Preps coach's DUI sentencing: sports or cityside?

[pseudo]

Last fall, a local high school football coach was pulled over on a traffic stop in the wee hours of the a.m., then arrested after he blew twice the legal limit on a breathalyzer test. Second offense in three years. The local daily ran the first arrest and conviction/sentencing in news, with the rest of the court notes. This time, the SE chose to write about it. The story on the arrest ran last October; the coach resigned a few days later. His sentencing ran in sports today instead of in the usual report on page 3.

The paper took some heat over it last fall, but I was in total agreement with their decision to run the arrest in the sports section -- the team was in the middle of its season, and two DUIs don't exactly speak well of the coach's ability to function as a role model for his players. However, I'm not so sure about giving another (estimated) eight inches to the sentencing. Was it still newsworthy enough to break it out of the normal court notes? Corollary: once the SE wrote about the arrest (and followed with a column explaining his decision), was he compelled to also cover the sentencing?

 

[slappy4428]

Public figure --- deserves greater play, be that news or sports.
And yes, you follow it to completion. What if he was innocent or received a suspended sentence

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

I don't think there's a blanket answer; it would depend on the town and its level of obsession with high school football. Also, now that he's no longer the coach, it would depend on how long he was the coach. Big difference between him being there three years and 20 years.

 

[slappy4428]

second offense in three years? It needs to be played bigger. Doesnt have to be a banner, but deserves more than a graf...

 

[spnited]

If he's a local big shot, A-1, even if he's no longer the coach.
Never should have been in sports to start with.

 

[zebracoy]

If he's a local big shot, A-1, even if he's no longer the coach.
Never should have been in sports to start with.

Totally agree. The bigger the coach, the bigger the magnitude, of course. But even if he's someone most of the community would recognize, this is news.

 

[In Cold Blood]

We had a local coach get a DUI back in november. He drove his sports car into the side of a downtown business.

Hugely successful coach: team has gone to state a couple years in a row now, he's defending district coach of the year, yada yada yada.

Our courts reporter handled the initial arrest story and the court appearance story. Both ran in A section.

The school didn't officially fire him as coach until the end of February. When that news broke, I wrote it for the sports section.

The guy has had a half dozen run-ins with the law in the past eight years or so, ranging from reckless driving, to DUI, to assault, and the community still went up into arms because we wrote a story about him crashing into a downtown building. We're still getting letters to the editor a month later, accusing us of ruining his life and forcing the school district to fire him by drawing attention to the case.

Readers never fail to amaze me.

 

[Stone Cane]

out front

no question

 

[pseudo]

A little additional background: Very small town roughly 15 minutes from the 12K daily, historically mediocre-to-bad team. Their next playoff appearance will be their first, if they find enough players to keep the team going -- they had to forfeit a game earlier in the season when their roster dropped below the state minimum.

So he's not really a big name outside that town, but I'd agree that he's still a public figure. In Cold Blood, the reaction was muted here (his record was 19-36, after all, and I'm not naive enough to think that doesn't matter), but there were still some letters similar to yours. "The hurt and embarrassment you've caused his family," yadda yadda yadda. Nope, Coach did that by his own damn self when he got behind the wheel that night.

Thanks for sharing your thoughts.

 

[BillyT]

If he's a local big shot, A-1, even if he's no longer the coach.
Never should have been in sports to start with.

Spirited: I am thinking the other way. It should have been in sports.

Why?

Well, it's a separate story *because* he's a public figure, and he's a public figure *because* of sports.

Of course, if it's big enough, it goes Page 1, regardless of it being sports.

That's my thinking anyway.

 

[forever_town]

I think it belongs in news. Depending how big he was, separate stories can be in news AND sports.

 

[WriteThinking]

Spirited: I am thinking the other way. It should have been in sports.

Why?

Well, it's a separate story *because* he's a public figure, and he's a public figure *because* of sports.

Of course, if it's big enough, it goes Page 1, regardless of it being sports.

That's my thinking anyway.

I'm with you, Billy T.

I'm of a mind that many sports readers tend to look at that section only, and barely glance at the news section most of the time. And because he's a coach, the sports section is where most people who would recognize or be interested in this guy would look.

Unless, he's a huge name, or other, extenuating circumstances are involved, such as him or others being injured or killed as a result of his DUI.

Regardless of where it ends up, the case should be followed through to its conclusion, preferably running in the same section for the duration.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

Unless this is Petticoat Junction or the coach was some kind of major legend, I think A-1 is a complete overreaction for a DUI in which no one was injured. In many papers, most murders don't make A-1. If the guy was basically a gym teacher who had a garden-variety 5-5 football team, it's either a news brief or a short sports story. Early in my career, a highly successful coach got drunk, stole a ham in a grocery store and ran for the exits as if he were going for a TD. (No, he didn't spike the ham.) It was a news brief with a small hed. People couldn't miss it, got a good laugh over it, but we didn't want to give them the impression that the newspaper had complely lost its mind. Some perspective, please.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

It should run in sports. Most papers do it the other way, which is total chicken**** because most of the people who know this guy will miss the story. This happens with pro athletes all the time.

If it runs cityside, you should refer to it from the sports page. Most papers don't do that either...

 

[fishwrapper]

It should run in sports. Most papers do it the other way, which is total chicken**** because most of the people who know this guy will miss the story. This happens with pro athletes all the time.

If it runs cityside, you should refer to it from the sports page. Most papers don't do that either...

Even if the guy took a ham?

 

[BillyT]

It should run in sports. Most papers do it the other way, which is total chicken**** because most of the people who know this guy will miss the story. This happens with pro athletes all the time.

If it runs cityside, you should refer to it from the sports page. Most papers don't do that either...

Mizzou: I see lack of refers as an on-going problem, in this case and others.

Sometimes there's a real lack of communication between sections.

I have seen the local front (B1) use a grab shot from a game (say a weather photo) and neglect to refer to the game story and additional photos in Sports.

I learned good and bad things from Gannett, but one of them was to refer things that are related. (or semi-related).

 

[Mizzougrad96]

It should run as a brief in sports... Nothing more, nothing less... For a prep coach DUI to be A1, you're either in Podunkville or the guy must be a local legend.

 

[Mizzougrad96]

It should run in sports. Most papers do it the other way, which is total chicken**** because most of the people who know this guy will miss the story. This happens with pro athletes all the time.

If it runs cityside, you should refer to it from the sports page. Most papers don't do that either...

Mizzou: I see lack of refers as an on-going problem, in this case and others.

Sometimes there's a real lack of communication between sections.

I have seen the local front (B1) use a grab shot from a game (say a weather photo) and neglect to refer to the game story and additional photos in Sports.

I learned good and bad things from Gannett, but one of them was to refer things that are related. (or semi-related).

Agree completely... No paper does refers better than USA Today. If you have a chance to do a section-to-section refer, you should always take advantage of it.

 

[jfs1000]

Small paper,12k, I think it should be an A1 story. It's a news story until the coach resigns, then it's a sports story.

The thing is, this is a person in a position of authority in the community. At a bigger paper,where this would have been buried because there are DUIs all the time, it could become a sports story (the DUI not the news, coach firing or resigning is the news).

Classic journalism debate, I love it.

 

[Frank_Ridgeway]

The thing is, this is a person in a position of authority in the community.

So is every teacher at the school. But because he's a football coach, we assign it more importance. I can see that in a small, remote community that might be the case. The flip side in a small community is that newspapers have to treat the locals like actual human beings instead of as mere fodder for stories. I'm not sure the short-term benefit of selling a few more papers that day is a good tradeoff for giving people the longer-term impression that the paper, probably written and edited mostly by outsiders, will gleefully capitalize on anyone's bad times and blast it all over Page One. I suppose that would depend on the sensibilities of the community. Again, I think there's no blanket answer.