Wide World of Sports

First, I must disclose that I am married to a former Division 1 football player (Florida, Go Gators) who went on to coach three high school sports for more than thirty years.  I have three sons who played football and rugby and wrestled.  One of my sons played Division 1 rugby at American International College.  I was the team mom for ten years on the football team and am still the team mom for the Grand Junction Wrestling team and am the Athletic Academic Adviser at our school.  I like sports and love my student-athletes.

When it was announced that I was taking over as adviser of the newspaper, three coaches came to me and said they were glad someone who "got" sports was with the paper now.  So, I thought I'd just say a couple of things.

First and foremost, student-athletes are not "dumb jocks."  They are all kids at our schools and their contributions to the school culture are valuable.  Plus, for a lot of these kids, they graduate because they had the motivation of sports.  My experience tells me that a lot of athletes are kinesthetic learners and, news flash, not much of learning instruction is presented in a way that enables them to learn.  Some really struggle.  Studies also show that students involved in activities, like sports, miss fewer days than students who are not involved, and experience success post high school more often than kids who were not involved.  They are still kids; they make mistakes.  They are learning.

Student-athletes invest a lot of time and do make sacrifices to participate.  They often have tougher eligibility requirements to participate and pay penalties for breaking training rules that the other "partiers" don't.

They might be tight lipped or not give great quotes, but I think a lot of that has to do with directives from coaches and being uncomfortable being interviewed.  Most are coached as to what to say and some of that has to do with not dropping information that might be valuable to their opponents.    I am thinking about a form I will give coaches and advisers to help guide the sports editor and reporters/photographers.  If anyone already has one, I'd love to see it.  Will you share?  Sports and extra-curriculars are a gold mine of stories.

Here are some questions I am thinking of asking:

1.  Names of three of the "best" players on the team and provide  any stats about them that might help me with writing stories.  For example, when football players are recruited they are given a star ranking.  A four-star athlete is of note on a national level.  Ask coaches where to find that kind of information.  I use Maxpreps for some of that stuff.  Coaches use a lot of programs for keeping stats now.  Ask them for access or printouts.

2.  Names of three players that might be good for a feature story.  For example, an athlete who has overcome some sort of adversity or is known for something special on the team.  Our football coach always has a special-needs student as a manager.   A feature on this person might be a great story.

3.  Seasonal outlook- everyone knows this..but get some insight from the coach.
4.  Special information about the season.  For example, on the 100th anniversary of our school, the football team honored a team from 1912 that were the state champions and also hold the record in Colorado for most points scored in a season.  Nice story idea...

5.  What what games/matches/events would be good to get photo?.  Asking the coach might get you some points.

One last note, when my husband coached football and wrestling, we did some math.  We figured he made ten cents an hour as a football coach and five cents and hour as a wrestling coach.  Most coaches are really coaching for the kids because they love the sport, they love their kids and their sport as much as we love our journalists and our newspapers.

That presentation on infographics gave me some great ideas for assignments in my Journalism 1 class and for the newspaper.  It was great stuff...

Sutton Casey
Grand Junction High School
Grand Junction, Colorado

This is one of my favorite of wrestling photos taken of our 220 lb wrestler and his dad right after a tough  quarter finals match.  The dad likes the picture so much he uses it on his facebook page.  The wrestler is going to college because he is getting a scholarship to wrestle.  It means a lot to his dad who didn't graduate from high school.