Stringing for Both Sides: My Day Covering Both Teams in an FCS Matchup

One of my freelance gigs is working as a stringer, covering high school games for the local newspaper. Every now and then, they'll ask me to help out with some of their college coverage and this past weekend they asked me to cover the Delaware State-North Carolina A&T game.

They treat you better at a college game and the newspaper gives more space than to a typical preps game. But I'm not sure that it's any more prestigious in the overall scheme of things. I think more kids will cut out and save articles from their high school playing days than their college playing days. At least that's what I tell myself. I like the idea of the kid or the parent scrapbooking something that I wrote.

Anyway, I had something interesting happen this weekend with the college game. A Delaware newspaper wanted to cover the game but they didn't want to pay to send someone down to North Carolina. So they contacted the Greensboro newspaper to see if they could recommend someone for the job.

So I got to cover the game from the point of view of both schools.

There is no rooting in the press box, at least not by objective writers. I do not care who wins or loses - I am just rooting for the story. Sometimes there is a story line coming into the contest but most times the plot unfolds during the game. It is great when a story unfolds, either planned or otherwise. Those are the articles that write themselves. And when you are writing on deadline, you really appreciate stories that you do not have to labor to finish.

The A&T story is the same thing each week. They entered Saturday's battle with DSU carrying a 22-game losing streak. Mostly, they have gotten the snot beat out of them, but in their previous outing they played a close game against a pretty good Morgan State team. So the story entering the game was if A&T would use its close game against Morgan State as a springboard to victory against a DSU team that was very good, but one which did not score many points.

Meanwhile, DSU came into its game with A&T undefeated in the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference and had just moved up to 17th in all three FCS (formerly 1-AA) polls. Additionally, it topped the SBN poll, which ranks the historical black college teams. The DSU story was whether they could avoid looking past A&T, as next week's game was homecoming against Morgan State.

Typically, the biggest challenge in covering a high school game is to get quotes from players or coaches that rise above cliché level and to meet deadline. In North Carolina, high school football games start at 7:30 PM and take somewhere around 2:20 to 2:45 to complete. There's no special interview rooms set aside - you have to wait for the post-game talk to end and then grab whoever you want to talk to and hope you can reach everyone before they leave the field

If you're lucky, the game finishes early and you get a decent quote or two. Then you drive to wherever you are going to write your story and hopefully you have 30 minutes to accurately transcribe quotes, tally statistics and compose your article.

The one definite thing that college games have over high school games are that the colleges keep stats for you. Also, there's a decent chance for an afternoon start and no deadline pressure.

The A&T game had a 1:30 start, which normally would have been great. But the Delaware paper that contracted me wanted an immediate wrap-up after the game and then two separate pieces by 6:30, regardless of when the game ended. So, it was still going to be deadline work.

The game went off without a hitch, with the only setback being the cramped press box at A&T that was uncomfortable for anyone over 5'9. Usually, I will file from the site of a college game, but I decided I would be better off going elsewhere. I ended up at a nearby restaurant with wireless access. Outside of curious glances from some patrons as I set up shop with papers and electronic equipment all over my booth, everything went fine.

It was an interesting experience covering both sides of the same game. Those curious about the details can read my A&T story here and my DSU story here. Both had minor edits done by the respective copy desks, which love to put their fingerprints on every story, and only one thing that was particularly bad (extra credit if anyone can figure it out). I was surprised to not have more from the Delaware paper, as I was completely unaware of their style preferences.

Now I just hope the checks don't bounce.