Middle school sports

[Smallpotatoes]

We've gone over this a lot in the past, but I hope you don't mind if I bring it up again. The other day I received a call and an e-mail telling me about the middle school boys soccer team that finished an undefeated season for the first time in several years and that it would be worthy of coverage.
I informed them that if they sent a press release I'd try to publish it, but I can't cover the team or write a story about it myself. I have my hands full just covering all the high school varsity teams, especially now during state tournaments and with a Thanksgiving Day football tab to put out. Also, if I wrote about one middle school team, I'd have to write about all of them, plus all the JV and freshman high school teams.
I guess they could counter that it was a truly exceptional season, but:
1). It seems to me with middle school and subvarsity teams, everybody who cares about what they did already knows
2). While it may be an undefeated middle school soccer team today, next week it might be a JV tetherball team that breaks .500 for the first time in two years or a freshman coed horseshoes team that snapped a three-game losing streak. I'm pretty sure with just about every one of these teams, somebody could make a case for why their kid's team should be covered and once you say yes to one of them, it becomes more difficult to say no to somebody else.
In "exceptional cases" would you write about a JV, freshman or middle school team?

 

[outofplace]

You're better off keeping that door firmly closed, if for no other reason than every parent thinks the team their child is on is the "exceptional case," and good luck convincing them otherwise.

 

[pressboxer]

A lot would depend on factors such as circulation and size of/number of schools in your coverge area. I've been places where the publisher let it be known that all such teams would be covered, but there were few, if any, other school districts in the coverage area. I've also been places where the powers that be made it plain during the interview process that the sports section did not publish anything other than scores for any team below the high school varsity level.

 

[Tom Petty]

haven't had to deal with them in years, but parents of middle school athletes who believe their sons and daughters need to be written about should be forced to spend eternity working as fluffers.

 

[slappy4428]

A lot would depend on factors such as circulation and size of/number of schools in your coverge area. I've been places where the publisher let it be known that all such teams would be covered, but there were few, if any, other school districts in the coverage area. I've also been places where the powers that be made it plain during the interview process that the sports section did not publish anything other than scores for any team below the high school varsity level.

If your working at a 10K paper, yeah do a FEATURE after the season ends.
As your circulation works its way up the ladder past the 50 k mark , explain you have plenty of schools, we dont have space....

 

[Oscar Madison]

We used to cover middle school sports, then the makers of Tyenol PM and NightQuill called and offered us money to stop. As it turns out, middle school sports stories were putting everyone to bed and they were losing money.

 

[Appgrad05]

Back away from the phone and get back to work on the tab

 

[Cousin Jeffrey]

A note in your roundup is the maximum. Maybe you could get the starting goalie a little up-the-shirt action with some good pub.

 

[slappy4428]

A note in your roundup is the maximum. Maybe you could get the starting goalie a little up-the-shirt action with some good pub.

I disagree. Taters needs to tell us more about the size of the paper and the type of community first.
A weekly, bi-weekly , smaller daily or JRC paper can't/shouldn't be that quick to dismiss that type of community journalism. Bigger papers, yeah, it can disappear.

 

[shotglass]

Can of worms, can of worms, can of worms.

You give to one, 37 others are going to want the same thing.

 

[Rusty Shackleford]

What the hell is wrong with you people? An undefeated middle school soccer team deserves coverage -- hell, it deserves its own pullout section. Drop that Thanksgiving football craptacular you were working on. UNDEFEATED MIDDLE SCHOOL SOCCER!! Note the two exclamation points at the end of that to signify its importance. It's what the readers want, and after all, isn't that what we're here to provide?

 

[SoSueMe]

Example:

Two local soccer-playing lasses make an out-of-town university varsity team as walk-on freshmen. One of the two moms (the crazy self-serving one, of course) calls my extension. I get message. I delete message.

Fellow reporter gets message. He deletes message.

Sports editor gets message. He assigns story. Both reporters beg not to do story because of aforementioned "can of worms" (there are kids from town playing sports all over as walk-on, no-time-gettin' freshmen).

Anyway, we do story and I kid you not, 8:33 AM the day the issue came, I get message:
"You did a great job on the story about Sally and Sarah. But you know, my daughter walked on Podunk University's soccer team this year as a freshman and Podunk is a better team. I think that's worth a story."

Um, I don't.

 

[Tom Petty]

Example:

Two local soccer-playing lasses make an out-of-town university varsity team as walk-on freshmen. One of the two moms (the crazy self-serving one, of course) calls my extension. I get message. I delete message.

Fellow reporter gets message. He deletes message.

Sports editor gets message. He assigns story. Both reporters beg not to do story because of aforementioned "can of worms" (there are kids from town playing sports all over as walk-on, no-time-gettin' freshmen).

Anyway, we do story and I kid you not, 8:33 AM the day the issue came, I get message:
"You did a great job on the story about Sally and Sarah. But you know, my daughter walked on Podunk University's soccer team this year as a freshman and Podunk is a better team. I think that's worth a story."

Um, I don't.

your editor is an asshole.

 

[Starman]

We've gone over this a lot in the past, but I hope you don't mind if I bring it up again. The other day I received a call and an e-mail telling me about the middle school boys soccer team that finished an undefeated season for the first time in several years and that it would be worthy of coverage.
I informed them that if they sent a press release I'd try to publish it, but I can't cover the team or write a story about it myself. I have my hands full just covering all the high school varsity teams, especially now during state tournaments and with a Thanksgiving Day football tab to put out. Also, if I wrote about one middle school team, I'd have to write about all of them, plus all the JV and freshman high school teams.

There ya go. If they want to type up a little blurb and send you a photo, you can scan it in, type up a very tightly edited synopsis of the information, and run it on page 6D some day when you have a few inches to kill.

But you are never, ever, ever ever ever, going out and personally covering anything below high school varsity. As soon as the Thanksgiving Day football tab is on the streets, you gotta get to work on the preseason previews for boys' basketball.

Boys' varsity basketball, that is.

 

[slappy4428]

But you are never, ever, ever ever ever, going out and personally covering anything below high school varsity.

Unless you work for jrc...

 

[playthrough]

At my old shop we had a once-a-week page in the county section (this is a top-25 daily with daily regional editions) that was all community stuff: girl scouts making a fortune selling cookies, retirement home women knitting a six-mile quilt, etc. Middle school sports went there too. They could get a little write-up and have the team photo run as well. Little Johnny Kung Fu with his 200 trophies also got pub there.

That page, and the gal in the office who would cheerfully put it together AND let me forward all the parent phone calls to her, were pure bliss. It was darn near as good of a perk as paid vacation.

 

[bigpern23]

Example:

Two local soccer-playing lasses make an out-of-town university varsity team as walk-on freshmen. One of the two moms (the crazy self-serving one, of course) calls my extension. I get message. I delete message.

Fellow reporter gets message. He deletes message.

Sports editor gets message. He assigns story. Both reporters beg not to do story because of aforementioned "can of worms" (there are kids from town playing sports all over as walk-on, no-time-gettin' freshmen).

Anyway, we do story and I kid you not, 8:33 AM the day the issue came, I get message:
"You did a great job on the story about Sally and Sarah. But you know, my daughter walked on Podunk University's soccer team this year as a freshman and Podunk is a better team. I think that's worth a story."

Um, I don't.

Someone makes a fortune on a movie about a walk-on football player at Notre Dame and suddenly every mom whose kid walks on at D-III Muhlenberg or some other such athletic abyss thinks their kid's story is just as great.

Sorry, mom. Kids walk on at universities all over the country. After all, the scholarship players need somebody to abuse in practice. Call me when that walk-on earns a scholarship, or contributes in some meaningful way to the team other than "The practice squad really helped us prepare for the Crappy U. this week."

 

[turnovers]

No middle school sports would be nice ...

Unless you can't help it. Unless you were hired out of college at a 250,000 circ for pretty good money covering youth sports exclusively. Unless you took said job as a foot in the door at a major daily, to get quality editing, and to avoid working at the Podunk Banner-Democrat. ...

How odd is that? That's me.

I just think what Florida Today does with Little Leagues should be the norm for that kind of stuff. Parents can post all their scores and photos and show them off to their friends until kingdom come.

 

[shotglass]

No middle school sports would be nice ...

Unless you can't help it. Unless you were hired out of college at a 250,000 circ for pretty good money covering youth sports exclusively. Unless you took said job as a foot in the door at a major daily, to get quality editing, and to avoid working at the Podunk Banner-Democrat. ...

How odd is that? That's me.

I just think what Florida Today does with Little Leagues should be the norm for that kind of stuff. Parents can post all their scores and photos and show them off to their friends until kingdom come.

Well put.

 

[lone star scribe]

No middle school sports? Sure, but remember, there are no absolutes (including that one). Just don't close your mind to a good story, no matter where it is. Back in the day, I had a middle school coach wearing me out about doing a story on his point guard. "Best point guard in the county!" he gushed. Now, the county HS was a district champion, had several players left over from a state championship team, and a few would play on the (small) college level. But I gave in, mostly to get him off my back.

The kid was amazing. 12 or 13 years old, only about 5-7 or so, and just amazing. So I went to a couple games, wrote a takeout feature, everybody was happy. The kid played D-I in a major conf and had a solid NBA career. I'd out myself if I mentioned the team or school involved, but suffice to say, the kid was a great source as I moved through the college and NBA writing ranks. And he would tell his teammates how I "discovered" him and was the first to write about him. Gotta love gratitude.