College Football Recruiting Can Be A Nightmare Day For Sportswriters
National Signing Day – when high school recruits sign National Letters of Intent with schools to play college football – is a relief for coaches, the players and fans.
For reporters, however, it’s a madhouse.
I know this because I was a sportswriter for daily newspapers in Dothan, AL, and Savannah, GA. And I dreaded National Signing Day.
The major schools and recruits are easy but when you work for a paper, you have to report on every school and recruit in your coverage area. In Savannah, we had more than 60 high schools and half a dozen colleges and universities, and we had to report on every player and every school.
The big schools send out nice press releases with details about every recruit and quotes from the head coach. That’s easy. But when a guy from Metter, GA, signs with a junior college, you have to track down that information.
But it’s more than that; you have to call head coaches at every high school – no matter how small – with a potential recruit to see if that school had a player that signed with any college.
Then you must write several stories and compile information for a graphic – or graphics – that provide a quick capsule of pairing players with teams.
If there’s a top-tier player in your area, you may have to go to his high school to cover an announcement press conference.
You do all this under the pressure of a deadline. Getting information from small high schools and colleges can be maddening, and when your coverage area includes dozens of each you multiply the frustration.
For fans, National Signing Day is fun because they get to dream about the future.
But for sportswriters, National Signing Day is a real pain.
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