-daily with six schools to cover, and we run JV stuff as briefs or agate if folks are willing to calling it in ...

It doesn't hurt if you can get someone to get you the information - more names and points of entry for your paper. One of my parents is the stat guru for both JV and varsity football (and other sports) and sends a few graphs each week on the JV game for us (she's a good one with the stat book by the way - very detail oriented). That way, we get to put a few names in the paper (the guy who ran the kickoff back 90 yards or rushed for 150, etc.). If someone went to the trouble of compiling JV standings I'd probably run them if I had room. Again, I let the parents and coaches initiate because it can't hurt to include some extra names in the paper. If no one calls, then I don't sweat it ...

I might take a JV picture or do a brief/long cutline if, say, a JV team finishes undefeated or something. Again keep in mind we're small town with only a handful of schools...

 

[Bud_Bundy]

A lot of papers collect the JV score when you're already there for a varsity basketball game.

Let them call it in and run it on the agate page as a linescore. That's it. Doing more opens yourself up to more of a headache than it's worth.

100K: We'll run an agate line with the score at the end of linescores, when coaches call them in. All JV football games are played on different days than the varsity and we never get those scores. We did put a JV message forum on our prep website and it gets a half-dozen posts a week.

 

[Walter_Sobchak]

I'm in charge of two weeklies. I don't run JV, period. Maybe if a team goes undefeated or something like that, they'll get a standalone at the end of the season, but ONLY IF I don't have anything else to run that week that takes precedence.

Incidentally, I got a call from someone who would only identify herself as a "concerned parent" leave a voicemail for me asking me why freshman and JV sports don't get covered. Obviously, her exact words were "they work just as hard as the varsity." I laughed. I only wish the dumb ***** had left a contact number so I could tell her just how stupid she is.

 

[wickedwritah]

I'm in charge of two weeklies. I don't run JV, period. Maybe if a team goes undefeated or something like that, they'll get a standalone at the end of the season, but ONLY IF I don't have anything else to run that week that takes precedence.

Incidentally, I got a call from someone who would only identify herself as a "concerned parent" leave a voicemail for me asking me why freshman and JV sports don't get covered. Obviously, her exact words were "they work just as hard as the varsity." I laughed. I only wish the dumb ***** had left a contact number so I could tell her just how stupid she is.

Gotta love those anonymous voice mails.

"So, ma'am, what's your name?"

"I'm a concerned ... [you wait for five seconds] ... fan."

 

[Bob Loblaw Law Blog]

Jesus man, don't do it. It really is Pandora's box. The minute you run something more than an agate line somewhere you've set a precedent that other JV parents will try to take advantage of.

I once made the mistake of running a standalone photo of an undefeated JV football team with an extended cutline. The next thing I knew, I was getting calls from JV soccer, basketball, baseball, etc. Freshman teams, youth teams, you name it. It was ****ing miserable.

 

[Rockbottom]

Hell MF'ing no. I have been successful to date arguing against the words "junior varsity" appearing in my sports section. Fingers crossed. The closest we get is our weekly community sports page, which runs submitted team photos of little leaguers and stuff like that.

rb

 

[wickedwritah]

What is wrong with putting the score on the agate page?

Before y'all go complaining, it's done at a lot of papers, large and small.

45K I worked for made us get JV scores to include with varsity basketball boxes.

 

[Stone Cane]

i once covered a HS basketball game, got their early, JV kid scored like 61

i got a quote, some stats, was going to file a 6-8-inch bar

my SE wouldn't run it, said opening a can of worms.

i think he was wrong but i get where he was coming from

 

[Songbird]

At my last stop I got bored with varsity games so I started to cover JV, Freshman field hockey, Reserve, hell, 7th-grade soccer games, just to make things interesting. Covered a "Town Team" hoops league a bit.

You don't necessarily open a can of worms. Even with all the gamers, no one called in demanding to do more when I verved back to varsity.

 

[TwoGloves]

In basketball, we run the JV score under the box score. But that's all we do. And that's all we should do. You have to draw the line somewhere.

 

[HejiraHenry]

35K here. We do not routinely do anything with JV. I've got enough trouble trying to get the varsity teams to call in.

But if a kid dropped 61, or if a team goes undefeated, that's worth a little sumthin'.

 

[Songbird]

Hejira, that's one of the reasons I started covering sub-varsity stuff: varsity coaches wouldn't call it; they'd call the daily and report scores then not call me. So I decided to cover teams who wouldn't take coverage for granted. A few more varsity coaches started calling in when I didn't cover their teams for 3 weeks.