Prep calls

[NobodyLovesRaymond]

Is anybody at a place that has eliminated taking phone calls for compiling prep roundups and only accepts emails or faxes? I remember seeing this topic on here about five or six years ago and was wondering what people thought about it now.

 

[BDC99]

My shop is only taking scores by phone now. All the clerks are gone, so the desk doesn't have time to take full boxes anymore. Emails or faxes is a bad idea, unless you have a very good set of coaches/scorekeepers, which is not all that likely.

 

[ChipSouza]

We are getting texts from coaches now. Coaches can text game highlights or snap a pic of their scorebook and send that in. It's been working pretty well for us. Of course, when a team loses, the coach tends to forget to text. I have all my coaches on group text, so I send out a reminder text late in the afternoon.

 

[JimmyHoward33]

We're a mix, some email, some call. Having some email has definitely made the load seem lighter and easier even though its the same volume. I do think you lose some detail and future note gathering ability not getting coaches on the phone.

 

[Bradley Guire]

We get a lot of email. At first, I thought it was great. Then I realized that I still need to call to ask how a one-point game was decided. Buzzer beater? Who made the last shot? How did it happen? And so on and so forth.

Plus, it makes the process more impersonal. I can make a connection with a person via phone conversation, then when I meet that person for the first time (and that applies a lot to me as I'm still relatively new to my area) it feels like I know them a bit.

 

[Tarheel316]

We get a mix of calls and emails and a few texts. I prefer emails but I'm never going to tell someone they can't call. We don't do boxes anymore except for football.

 

[HackyMcHack]

We still do boxes for everything, even though we don't have any part-time help anymore, our full-time staff has been cut in half, and we still lay out our own section. We experimented with having people email photos of basketball scorebooks in, but we got too many photos that were too small and/or out of focus.

The one cutback we made: Last names only on basketball boxes. Saved us a LOT of time, especially since we're in an area where the last names are simple and the first names are complex. If we need to follow up with first names for a notebook a day or two later, we either hit up MaxPreps or call the coach.

 

[Tarheel316]

We still do boxes for everything, even though we don't have any part-time help anymore, our full-time staff has been cut in half, and we still lay out our own section. We experimented with having people email photos of basketball scorebooks in, but we got too many photos that were too small and/or out of focus.

The one cutback we made: Last names only on basketball boxes. Saved us a LOT of time, especially since we're in an area where the last names are simple and the first names are complex. If we need to follow up with first names for a notebook a day or two later, we either hit up MaxPreps or call the coach.

I wish I could get all our coaches to keep their MaxPreps pages up to date.

 

[MNgremlin]

We're about 50/50 with phone calls and emails, depending on the night. Some nights we'll get one phone call, some nights we'll get five or six (and half of those always seem to come within about a five minute span). We don't run box scores in print, but we do throw them online.

I prefer e-mails for getting the brief typed up the fastest, but when it comes to typing the box scores, I can do it faster after a phone call because I don't have to weed through all the unnecessary categories that the stat program likes to add and don't have to re-find my place on the page so often.

I've done the last names only thing too. Only problem is when you have siblings on the team, which in our area is a majority of the schools, be sure to include the first initial as well to avoid the angry phone calls/emails.

 

[HackyMcHack]

We can't get most of our coaches to put stats on MaxPreps. But the state insists (not quite mandate) scores and rosters be posted there, and most teams comply to at least that level.

 

[joe_schmoe]

We too get a mix. I prefer the calls myself, but a lot of times we get all we need via email. We do find a lot more coaches that never liked to call us do email on a consistent basis. One reason is some of the automated score systems, all they have to do is add email addresses to their program and the box is sent automatically after each game (also prevents many of the only call after a win coaches from stiffing us). And on road trips, sometimes the email is a lot easier to handle than this:
"Jones with fhjeteen"
"I'm sorry coach how many for Jones?"
"Fhehehdbnd with 10."
"Wait coach"
"Fheebd fhf <silence>"
"Coach you there?"
<silence>
"and Black with 1."
"Coach, last thing I got was Jones, but I didn't get how many.""
"Oh sorry. Jones had <silence>"
Call dropped.

 

[Tarheel316]

We too get a mix. I prefer the calls myself, but a lot of times we get all we need via email. We do find a lot more coaches that never liked to call us do email on a consistent basis. One reason is some of the automated score systems, all they have to do is add email addresses to their program and the box is sent automatically after each game (also prevents many of the only call after a win coaches from stiffing us). And on road trips, sometimes the email is a lot easier to handle than this:
"Jones with fhjeteen"
"I'm sorry coach how many for Jones?"
"Fhehehdbnd with 10."
"Wait coach"
"Fheebd fhf <silence>"
"Coach you there?"
<silence>
"and Black with 1."
"Coach, last thing I got was Jones, but I didn't get how many.""
"Oh sorry. Jones had <silence>"
Call dropped.

That's why I prefer email. Sometimes we get people who don't speak clearly or there's a bad connection. Plus a phone call can take several minutes when every minute counts. I had a wrestling coach who could call with full results - varsity and JV, total of 28 names for his matches. I finally convinced him to start emailing.

 

[Batman]

We are getting texts from coaches now. Coaches can text game highlights or snap a pic of their scorebook and send that in. It's been working pretty well for us. Of course, when a team loses, the coach tends to forget to text. I have all my coaches on group text, so I send out a reminder text late in the afternoon.

This what we do. A few still call, and some have parents that e-mail the scorebook picture, but I'll send out the mass text on game day and it's worked much better than anything we've ever done. It's easy, the response rate has been a lot better (really the most important thing), I can engage them a little bit if some more detail is needed, and if it's the head coach texting in I can even snag a quote or two.
The text-in has been a godsend.

 

[Madison Sports]

Take a look at JotForm · Form Builder We used it this year for coach preview questionnaires, and will add forms for live results starting next school year. It's free for limited use, or $10 a month for plenty of usage. They also have a sale around New Year's -- $45 for the year.

Here's a prototype basketball box form. Hopefully next year it will automatically insert the rosters when teams are chosen.
Form

Here's the season preview form for boys basketball. It was well received.
Form

Note that the forms allow coaches to cut-and-paste from a word document or upload a file (PDF, photo, whatever).

 

[Kolchak]

We have a few coaches who like to fax or photograph their illegible game books. I'm sure that's fun for the prep department.

 

[Bud_Bundy]

We have coaches and scorekeepers who send in photos of scorebooks, which is fine if they can be read. We had a coach complain one morning that his team's box score wasn't in the paper, so we sent him the blurry photos that we received the night before from his scorekeeper. Cured that quickly. We have another guy, from a tiny private school, who knows our style for box scores and always e-mails his team's box in using our style.

 

[Tarheel316]

We have one school who has a guy keeping stats and a spotter. They produce a college-style full box score for every game. Doesn't get any better than that.

 

[Sports Guy]

Having a coach email a box score and some quotes has worked well.

 

[HanSenSE]

Boys team from our two smallest schools call things in, still. Everyone else (well, the ones that do turn in results) emails in a box or uploads stat sheets from Iscore or a similar program.

 

[SFIND]

We get a mix. I much prefer email. It's quicker. Too many coaches/scorekeepers want to rehash all aspects of the game when they call in. For 90 percent of the games (games where it doesn't go down to the wire), that's not necessary. Email keeps everyone on point.