Constructive criticism?
Posted by Bob McGovern (This column will be in the May 18 edition of the Express)
There is nothing in this job I enjoy more than constructive criticism – emphasis on the word constructive.
During my brief time as a sportswriter, I have received e-mails, phone calls, and letters in regards to mistakes that I’ve made and have done my best to address them accordingly. It’s what makes me a better writer and I firmly believe it is a major component in what makes your sports section better.
This week I sat down at my desk, guns ablazing, ready to delve into a week of sports, or lack thereof because of the recent drizzle. Right in front of me was a nine-sentence anonymous letter, telling me that I was a “moron” for calling your athletes “Men and Women” instead of “Boys and Girls.”
Fair enough – now let me explain.
In varsity athletics, your kids take on a responsibility that is both mature and admirable. They represent their school and do so with the school’s name emblazoned across their chest in a way that says, “This is my school and I’m going to fight for it ¬– win, lose or draw.”
These athletes take time away from academia everyday and practice, travel, and compete for themselves and their classmates. At the end of the day they have to go home, tired after a day of school and sports, and do their work so they can represent the prefix in student-athlete.
Aside from that, high school athletes in Massachusetts take on a much larger responsibility, one that requires a serious assessment of an individual’s social life.
Athletes, like other underage students, are not allowed to drink, or be caught around alcohol or drugs in any capacity. If an athlete is caught and the information is relayed back to the school, he or she will be suspended, and if they hold any kid of captainship, it is revoked without question.
Other people in these social setting will deal with ramifications, but their consequences don’t even touch the visible, embarrassing repercussions that follow athletes.
For all intents purposes, high school athletes are public figures, despite their age, and for this I give them a little more credit than one of my critics believes they deserve. The English language offers flexibility with terms like these and as a humble promulgator of these classifications; I’m sticking to my guns.
The letter also mentions that these terms flip-flop once an athlete enters college and to that I say, “How?” At what stage in the game are we no longer a boy or a girl? Is it the second we graduate, does that diploma carry with it some coming-of-age doctrine, written in small illegible print? I don’t buy it.
Every decision we make takes some form of responsibility and with that an underlying sense of maturity. When your town’s athletes make the decision to represent themselves, their community, and their school in an active and responsible way I feel they have taken a positive step towards being an adult ¬and I will give them their just desserts.
Your varsity athletes will always remain men and women on my sports page and to Mr. or Mrs. Anonymous, I thank you for giving me this opportunity to explain myself. I guess sometimes nameless unconstructive criticism can help a writer.
It shows that someone is reading and I appreciate it.
There is nothing in this job I enjoy more than constructive criticism – emphasis on the word constructive.
During my brief time as a sportswriter, I have received e-mails, phone calls, and letters in regards to mistakes that I’ve made and have done my best to address them accordingly. It’s what makes me a better writer and I firmly believe it is a major component in what makes your sports section better.
This week I sat down at my desk, guns ablazing, ready to delve into a week of sports, or lack thereof because of the recent drizzle. Right in front of me was a nine-sentence anonymous letter, telling me that I was a “moron” for calling your athletes “Men and Women” instead of “Boys and Girls.”
Fair enough – now let me explain.
In varsity athletics, your kids take on a responsibility that is both mature and admirable. They represent their school and do so with the school’s name emblazoned across their chest in a way that says, “This is my school and I’m going to fight for it ¬– win, lose or draw.”
These athletes take time away from academia everyday and practice, travel, and compete for themselves and their classmates. At the end of the day they have to go home, tired after a day of school and sports, and do their work so they can represent the prefix in student-athlete.
Aside from that, high school athletes in Massachusetts take on a much larger responsibility, one that requires a serious assessment of an individual’s social life.
Athletes, like other underage students, are not allowed to drink, or be caught around alcohol or drugs in any capacity. If an athlete is caught and the information is relayed back to the school, he or she will be suspended, and if they hold any kid of captainship, it is revoked without question.
Other people in these social setting will deal with ramifications, but their consequences don’t even touch the visible, embarrassing repercussions that follow athletes.
For all intents purposes, high school athletes are public figures, despite their age, and for this I give them a little more credit than one of my critics believes they deserve. The English language offers flexibility with terms like these and as a humble promulgator of these classifications; I’m sticking to my guns.
The letter also mentions that these terms flip-flop once an athlete enters college and to that I say, “How?” At what stage in the game are we no longer a boy or a girl? Is it the second we graduate, does that diploma carry with it some coming-of-age doctrine, written in small illegible print? I don’t buy it.
Every decision we make takes some form of responsibility and with that an underlying sense of maturity. When your town’s athletes make the decision to represent themselves, their community, and their school in an active and responsible way I feel they have taken a positive step towards being an adult ¬and I will give them their just desserts.
Your varsity athletes will always remain men and women on my sports page and to Mr. or Mrs. Anonymous, I thank you for giving me this opportunity to explain myself. I guess sometimes nameless unconstructive criticism can help a writer.
It shows that someone is reading and I appreciate it.
This entry was posted by Ben Myers, on
Monday, May 15, 2006.
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