D's Notebook

Tag: reporting (Page 2 of 8)

One More Reporting Note

February 20, 2014 /

I forgot to add this to yesterday’s Reporter’s Notebook, and it’s a must share.

At the game I covered Tuesday night, there were two older women sitting right behind me. I’m guessing they were both in the ballpark of 70 years old. Early in the game, they were aggressive in their comments towards the home team.

“Come on, Andrew! Follow your shot!”
“You have to help from the weak side!”
“Work for smarter shots!”

These were real Hoosier ladies. They knew their hoops.

As the game got away from the home side, they got more frustrated, though. Like a lot of fans I run into, they have a rather one-sided view of the game. The other team fouls. Theirs does not. The other team travels. Theirs does not. And so on.

“Come on, ref, he moved his pivot foot!”
“Hey! Watch the elbows out there!”
“They’re all over him!”

They were fun to listen to.

But my favorite line of the night came at the beginning of the fourth quarter. My team was up by 18 and one of the assistants was doing the standard check of how many timeouts were remaining, who was in foul trouble, and so on with the scorer’s table. The assistant was still standing up when the ball was inbounded and one of the ladies wasn’t having it.

“Sit down, coach!” she yelled at him.

I about pissed myself.

As they game devolved into a bunch of missed threes by the home team and layups for the visitors, they reduced their volume and grumbled to themselves. I hope I get out that way again sometime so I can listen to their commentary.

Reporter’s Notebook

February 19, 2014 /

We are in the heart of the winter sports season. Girls basketball sectionals were last weekend, and none of the teams I cover survived to regionals. I believe that’s the first time that has been the case since I started working for my paper. Boys basketball has two more weeks before sectionals begin. I covered the girls state swimming and diving meet last weekend and will head back in a week for the boys finals.

A few stories from the road that don’t involve possible drug raids.

I’ve been lucky to have several terrific basketball games this year. But perhaps the best was one I did back in mid-January. The best girls team in our county, CG, who got as high as #7 in the 4A rankings, traveled my direction to face a big conference rival, NC. NC jumped all over them early. It was 23-4 late in the first quarter as NC was hitting everything they threw up.

CG steadied themselves, hit a three to cut it to 16, and slowly worked their way back into the game. A 9-0 run made it an eight-point deficit at the half.

In the second half they kept battling but still trailed by 7 with 5:00 left. Then they started drilling threes and NC suddenly couldn’t buy a shot. CG took the lead on a deep 3 with 1:30 left, then hit all four free throws in the last minute to win by five.

It was such a ridiculous comeback that some of the CG girls were crying out of disbelief and happiness after the game. It was a fun game to write about, but also nerve-wracking. I had to change my mental pre-writing process about four times as the game ebbed and flowed.

I got the CG girls two more times before their season ended, including a win that clinched them a share of the conference title. That was a huge deal for them, as their conference has produced nine of the last 13 state champions, and one (mythical) national championship team. They were a fun team to watch, their girls are great to talk to, and their coach is probably my favorite across all sports. Damn shame they ran into their nemesis in sectionals and couldn’t get out.

My total margin factor is looking good thanks to a couple big wins by my teams. It is currently +44, and that’s with a 42-point loss in there. It could be worse. The same team that lost by 42 lost by 69 two nights later. Fortunately I was not at that game.

I’ve shared before that one of my favorite things to do before games and during breaks in the action is check out the track and field records boards posted in most gyms. I found an all-time winner last night while doing a boys game.

I was at a little 1A school. Most of the records were recent, but there were a couple that pushed back into the 80s. But two really stood out. The boys 800 record was set in 1956. And the boys 100 record was set in 1949. Nineteen forty-nine! By far the oldest record I’ve seen, which automatically makes it the coolest. My buddy Ed in ATX said the time (10.9) was in doubt because it was surely hand-clocked. He also suggested I track down the guy who set the record and see what he’s up to. If the home team was within our reporting area, I would absolutely do that.

As I said, I had the girls state swimming meet last week. It’s kind of amazing how good swimming is here in Indiana. Each time I cover a state meet, it seems like some kind of national record is broken. This year, my home ‘burb school, CHS, won their 28th straight state title, putting them one off the national record for most consecutive titles in one sport. I was not covering them, so that only filled a paragraph way down my story. Their 200 medley relay team also broke the national public school record, and two other swims of theirs were the second-fastest high school times on record. Some girls from California or Florida may go out and break those times next week, but it’s pretty cool that some kids from the Midwest are putting up numbers like that.

Finally, I was reflecting on how my process for writing has evolved over the six years I’ve been covering high school sports. I guess it’s not really the process that’s changed, but my inner writing mechanics have. The way my mind processes material during the game so I have a framework for what to write about afterward. How I identify what parts of the game are important so I can recall them when it’s time to write.

I remember the first couple years I wrote, I would struggle to find a way to get to 250-300 words, which is about the minimum my editor wants most nights. There were nights when I sat there, having tapped out a crappy lede, thrown in some stats, tried to highlight a key sequence or two, and after I added a quote, I was still sitting at 300 words.

I think my interviewing has gotten a little better, although I admit I’m still not great at those quick, post-game conversations. I get better material from coaches and players than I used to, though.

Now, even for a shitty game where there’s not a lot to write about, when I get through my first draft I’m usually well over 500 words. Not all of my stories are great. And our editor doesn’t ask for greatness when there are many nights where we’ll have 30-40 minutes to get him a complete box score and story. But comparing the stories I file today with the ones from my early days, I think the current ones are much better. I can always find an area where I could have written better or given more detail or explained a stat better. In general, though, I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to do: giving people who were not at the game a feel for what happened.

So, anyone want to pay me handsomely for my mad journalistic skillz?

A Very Special Reporter’s Notebook

February 13, 2014 /

There are plenty of notes stocked up from the last month of high school basketball and swimming. But coming home Tuesday night, I had a bizarre encounter that warrants sharing on its own.

I had just left an especially scintillating girls basketball sectional game1 and pulled onto the main drag of a small town about half-an-hour east of Indianapolis. About a quarter of a mile in front of me, I saw an Indiana State Trooper pull on to the road and head the same direction I was traveling. So I was careful to keep it at the 25 MPH in-city speed limit, and not punch it too hard once we hit the city limits. In fact, I gave him plenty of space, as he didn’t seem to be in much of a hurry.

As I puttered along on the two-lane, county road about six car-lengths behind him, I noticed two cars coming up behind me very quickly. The first, a pickup, didn’t hesitate. They gunned it and flew right around me. I slowed further, as I expected them to duck back in front of me when they saw there was a cop ahead of us. He did slow a bit, but got right up close to the cop.

Interesting and bold, I thought.

Seconds later the second car blew by me. But this time it was another state trooper. Surely he would hit the lights momentarily and pull the pickup over, right?

As I waited for that to happen, a third vehicle approached from behind, again very quickly. And again, it flew right around me. This was a county sheriff SUV.

Something was going on. But none of the three law enforcement vehicles flipped their lights on at any point, nor did they or the mystery pickup sandwiched between them go terribly fast once they got around me. I slowed a bit more just to give myself plenty of time to stop if they did hit the sirens at some point.

After about a half mile, there were lots of brake lights in front of me. The pickup ducked into a farm on our left. The second state trooper and the sheriff also pulled into the farm, but on the opposite side of the grain silo as the pickup. Ahead of me, the first state trooper continued on, but very slowly and with his brake lights on. As I passed the farm, I saw a man jump out of the passenger seat of the pickup and start running towards the equipment shed. Hey, wait a second. That looks like a rifle in one hand and a flashlight in the other. What the hell? And was that a guy from the passenger seat also running towards the shed?

It occurred to me that I might want to get the fuck out of Dodge.

But ahead of me, that first state trooper was doing a three-point-turn in the middle of the road to reverse his course. And, amazingly, there was another unmarked cop that had been in front of him that was turning around as well. Once they got headed back east, they zoomed by me and then I zoomed my ass out of there.

When I figured I was a safe distance away, I just starting laughing and yelled, “Holy shit!” out loud.

Since no sirens or lights were ever engaged, had I stumbled onto a raid of some kind? Was the pickup carrying undercover officers? Perhaps it was a training session, prepping for some big drug bust in the future. Or, as I told one of my college buddies referring to another one of our knucklehead pals who became a cop, were they just cops out f-ing around at an abandoned farm?

I checked the news when I got home and there weren’t any stories about something going down east of Indy. Same for the paper the next day. And again today. Even a Google search for any news from that town shows nothing new.

So I don’t know what the hell was going on. But it sure made the drive home on a bitterly cold night a little more interesting!

  1. A first round battle between a 1-19 team and a 2-16 team. And the 2-win team had crushed the 1-win team by 45 back in December. It wasn’t the worst game I’ve ever done, that came a year ago when I watched these same teams play an early season game. But it still sucked. ↩

Reporter’s Notebook

January 14, 2014 /

It’s been awhile since I’ve shared any news from the road. Of course, there haven’t been a ton of really interesting stories from the winter sports season so far. But here are some tidbits to keep you updated on what I’ve been doing.

I forget if I shared my experience writing a preview on one of the boys teams we cover. So allow me to repeat myself if I did.

It was the first time I’ve talked to this coach, who has been at FHS for a year, but has been coaching since the 1970s. I had no idea what to expect. This guy was awesome. First all he warned me he was going to use a lot of words I couldn’t print in the paper. That’s ok, I answered, I have three daughters, I use those words a lot. His assistants, who were hanging out in his office, liked that response.

He jumped right to it when I asked him about if he was surprised how the team took to his coaching philosophy last year. “Well,” he said of his team’s 11-game winning streak in January and February, “we looked good because we were shitty for the first month of the season.” Can’t use that quote, but this is fun!

Later, after he had given me his roster breakdown and I asked where the kids fit into positions, such as a shooting guard, etc. he answered, “I wouldn’t put the word shooting in front of any of our kids, unless you’re talking about what I want to do to them after practice…”

This went of for 45 minutes or so. He wasn’t mean spirited at all. In fact a couple kids came into the office while we were talking and he would good naturedly rip them. They’d just smile and give it right back.

I could only use about 20% of the words he used, but it was one of the more enjoyable coaching interviews I’ve had.

For kids I’ve covered, one girl scored 32 and another has had both 30 and 32 point nights in front of me. Both are sophomores. The first girl balanced her 32 points with about 30 turnovers in an overtime loss. Room to grow, I guess. It reached the point where I would look away when she was about to pass instead of shoot.

The second girl plays for a team that’s been very good for 4-5 years but is down a little bit now. They play a 1-3-1 half-court zone much of the time, and at 5’9’’ she creates havoc at the top of it. On her 32-point night her coach left her in deep into the fourth quarter. They were up 15-20 the whole night, but never looked super comfortable. I didn’t think it was egregious to leave her in that long.

After the game ended, I was running through my stats and getting ready to write when I looked up and saw the two head coaches talking at mid-court. The opposing coach’s back was to me, but I noticed he seemed agitated. He jabbed his finger in the home coach’s face and then walked away. The home coach is about the nicest coach I’ve come across and he just stood there, clearly angry but not responding. I’m guessing it was a “discussion” about playing the pressing zone so long, leaving his best player in, and so on. We had an early deadline that night so I didn’t get a chance to ask him after.

Right before Christmas I had a great boys game down at ol’ EHS. They’re in a rebuilding mode after a nice four-year stretch, but are still a solid team. They were playing one of their biggest rivals and it was a terrific game all night. The visitors got a basket-and-foul at the buzzer of halftime to cut it to one. EHS hit a three just before the buzzer at the end of the third quarter, then the visitors threw in a 3/4 court shot that came just after the buzzer. Finally, down one, EHS went full court off a missed free throw and hit the game winner in the lane with :02 to play. A last-second heave missed and the home crowd went home happy.

There was a cameraman from one of the Indy TV stations taking video most of the night. When I got home, I switched around watching highlights and eventually found the right station. The cameraman stayed for the entire game and got a great shot of the game winner from under the basket. I say great because in the background you could see a good chunk of the crowd and the scorer’s/press area. In the upper left corner, just barely visible, was yours truly. While a couple hundred other people went nuts, I did a little shoulder jump then looked up to the clock to see how much time was left. Always a professional!

That’s it so far. We don’t have a truly great team in either boys or girls hoops this year. I’m covering what is probably the best team out of the bunch this week, so that will be fun. They’re not a state title contender, but should be a threat to get through their sectional next month.

Late Wrap

November 19, 2013 /

The belated weekend wrap up.

Man, was it a crazy weekend. First off, we were lucky that the awful storms that blew through Indiana split before they made it to our house. We had some heavy winds, but nothing like the 80 MPH gusts they had downtown, or the tornadoes that were just to the north of us. The sirens did go off, and we hustled the girls to the basement for a bit. But, amazingly, other than the usual small limbs down and leaves blown around, we hardly felt the full wrath here.

That’s not to say we weren’t effected by the storms. We got a call Monday morning that a tree had fallen down at our LVS and hit a neighbor’s home. We went down in the afternoon, and the tree had already been cut and moved, but it was an impressive site. Our tree, which the crew said weighed 8700 lbs, hit another tree before it landed on the neighbor’s roof. The crew said had it not been in the way, ours would have sliced right through her house. Or, had it fallen towards our LVS, we’d be prepping for a major repair project.

Fortunately no one was hurt, it doesn’t look like there was significant damage to her home, and the insurance companies will make sure everything is repaired. And I guess we need a new tree.

On our drive back we were behind a pickup truck that had a deer thrown in the back bed. The antlers and nose were sticking out over the tailgate. We were either following hunters or roadkill gatherers, I guess. C. and L. a long discussion about whether it was dead or not. I’m not sure why they thought a deer would just be lying in the back of a pickup on the interstate, but they don’t have a lot of experience with deer, either. At one point L. got a good look at it when a tractor trailer passed. “Oh yeah,” she said. “That deer is definitely dead.” I’m glad they got that figured out.

OK, weekend sports blurbs.

Colts dig their way out of another hole Thursday. They really need to stop doing this shit. Seems like they’re more likely to be the 4 seed than the 2 or 3 at this point. Which would likely mean Denver or Kansas City comes to Indy for the Wildcard round. Regardless of what happens between now and then, I have a hard time seeing the Colts winning a playoff game with as many significant injuries as they’ve had. Of course, if Denver comes to town and Peyton can’t move, or KC loses a couple key defensive guys, that changes things. And it’s still nearly two months away. A lot can happen.

First high school basketball game of the year Friday. A nice night for my girls, as they won by 30. Stats were a little shaky, but they always are the first couple games. Everything added up, which is the important thing.

KU gets a Big 12 win! Funny how it took putting a very non-Charlie Weis quarterback in, and a freshman who was supposed to be redshirting at that, while the two most hyped KU football recruits ever, Dayne Crist and Jake Heaps, had been utter failures.

I have a grad school friend who is a WVU alum. I owed him beer for a bet on last year’s KU-WVU games, and after months of trying, finally found a service that would ship beer to him. A week later we break the losing streak against his Mountaineers. Sometimes karma is a beautiful thing.

Speaking of Denver and KC, I stayed up and watched their entire game Sunday. For all the pre-game hype, that was a big letdown. I either wanted Peyton in full video game QB mode, or the KC defense just destroying the Broncos’ offense. At least the Denver-Indy game was exciting. Not sure how Robert Mathis could be on Peyton all night and KC couldn’t get to him with a much better D-line.

Finally, the Pacers got hammered in Chicago Saturday, ending their nine-game winning streak. One game out of 82, so nothing to get concerned about.

 

Busy Times

November 4, 2013 /

A very busy few days. So let’s catch up quickly.

Halloween was postponed a night in most of central Indiana thanks to some heavy rain and dangerous winds that rolled through Thursday. It actually wasn’t bad until most kids would have been inside, but I doubt walking through the rain would have been very much fun for anyone. Friday was a gorgeous, mid-fall evening. We had a peacock (M.), cat (C.), and Power Ranger (L., of course). They were quite successful in the 90 minutes or so we were out.

We hooked up with a couple other families and at one point had 10 or so girls in our group. Which of course is all kinds of difficult, as certain kids are running ahead while others are dragging behind. At one point a few of the girls were yelling at others “WE’VE ALREADY BEEN TO THAT HOUSE!” The parents had to let the screamers know they were two houses ahead of the rest of the group and needed to chill out so everyone could catch up.

Friday was also All Saints Day, as my Catholic friends know. This one was especially poignant as it was the final year one of our girls was participating in the St. E’s parade of saints. L. reprised her role of St. Margaret of Scotland, and did so with aplomb. She marched right up to the mic and owned it. “I’m St. Margaret of Scotland. I helped feed the poor.” Of course, she said the same thing last year. And she saw M. rock the St. Margie gear at least once. Still, not every kid was as confident as she was.

Saturday I covered the state cross country meet, which meant a long, boring drive out to Terre Haute. It was brisk but dry, and really a fine day for early November. I only had three kids to worry about, but one of them had a legitimate chance to do well in the boys race. He did extremely well, running in one of the top three spots for the entire race, well ahead of the main pack after about the first kilometer. He finished second, partially because the kid who was leading by 20 meters collapsed about 200 yards short of the finish. But still, my kid did great.

His sister took 10th in the girls race a few minutes later, and I had a nice little theme to build my story around. Never mind that I did the same thing when I covered the regional meet two weeks ago, or the writer who covered the semistate race between just wrote about them, too.

We hosted some of our soccer team friends Sunday night for dinner and fun.1 I drank some good beer and ate a lot of good food. So with the Colts down 18 at halftime, I packed it in. You’d think I would know better by now. But in my defense, Houston looked fantastic in the first half, the Colts awful, and two huge calls went against Indy as well. Just seemed like one of those nights when it wasn’t meant to be. I even woke up in the middle of the night and wondered if I should check the score to see what happened, just in case the Colts made a game of it. I’m glad I passed. I may not have gotten back to sleep if I had seen the score at 2:00 AM. 6-2, 2-0 in the division.

Now soccer is over and we can move on to important things like blowing leaves three times a week. We need one more good storm to clear out most of the trees, although just about everything left is a gorgeous gold right now.

Coming up this week, some leftover baseball links, the books of October, and the giddy look ahead to the Andrew Wiggins experience, which officially begins Friday. Oh, and I think I already have a groovy vid picked out for Friday.

  1. A soccer season round-up is coming later this week. ↩

Kids, Football, And Seeing My Name In Ink

October 15, 2013 /

Slapping together some notes while attempting to actually stay awake past halftime of a Monday Night Football game, as the Colts are battling the Chargers. Not sure why I’m bothering. The Colts vs. San Diego has been nothing but bad news for about ten years.

My assignment last Friday was to cover RHS going to play DCHS, the team that lost the 83-78 thriller earlier this year. DCHS came in averaging 56 points and 550 yards per game. Their average gain on running plays this year was 8.5 yards. They had not scored less than 40 points through their first seven games.

So naturally RHS held them scoreless in the first half and won 41-28. It was an impressive, and surprising, performance, and made for a decent story. Although there were so many numbers to deal with – DC held to half their season average in points, lost as many turnovers as they had lost all year, gained 50 yards fewer than their average, etc. – that it was hard to squeeze it all in. But another beautiful night at a stadium.

Since we don’t live in the delivery area for my paper, I’ve only read my stories online. But we were down that way Saturday and I ducked into a gas station to pick up a copy. It was kind of fun to show the girls my name in the paper. Hell, it was cool for me to see it.

Last academic year, we made it all the way to April before any of the girls puked. This year we didn’t even make it to fall break. C. woke up sick Friday night and threw up a couple times Saturday. We learned at soccer Sunday that one of her teammates was also sick that night. At practice Monday we heard of other kids from St. P’s who have been puking. Really hoping this bug doesn’t go through the whole family like that April one did.

I’ve been fighting a cold for a few days. It’s one of those annoying colds that isn’t full-blown, but is worst at nighttime. Trying to sleep my throat gets scratchy, then I can’t breathe, and I spend a couple hours tossing and turning. So I was thoroughly wiped out Sunday night and went to bed when the Red Sox were still being no-hit. Sadly I missed the late-game fireworks. We’ll see if Big Papi’s grand slam was more Kirk Gibson 1988 or Albert Pujols 2005.

Your girls soccer update: L. scored two more goals this week, bringing her total to 12 through four games. Again, not that I’m keeping track. C. struggled with the after-effects of being sick and was not much of a factor in her game. And I missed M.’s game coaching L..

Well, I made it through the entire game. And, as expected, was rewarded with a Colts loss. I wish I knew what it was about the Chargers that makes them the Colts’ kryptonite. But man do I hate losing to them. Well, mostly losing to Philip Rivers, even if he is my fantasy QB.

Bits And Pieces

October 9, 2013 /

It’s been a busy and frustrating couple of weeks. And some of it is beginning to catch up with us.

The last two Sundays we’ve had torrential rains, which have wiped out soccer games each week. L. had her first make-up game last night (She scored two early goals, then none after that.) and M. has one tonight. Plus regular practices on top of that has us rushing around even more than normal. Throw in a Daisy Scout meeting, my two shifts at the school library, and this week has absolutely flown by.

I had another quality football game last Friday. I watched FHS win their fifth game of the year, getting an impressive road win over a team they had only beaten three times over the previous 19 years. I had the odd experience of hearing the coach say variations on his post-game comments four times. I caught part of his speech to his team, then listened in as he did a radio interview. I grabbed him next for a few questions for my story. Then, as I was driving home, he called into the state-wide scores and interview show where I heard him talk once more.

The coach is very young and in his first year at FHS. He has them playing good football and is full of enthusiasm. I have a feeling if he can get them winning consistently, he won’t be there very long. It’s kind of cool to get to see him in the early days of what could be a long and very successful career.

Other weekend football:
KU.
Ugh. Remember when I threw out the possibility that the Jayhawks could be 4-0 coming into last week’s Texas Tech game with a huge chance to make a statement? So much for that. The offensive line is so bad that it’s really hard to know if the team is better than last year or not. Jake Heaps rarely has time to throw, and when he does his receivers either can’t get open or can’t catch the ball. So I have no idea if he’s good or not.
The weak o-line has rendered KU’s terrific set of running backs nearly useless. And Charlie Weis can’t help himself not to make 3-4 wacky calls a game, always at the worst possible moment. All that keeps putting a defense that has improved on the spot to bail them out. You have to be able to score in the Big 12, no matter how good your defense is. It feels like the defense will make plays in the first half and then get rolled over in the second half for the next two months. But I guess two wins is a doubling of last year’s total, so that’s progress. Right?

All that has made the hype for Wiggins and his pals even more deafening, something I didn’t think was possible.

Colts-Seahawks.
Man, what a game! I was literally shaking for nearly an hour after the game ended from all the adrenaline pumping through me.1 The Colts just keep making plays, on both sides of the ball, when the result is in question. I’m still not convinced it’s the right thing to go to this balanced offense but I’m being swayed in that direction as it seems to be working. Now, if they can just get Trent Richardson running better. He almost looks too big to me, as if he’s bulked up to survive the NFL and that’s taken half-a-step from him. That trade will be discussed for years, but with Ahmad Bradshaw going out for the season, it makes even more sense.

Finally, I broke my losing streak and won my first fantasy game of the year last week! And I had to make a deal with the devil, picking up Phillip Rivers, to do it. But I won’t go 0-13 and I’m still in the running for the last-place money. Win-win.

There have been some great games in the MLB playoffs. Between all the other things going on, I wasn’t able to watch the quadruple header days in full. 2 But still, the Detroit-Oakland series has been incredible. Game three of the Boston-Tampa game was a classic. I hope the LCSes are as much fun as some of these games have been.

Finally, I sent a message to my local Cardinals fan friend just before St. Louis closed out Pittsburgh last night asking if his boys were allowed to stay up and watch. A few minutes later I got a response: a video of his seven-year-old in his baseball pants, a Cards hat, and no shirt, sitting at their keyboard, playing a perfect version of “Charge” on their keyboard. Duh-duh-duh-DUT Dah-dah. Charge! It looked like they were having a good time.

Maybe someday I’ll keep the girls up to watch the Royals close out a playoff series. Then again, since I dropped a big, fat F-bomb in front of them and their Cardinals buddies when Peyton threw his pick six in the Super Bowl three years ago, maybe it would be best to treat a Royals playoff game like an important KU game in March/April: the girls go to one part of the house with S. and I get the basement to myself.

  1. Of course, that could have just been the extra caffeine I poured into myself to fight a nasty migraine. ↩
  2. And we don’t have the MLB Network, although I could have streamed those games. ↩

Ups And Downs

September 30, 2013 /

Obligatory weekend notes.

I was finally back on the road for high school football Friday night. The game itself aside, it was kind of a mess. Thanks to a big construction project on the highways here in Indy, a drive that normally takes an hour, or just over, on a Friday night took 95 minutes. I rolled into the stadium with 7:00 left before kickoff. Fortunately, this school saves a seat for us so I had a spot in the press box. After the game, which the home team won handily, I spoke to their new coach, who is a great guy. When I got to my car and pushed play on my recorder,1 3:30 or so of the roughly four minutes we talked was complete silence. And since I asked the questions I thought were most important for my story up front, the quotes I planned on building my story around were gone. So what should have been a good story about a nice win ended up being kind of shitty. Not the funnest of nights.

S. was on-call this weekend, meaning she rounded on kids in the mornings. I got to sleep in just a little both days and by the time I was up, the girls were already up and playing. They’re in that collective phase now where they can go long stretches where they play great together, then go through a period where every 30 seconds someone is complaining, whining, or arguing about something another sister is doing. Both mornings we had more of the latter than the former. I have a hard time starting my days that way. It tends to make me short-tempered for the rest of the day. So a lot of Saturday and Sunday involved me angrily asking the girls questions like “How many times do I have to ask you not to do something before you listen to me?”

I’ve found the best way for me to deal with these mood swings is to avoid the girls, which makes me feel guilty about ignoring them. I’m reading a philosophy-type book now and just happened to come across a chapter last night about various styles of parenting. I realized that no matter what you do as a parent, you’re going to second-guess yourself and worry that something you did when you were angry, tired, distracted, or just not as attentive as your kids wanted you to be in that moment will somehow scar them for life.

I keep reminding myself that we, mostly, have the big things right. We’re around our kids, directing them towards positive activities, keeping them clothed and fed and clean, and making sure they take advantage of their educational opportunities. On the days when parenting is a chore, I think it’s useful to give myself these reminders. No one can be perfect. Just make sure that you’re doing enough positive to balance the weaker moments.

Colts win easily, which was good. You can’t take too much out of a game against Jacksonville, who are truly awful. But that is a team that beat the Colts in Indy a year ago, and for some reason has always given them fits, whether the Jaguars were good or bad. Large game this week against Seattle. I think that will be a bigger test of where the Colts are at than the San Francisco game.

I just checked Stubhub and the most expensive tickets for the Colts-Broncos game on Oct. 20 are sitting at just under $13,000. And those aren’t even great seats. I imagine that price is going to keep going up as long as the Broncos keep making a mockery of the game.

That game is going to be massive. Don’t think there’s not going to be some serious angst here in Indy in the week leading up to it. Hell, in a ten-minute trip to the grocery store last night, I already heard several angsty calls on a local post-game show. It’s not that people here are second guessing the decision to jettison Peyton. While there are some die hards doing just that, most people here are smart enough to understand just because he’s doing this in Denver does not mean he would be doing the same thing here, with a younger team and a less-stout offensive line. No, where the angst will come from is “Can we want the Colts to win and still cheer for Peyton?” Sports force us into us-or-them boxes, and I think people here are having a really hard time seeing Peyton as the bad guy, even if only for one night.

Baseball playoff predictions to come tomorrow, after tonight’s play-in game. I think we should call this a Super Wild Card game. Then, if Cleveland had lost yesterday, turning it into a three-way-tie for the final spot, we could call the double play in games Super Duper Wild Cards!

  1. I had a nice digital recorder that I think got messed with over the summer and thus did not work when I tried to test it before the season began. So I’ve been using my old micro-cassette recorder. Apparently it’s time to spring for a new digital recorder. ↩

Mini Reporter’s Notebook

August 30, 2013 /

A few quick notes from the start of the high school sports season.

High school football kicked off last Friday. I covered GHS, who were coming off their best season in decades but had to replace a ton of seniors. That showed as they lost 42-19. They got torched by the opposing quarterback. Kid threw the ball 23 times, completing 17 for 373 yards and six touchdowns. First play from scrimmage was a 79 yard TD pass. Four other scores were for 40+ yards. It was a night when I was thankful for the late start and long first half that only allowed me 30 minutes to write. I didn’t have to go talk to the losing coach and ask dumb questions about why his defense couldn’t create any pressure on the QB and why his secondary kept letting guys run right by him.

The highlight of the night was a retired teacher from the host school who sat by me for part of the first half. He admitted early on that he didn’t know much about football. He just loved to come watch the kids play. I’m far from a football expert, but he asked a few dumb questions about basic rules that I did my best to answer kindly. Dude seemed nice enough and who knows if I’ll be able to remember the nuances of a sport I never played when I’m pushing 70.

Anyway, as the teams lined up for the National Anthem, he leaned over and whispered, “So, does GHS have any black boys over there?”

Oh boy, here we go.

I simply said I thought there were a few but it was hard to see all the way across the field as the sun was setting behind them.

“Oh there’s one, number 87. He kind of stands out, doesn’t he?”

SERIOUSLY? IN 2013? DAMMIT.

Fortunately the game started shortly after that and while he kept talking to me a little, he realized I was scribbling down the play-by-play and stats and that topic disappeared. For awhile.

Later in the game, after the first two touchdown passes by the host school, which coincidentally were short passes followed by long runs by black wide receivers, the teacher leaned over again and whispered, “You know, I just don’t think the white kids can keep up with those black fellows, if you know what I mean.”

OH, I KNOW WHAT YOU MEAN, DUDE. JESUS.

He then launched into a story about back in his high school days, in the 1960s, there just weren’t any black kids that played high school football and it was a totally different game.

YEAH, IT WAS A WHOLE DIFFERENT WORLD BACK THEN, BUSTER.

This isn’t the first time this has happened to me. When it does, I take the approach of least resistance: I have a job to do, so focus on that, nod and mumble responses, and hopefully they’ll figure it out and leave me alone. It’s not the time or place for confrontation. Usually that’s exactly what happens: they see me concentrating on work and pipe down.

I was saved from further frustration by the temperature. It was sweltering in the press box. Between quarters he ran out to say hello to someone in the stands and on his return, gathered up his things.

“Well, it’s been nice, but no offense, it’s much cooler outside. I think I’m going to sit out there, if you don’t mind.”

OH, NO OFFENSE TAKEN. AT ALL. NOT ONE IOTA. ENJOY YOUR EVENING, SIR.

I think the thing that really bugs me about guys like him is not their attitudes/prejudices/twisted senses of humor. Some people are just like that, and it’s more common in older people. Rather, it bugs me that guys like him see another white guy and think I’m interested in hearing his comments about race. How does he know I’m not married to a black woman? Or I have in-laws who are black? Or I grew up at a school, or in a neighborhood, that was racially diverse? But he didn’t care. He saw a white guy and decided that I would, at some level, share his views. Or at least tolerate them. Which I guess I did since I stuck to my work and never challenged him on any of his opinions.

It was a bummer on an otherwise nice night for football.

Unfortunately, the schedule keeps me from working either tonight or next week. We have two teams playing each other tonight, which means there are only five games instead of the usual seven. And I drew the short straw this week since none were terribly close to me. Next week we’ll be in Boston for my brother-in-law’s wedding.

I’m hoping for cooler weather, better football, and quieter company in the press box when I’m back at it in two weeks.

I did get to work the virtual sports desk the last two nights. The guy who normally takes calls with scores is on vacation so I got to monitor them. Coaches, and a couple students, would either call, text, or email me the details of their games and then I put them in the proper format before sending them on to that night’s editor. Not terribly exciting or demanding work, but it’s another new thing for me to do.

It’s an extra-long holiday weekend for us. St. P’s has a four-day weekend so M. and C. are off today. C. has a party and then we’re making one, final trip to the pool for the 2013 season. We have guests coming from Michigan for the weekend and will hope it stays dry so we can enjoy the LVS with them.

Happy and safe Labor Day weekends to all of you.

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