“I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers.” — Blanche DuBois in “A Streetcar Named Desire.”
This past Friday night was one of the mo
st difficult and challenging for me in trying to do what I believe is my job — To provide the folks of Wayland, Hopkins and Martin with the news. In this case, it was the sports.
I was faced Friday evening with choices in coverage of Wayland boys’ basketball at Hamilton, of Hopkins boy’s basketball at Allendale, Hopkins girls’ basketball at home against Allendale, or Martin girls’ basketball at Lawrence.
Because I’m essentially a one-man show, because I am cheap and because I had the gracious services of the Great Gambino covering the Martin guys’ hoops team at home, I chose to check out the Hopkins girls, whom I hadn’t seen yet this season.
Another reason for my choice was that the roads were a bit slick, and I didn’t want to make a lengthy and perhaps perilous journey to Allendale, Lawrence or Hamilton.
I lucked out in that the Viking girls put together their best performance of the season and upended Allendale, but I was horribly unlucky otherwise.
After I wrote my story and ran a picture of the Lady Vikings’ victory, I began to scour the Internet, as I usually do, to gather information on the games I could not attend. That’s when I saw some shocking information. The Penasee Globe and MLive web sites were reporting the boy’s basketball score: Hamilton 80, Wayland 37.
Of course, I was skeptical. I knew Hamilton had a decent ballclub. The Hawkeyes had defeated a struggling Hopkins outfit by 22 points. But I just couldn’t imagine them beating the Wildcats by a whopping 43 points.
I checked everywhere else I could, including the VNN Wayland Athletics site coordinated by Athletic Director Justin Wilson. But there was no information about the basketball game.
I finally received information I suspected was true at 11:30 p.m. when my wife said she saw the score on WOOD-TV as Wayland winning 80-37. But now I was stuck with two conflicting reports about who had won.
Because I had no other information, I finally had to go to bed not knowing for certain who had won. When I dragged my lazy and shiftless body out of bed Saturday morning, I noticed the score had been reversed on the Penasee Globe and MLive web sites, but there was no other information to be found. I finally visited the Holland Sentinel site, which confirmed Wayland had won, but the only other information available was that Ben Koopman led the Hawkeyes with 14 points.
I also attempted to get scores on the Hopkins vs. Allendale boys’ game, but there was none for me to see. I did learn the Martin girls lost to Lawrence 50-35, but that was all.
I came to believe that if I hadn’t gone to the Hopkins girls’ game myself and if the Great Gambino hadn’t been at the Martin boys’ contest, I wouldn’t have been able to capture any information about them, other than the scores.
Though in these modern now-a-go-go days, we have incredible ways of presenting and receiving information almost instantly, there still are too many times we are unable to get this information in a timely and truthful manner.
I fear the biggest cause is that too many people don’t care. When I launched this on-line rag almost four years ago, I understood it might be difficult to get cooperation in gathering information because I was “depending on the kindness of strangers.” Unfortunately, I was correct.
Anyone who has correct information about athletic contests can e-mail youngs4@chartermi.net or dyoung880@gmail.com
You don’t have to write the story. That’s what I do.
