joenmsusa

Newspaper reports made me "assume" it was another player than the one involved, based on who was shooting free throws. Understand now that the player I "assumed" it to be and the one involved are different kids. My bad for assuming. That said, I still find it hard to believe, but after checking with other sources, well, it's been a crazy year.

Gotta tell ya, based on published reports, if it's the player I'm sure it is, something is not normal. Watched this kid many games this year and have seen nothing that would indicate such an action, even in stressful situation. Don't know him, but know his background and anything like the alleged would be way out of character for the kid. Not saying it didn't happen, just saying I (stress "I") have a hard time believing it. For full disclores-I wasn't there, so I won't say it did not.

Ooops...just read Indy and Ravenwood are at the Lady Raptor play day at the same time. That explains that...

Pretty strong field for a play day. Could have been all county schools if Ravenwood, Indy, and BGA coulda/woulda made it. Now that would be an interesting play day! Looking forward to this one. You guys always do a great job with this.

A few notes, if I may... First, it would be nice to have official stats to use when writing. Typically local papers are not dailies and an e-mail the following day with stats FOR BOTH TEAMS would be nice. For dailies that actually staff the games, it would be great to have the information immediately after the game. Secondly, stats should be more than just scoring, I agree, but it's hard to keep up with everything alone. I'd love to ballyhoo the "double doubles", "10 assists", etc, but I quit trying to keep anything except shots and points about the fourth time I got a call from Little Johnny's Dad-Mom-Girlfriend (take your pick) telling me I'd missed a rebound or assist. It's just not worth the trouble of identifying my notes as "unofficial" only to raked over the coals. Thirdly, the average attendance at a high school football game (at least in Middle Tennessee) is upwards of 1,500, with big games (and I'll single out Rutherford County here, though it's not my territory) pushing 5,000-7,500 through the turnstiles. Average basketball attendance is closer to 400, with a HUGE crowd being 1,200-1,500 numbers. Finally, writers in the under 35 category, especially the newbies, are infected with what I call the ESPN/USA Today virus. It's not about reporting what happened, it's about being cute/inflammatory/opinionated/humorous (the ESPN effect) in one two-sentence, 20 word paragraph. It's not about telling the reader what happened at a contest as an observer anymore, it's about how short you can make your editorial (USA TODAY effect). The craft of journalism is a dying art. Sorry I built that soap box so tall.