ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Thursday, October 17, 1996 TAG: 9610170007
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-5 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
COLUMN: HIGH SCHOOLS
TYPE: HIGH SCHOOL SPORTS
SOURCE: BOB TEITLEBAUM
MEMO: NOTE: Also ran in October 17, 1996 Neighbors.
Since Ken Tilley took over two years ago as executive director of the Virginia High School League, that organization has made strides in improving secondary school athletics.
The VHSL has balanced district and regional alignments, although court battles have slowed the process of settling exactly what the formations will look like in each group classification.
The VHSL executive committee can conduct business without having to wait for approval by vote of every secondary school principal in the state.
In distributing printed materials to the news media, schools and fans, though, the VHSL is doing a poor job. For the past 20 months, the VHSL repeatedly has had to send out corrections or apologies for much of its printed matter.
In the newspaper business, this is a no-no. We make errors, many more than we're supposed to make. Generally, though, it's a name misspelled here or there, possibly a wrong fact or two. Many of the miscues we make are from information fed to us through our sources such as people calling in ballgames to the sports departments, etc.
Others are of our own doing and frankly we're embarrassed when we make them. We run corrections, but that doesn't ease our conscience.
Being in a business where accuracy is paramount, I'm appalled to see the VHSL, which is an organization run by public schools, make so many errors.
It started in the 1995 state basketball tournament program with pictures and information for two teams that didn't make the tournament. One was Liberty of Bealton, which was used in place of Liberty of Bedford. It was understandable at the time because Bob Button, who took over publications for the VHSL, was new on the job.
This past spring the basketball program was full of spelling errors. For instance, Charles Burnelle, James Stakes and Sterling Lake were three players for William Fleming. You'll recognize them by their real names of Charles Burnette, James Stokes and Sterling Tate. No one reading the program, not even their families, would recognize them.
Similar miscues were made for other schools.
This fall, when the VHSL sent out The Leaguer, its annual book listing all district, regional and state champions from last year, it already had a page of corrections placed in it. One set of Central Fidelity Cup Standings for Group A was wrong and so was the report on Group AAA wrestling.
These mistakes were just the tip of the iceberg. The Titanic went down big time last week.
In the mail along with the new VHSL directory was five pages of printed material headlined ``Woops'' under a banner ``The Leaguer.'' It seems that The Leaguer had more errors than reported.
In announcing this faux pas, the VHSL made another error. The word is spelled ``whoops'', not ``woops.''
The VHSL admitted, ``The whole section is wrong. The results printed are a repeat of the results from 1994-95. That is embarrassing, but of even greater concern is the fact that The Leaguer is the official record of VHSL results for the year.''
The VHSL goes on to explain the reasons for the mistakes. Part of the blame falls on district and regional representatives for failing to furnish up-to-date results before a deadline. Part of it was because of a computer program override that put 1994-95 results in place of the ones for last year.
I can empathize. I often mail requests for information to coaches and athletic directors. If I get 25 percent back by the deadline for the return of the information, I feel lucky. Generally, I have to hound people for information.
The VHSL directory, the bible for a high school writer, also had serious problems. The directory has a list of coaches, athletic directors, phone numbers and other important information about each school that reporters must have to function.
It's equally important for school and athletic personnel because they must contact each other about schedule changes and other matters.
The problem with the directory was because of a malfunctioning computer that didn't line up the right names with the jobs at each school. Like The Leaguer, this wasn't proofread.
The fouled-up directory makes it impossible for anyone trying to tell who coaches what at some of the schools where the names aren't in line with the right jobs.
For instance, Richlands now has a crew team. If you don't believe it, athletic director Tom Rife is the crew coach.
He also coaches creative writing. Tom will be happy to know that, according to the directory, he no longer coaches cross country, which in reality he does in addition to his duties as boys' basketball coach and AD.
There is a man named Williams listed as Richlands' baseball coach with no first name given. ``The rumor,'' says one person from Tazewell County, ``is that we have a secret baseball coach and his first name is Ted.''
Cave Spring has co-track coaches for the boys' and girls' teams. According to the VHSL directory. Mark Donahue Jack is the boys' coach, Whipkey is the girls' coach. Below those names are two more lines, one reading Ken Wright Sue and the other Hicks.
Actually, Mark Donahue and Jack Whipkey are the boys' co-coaches and should be on that line. Ken Wright and Sue Hicks coach the girls and should be on that line.
At Salem, Chris Tucker is the boys' volleyball coach. That's pretty good because Tucker is the athletic trainer and Salem doesn't have a boys' volleyball team. Wrestling coach Roger Lovern is in charge of the yearbook because Pam Moss is the wrestling coach. There is no girls` volleyball coach.
Tilley admits he's looking into this and refuses to alibi.
``We're going to need to do a better job of proofing before [these items] are printed. That's the bottom line. The transformation to the new computer system has caused us a lot more problems,'' said Tilley.
``Our computer screens and discs indicated [we used] the right information. Somewhere between the computer and printer, it was garbled.''
As for the human errors, Tilley says he's addressed those internally. Hopefully there will be a better performance from an organization that is in the eye of public education.
LENGTH: Long : 111 linesby CNB