fryer column 10/08/99

socalogo.gif (8739 bytes)
SoCalHoops News

Steve Fryer's Column: A
"Dumpsite" Of "Graffiti"? --(Oct. 8, 1999)

Interesting headline, no? But in order to understand what we mean by it, you'll have to follow along. Just for a while, because it's a very short story:

One of our readers alerted us via fax to some recent news, published today in the Orange County Register, concerning Los Alamitos' hiring of a new basketball coach to replace Steve Brooks, the very successful long-time coach for the Griffins. Our reader faxed us a copy of an article carried in today's paper, written by Steve Fryer, a staff writer and columnist for the Register, carrying the headline "Los Al Hires Boys Basketball Coach."

Realizing that we hadn't seen the paper today, and being stuck in our offices in downtown LA (where the Register is sometimes pretty hard to come by) we thought we'd visit the OC Register website to see if we could locate the online-version of the story about the new Los Al coach. We couldn't. We tried looking in "Sports" then went looking in "High School" sports, but it wasn't there either. So after hunting around for a while, and knowing from the fax that the article had been written by Steve Fryer (with an assist by David Osterman, as a contributor), we tried the Register's "Search" function typing in "Fryer" as the keyword in order to locate the article. We didn't find the one we were looking for, but No. 1 in the search results for October 8, was a link to a weekly column written by Fryer, his usual weekly stuff about high school sports in Orange County. We clicked on it and the page loaded. As we scrolled down the column, reading about water polo and other winter stuff, not really expecting to find anything related to what we were looking for, it hit us: WHAM! This is what we found, smack in the middle of Mr. Fryer's column in the Orange County Register:

"The socalhoops.com Web site is a lot of fun and sometimes informative. The Web site [sic] becomes a dumpsite when cowards anonymously post their smear messages. Jerry Gale, socalhoops.com administrator, does a fine job policing the forums, and he was very careful editing the posts about recently resigned Los Alamitos boys basketball coach Steve Brooks. Most of the stuff that does get through, including some items about Brooks, is nothing more than graffiti."

Er, um, ahem. Ok. Let's look at this little blurb, and use that English degree hanging on the wall from U.C. Berkeley for something other than pretty wallpaper. Let's do a little sentence parsing. First:

"The socalhoops.com Web site is a lot of fun and sometimes informative.

Agreed. At least we hope it is.

The Web site [sic] becomes a dumpsite when cowards anonymously post their smear messages.

Whoaaa!!! Now hold on there just a second, pilgrim. The "website" becomes a "dumpsite" as in the entire "website"? We will admit that sometimes the message board gets fouled up with reckless and anonymous messages, which it did in the case of several messages about Steve Brooks last week, but we did carefully delete messages which we deemed inappropriate as they pertained to the Brooks situation (and we do so with other messages that we deem to be inappropriate or offensive). But the message board is not the "website" but only a small part of it.

"Jerry Gale, socalhoops.com administrator, does a fine job policing the forums, and he was very careful editing the posts about recently resigned Los Alamitos boys basketball coach Steve Brooks"

Ditto. Ok, we'll agree with this, at least in part. We didn't engage in any real "editing" of the posts. We just deleted them. Nuked 'em. Erased them. Gone. Obliterated. Which in everyday speech is a little different than "editing". But we'll give Mr. Fryer the benefit of the doubt. We're the editors. So we did some editing. Ok. Next:

"Most of the stuff that does get through, including some items about Brooks, is nothing more than graffiti."

Now hold on a second, bub. What is "most of the stuff" that "gets through"? Is this supposed to be a commentary on the general nature of what appears on the message board? If so, then this past summer we would have completely agreed. We were way too lax in monitoring the board, and the result was that it got way out of hand.

But since then we've been pretty careful to not let things get carried away. While there are from time to time a rash of childish message postings, we try to delete those right away, and the vast majority of those message we do let "get through" tend for the most part to be about serious topics: Tournament scheduling, coaching, college recruiting, etc. In fact, there is a lot more than just "graffiti" at the message forum.

And even when the message forum gets a bit clogged with such messages, does the "website" turns into a "dumpsite"? Hey man, that's a bit harsh, don't you think? There's a lot more here to the website than just the message board, and "graffiti" which some of the more irresponsible posters throw at the wall. In fact, the message board is a very, very small part of what goes into making up SoCalHoops.

Not to take ourselves too seriously, but in addition to being "a lot of fun and sometimes informative" SoCalHoops does have the largest collection of links to other basketball sites that you'll find anywhere, including most college, professional, prep, international, youth and club teams and tournaments, womens' hoops, hoops for the disabled, equipment, software, coaching resources, in short, just about everything you can think of related to basketball, and quite a bit which focuses especially on Southern California.

A "dumpsite?"

We also have Daily Articles which feature a lot of original content in addition to conveying stories from other sources in the traditional media. We feature articles about recruiting, teams, player profiles, college and high school profiles, tournament results, and resources for those interested in continuing their playing careers into college, and more. We have sections devoted to league schedules and scores, tournament calendars and announcements, and in short, we provide what few other sites anywhere do for parents, teachers, coaches, and players, especially high school basketball players. There's a whole lot more than just the message boards to this website.

A "dumpsite"?

We also believe that Mr. Fryer unfortunately mischaracterized the bulk of the messages which are posted daily here on the site. We get between 20,000 and 40,000 hits daily (hey, that's probably not a lot to the "big boys" like ESPN, TSN, or even the new upstart Rivals, but we don't profess to be anything more than a small, regionally focused internet site, and this is still the "off-season". . . our hits go up by an order of magnitude during the high school and college seasons). There are literally hundreds of messages written during any given week on both boards. We now have two boards, one for men's programs and one for womens', and there's a lot more than just "graffiti."

We understand Mr. Fryer expressing dissatisfaction with some cowards who would anonymously smear Mr. Brooks, a man who clearly didn't deserve the kind of treatment he was getting from those whose messages were deleted as fast as was humanly possible. Indeed, we believe the pain and discomfort which Brooks must have endured just getting to the point of tendering his resignation must have been enormous. We truly feel bad for him and his family. We know that he was looking forward to coaching his son, and so the pain and discomfort must be doubly difficult. Which, in part, is why we deleted the messages, and we said so at the time.

Some complained that we were exercising "censorship" or being "too sensitive to Brooks" or that we must be "closet Brooks supporters." Of course we responded by telling them that on our message board, there's no such thing as "free speech", because the board is privately run, privately paid for, and we reserve the right to delete anything which we believe might be libelous, demeaning or derogatory, whether it's about a player, a parent, a school or, yes, even a coach. We don't need to explain why we delete messages. The ones we deleted were inappropriate. Period.

But reading Mr. Fryer's column today, we also know a backhanded insult when we see one, and frankly, Mr. Fryer unfortunately overstated the case. In attacking not only the "anonymous posters" he has also managed to attack the medium.

We like to have fun as much as the next guy. We try to make the site entertaining, topical and lively, and if there's spirited discussion on the message forum, that's great. But we also take what we do at this website seriously as well. At SoCalHoops we spend countless thousands of hours a year on the entire website, not just the message board, trying to improve it, refine it, gathering new information, new data, and presenting it all in a fashion which we like to believe is clear, intelligible, as well as fun and entertaining. We do this for free. We do not charge a subscription fee and do not accept advertising on the site.

There are countless numbers of kids playing club or high school basketball here in SoCal and some now in college, who we've helped with their games; helped them find teams, helped teams locate tournaments, helped with college recruiting, players and parents whom we've counselled (both publicly in articles and on the message board and privately in e-mails and telephone calls), and who have received information and knowledge about the process of becoming better high school basketball players, who may understand the college recruiting and college admissions process a little better. Some of these people might never have received this information at all, or they might not have encountered it in a context they could appreciate without SoCalHoops. We certainly aren't trying to take even a shred of credit for the achievements of any player, parent or coach, because they are the ones putting in the hard work and effort, they're the ones who get it done. We just write about it. But we do think we've helped some along the way, and for that it's been worth it to us.

A "dumpsite"?

We also receive lots of e-mails and telephone calls from high school and college coaches from all over, D-I, D-II, D-III, NAIA, Juco, both domestically and internationally, and we correspond and speak to coaches, parents and players every day. Again, we do this for free, and sometimes we do it at great personal sacrifice, not only in terms of money spent, but also in terms of the time it requires, time we could spend doing something else, like being with our own families.

Sure the "website" can be "a lot of fun sometimes" but for some it is more than a just a "sometimes" informative tool; it's a place to find daily information, share ideas, learn about other players, other programs, other coaches, and the value of competition within the context of the educational experience, whether that's high school or college.

A "dumpsite"?

Simply stated, we disagree with Mr. Fryer. Maybe we're overreacting, or being too sensitive, and we're sure he really didn't mean to slam our entire site. Just as we don't mean to slam his column with the headline above. But sometimes, even the most well-intentioned stories can be misinterpreted. We want to thank Mr. Fryer for placing the link to our site in his story, which at least gives his readers the ability to decide for themselves if they agree with his view or not. If you want to write to Steve Fryer he can be reached at SMFryer@yahoo.com.