Every Sports Editor's nightmare doesn't have to be if you follow these tips

By SEAN BARKER
Sports Editor
New Haven (Conn.) Register

Story posted on Aug. 23, 2008

Ahh, the Little League World Series. The dream of every 12-year old boy and the nightmare of every sports editor.

Not exactly, but it does keep you on your toes, especially when it's the same week as the biggest event in your circulation area, a combined ATP and WTA tennis event.

Here are a few thoughts after experiencing the biggest youth sports extravaganza in the world:

■ Be prepared early. We've had teams come within a game before, so we had some experience. As soon as your team wins its district or state title, get over to the field and take headshots of the team. You can do a lot with headshots, from diaries, to Q&As to meet the team pages if you have a special section. Once teams get to the regionals coaches start to tighten up and become more restrictive of time with the media. We also found out coaches have the option of leaving the site of the regional and directly attending Williamsport rather than going home for a day or two.

■ Hotels are not easy to find in and around Williamsport. Book something early in the process, but continue to search after teams are eliminated from the regionals. Parents book early in advance as well, then cancel when their teams lose. Call the district president for your team. They have the ability to get you into a hotel. We were originally 45 minutes away, then after talking to the district president, got a hotel 20 minutes away for $15 less a night that happened to be the hotel the parents were staying at.

■ Request the help of someone from the town on your staff or in the newsroom. They are going to know the old-timers and folk heroes and that makes for better stories.

■ Little League does not require managers to attend press conferences after the game. So if you have a Manager Jekyll and Mr. Hide (two losses, two no-shows) makes for interesting game stories. Little League also requires that players have a 1-hour cooling off period after losses, however, the manager can also not make his players available for comment.

■ Don't rely solely on the manager. Get numbers of coaches and parents as well.

■ The off the field stories and photo opportunities are better than the games, but again, at the discretion of the manager. Just because the players have an off day, doesn't mean your reporter and photographer should take one, too.

■ The night before the opening games there is a parade through Williamsport that makes for good photo opportunities.

■ Little League's web site, www.littleleague.org, is very helpful, with a lot of historical information and press releases from each region.

■ Little League sells well. At least here in Connecticut, where the state had not had a representative since 1989. Shelton National is covered by two papers and both sold five pages of ads.

You can reach Sean Barker via e-mail at sbarker@nhregister.com.

Check out the newspaper online at www.nhregister.com.

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