By the way, I am absolutely disgusted about how many games were not reported into the newspapers last night.
This morning alone, we had two scores arrive that should have been in the night before. We had half boxscores called in and, mostly, no box scores at all
Fairfield Ludlowe and Ridgefield
Derby and East Haven
Their scores didn’t even make the papers because no one on those staffs saw fit to call them in.
Central-Westhill didn’t get us a full box…
Stratford-Bethel didn’t get us a full box…
So if you’re looking for information about your team and are wondering why it wasn’t in the paper, talk to the ones in charge.
There’s really no excuse that somebody isn’t put in charge of getting a full box score (not just their team’s information).
This is sports, it’s not brain surgery.
I agree that schools should try to help by calling in scores/stats. But you can’t put all the blame on the schools. You guys are reporters, you are supposed to be good at tracking information down. Call another paper, find someone you know was at the game, etc. Like you said, this is not brain surgery. You should at least be able to get the score in the paper, whether or not someone from the team calls.
Tom,
Not for nothing, but unless you’re in our office on Friday nights, you won’t understand what it takes to get between 13-16 football games that all come in at once within a window of a half hour on deadline. It sounds easy, but it’s not.
Believe it or not, a lot of boxes come from places like the Hour, the Advocate and the NewsTimes of Danbury.
But, when the night is over, we STILL don’t get them all.
Just know that we want to get every game in there, so when you don’t see it in the paper, we’ve exhausted all options.
We beg and plead every year but always have trouble getting boxes from a few schools. It’ll be this way long before I showed up and long after I’m gone.
There are only so many of us. We used to pay correspondents but that became too costly ($20 a night times at least 10, multiplied by 10 weeks…) and once that got cut from the budget, those correspondents didn’t want to waste their time (and it doesn’t take time at all).
Ask any one of my colleagues at the other newspapers. If we don’t get help from the teams, no results get into the paper.
THIS is a call for anyone associated with a team whose coach is not getting full box scores into the newspapers.
Pleas email me so we can set something up with you, the head coach and us to get accurate box scores into the paper for every one to read Saturday morning.
Until we start getting a little more cooperation, if we don’t get full info from your game, we’re not going to highlight your players later.
Sp….
One other thing to look at is this…I know first hand that it is a difficult task getting all the box scores from your end….I have called them in before and you guys sound like you have your hands full….But from the sideline perspective…Think about this…You just were in an epic game emotions are really high or really low….You get on a bus and take the hour trip back…The first priority is not to call the paper….It would be nice I agree but at the same point in time, coaches and players put their hearts on the line each week and at times other things are more important…Obviously we want our kids highlighted…Some teams have a specific person taking stats and some don’t….Just like it is not easy for you to get all the box scores at times teams don’t even have full boxscores themselves to give…I think people in the know understand that full boxscores are not always possible…It is a team effort and sometimes you get them and sometimes you don’t..I don’t believe that is a reflection on you or the paper….I know I have missed a dealine before because we got in way to late from a game…..You do your best and that is all that you can do
which game is the game to watch this week…
As a radio sports reporter, I’m copmpletely with SPB on this. Unless it gets into the paper, or somebody actually calls us (HAH!), the scores don’t get reported.
MY SON PLAYS AT NOTRE DAME-FFLD AND I COACH AT ST. JOE’S OF TRUMBULL AND SOMETIMES THE TWO CONFLICT. I WAS LUCKY TO SEE N.D. VS. NEWTOWN LAST WEEK, A GAME IN WHICH NEWTOWN WON 7-6 IN THE LAST 1:20. HOWEVER, THEIR WAS NOTHING IN THE PAPER SAT. MORNING. IT’S PRETTY DISAPOINTING TO OPEN UP THE PAPER ON A SAT. MORNING AND SEE NOTHING ABOUT YOUR SON’S GAME.BOTH TEAMS PLAY IN THE SWC AND ARE REALATIVELY CLOSE IN PROXIMITY, SO WHY NO DETAILS ABOUT THE GAME?