Dealing with the Media

Sometimes, high school wrestling coaches get so caught up in teaching the basics over and over, and in seeing that the gym is ready for practice and upcoming meets, and in making sure that kids are progressing academically, they may often overlook a very important ingredient of their job: the assimilation and distribution of information to the media regarding their team.

What follows are some rules and guidelines gathered over the years covering high school sports which would enable a better level of communication between the coaches and the media to exist:

• Coaches should not think of the press as the enemy. Newspapers have a job to do and that is to report games and tell stories. The more accurate the information is you give to a reporter, the more enhanced are the chances of the story being informative, factual, and interesting
• Most reporters are professionals trying to do their job. True, some will misquote coaches and that is unfortunate. But I've never known a reporter to purposely try to discredit a coach with erroneous information.
• Coaches know more about wrestling than reporters do, and reporters know more about the newspaper business than coaches do. Both coaches and reporters know those facts, but sometimes one side crosses over into the other's territory and that's where the trouble starts.
• Make sure the reporters covering your team have your cell phone number and your e-mail address. Both coaches and reporters should answer messages left in a timely manner.
• If an assistant coach is in charge of your stats, provide that person's cell number and e-mail address to reporters as well.
• Supply a team roster of name, position, height, weight, year, letters won, and school, county, or state records held prior to the season and also have a roster available at every meet. Include the names of all coaches on the staff as well as career won-loss records of your wrestlers.
• If items of interest arise such as outstanding scholar activity, injuries, school records set, etc., e-mail those to the reporter covering your team.
• Coaches should correctly assume that reporters don't know as much about wrestling as coaches do, but coaches should also understand reporters have been trained to spot points of interest fans enjoy.
• Reach an understanding that there are certain times you won't be available to talk to a reporter, such as during practice or class time.
• Utilize e-mail as much as possible. It gets the information out in a timely manner and prevents phone-tag.
• Trust is very important in the relationship between coaches and reporters. Reporters have burned coaches and vice versa. In the final analysis, it's what's best for the student-athletes that is important. If both sides share that philosophy, trust is easily reached.

This article was written by Jim Reese. Jim was a quarterback and assistant football coach at the University of Minnesota and is now retired and lives in Tampa, Florida, where he reports on sports for a local newspaper.