Phila Pub League
- Thread starter coach1378
- Start date
@sjp that's a pretty asinine statement. Unless you ever coached in the pub you have no idea what the coaches go through, put up with, and how hard they work just to field a team. People assume the coaches don't work hard because of the product on the field but the pub coaches are probably doing 2 or 3 times as much as Catholic and suburban coaches.
I would never ever speak for Ted, but no one has ever covered the public league like he did. He took pride in that he would cover games when no one else did....heck he let us all know what the nicknames were of the kids! From far away, I got the vibe that he was having difficulty with getting scores, rosters etc from teams.
So it seems two things are true: 1) In his coverage of the Public League Ted Silary was both diligent and enthusiastic and 2) he was having lots of problems, especially in the last few years, getting information from a good number, though by no means all, of the coaches or schools in the PPL. He's given plenty of indication on his site that #2 has been the case. So SJP80 and fkd25 are both to some degree correct.
This was no way an indictment of the coaches. It is around the support of the programs. The coaches can't keep the stats, rosters, and all of the things that go on around a program AND coach the team. It is just too much work. These guys are doing it all themselves in many cases. You need parents, you need alumni, you need money. Most of the IA and PCL teams have a much better support system. Sad, but true. I empathize with the PPL coaches. Most of these schools have less than optimal facilities, equipment, NUMBER of coaches, number of players, etc.
BTW....I have assisted (for free) in the PPL in the late 80's and early 90's. It was not much different then.
BTW....I have assisted (for free) in the PPL in the late 80's and early 90's. It was not much different then.
Ted's retired, has his website and can do whatever he wants. There was more of an incentive to cover the public league when he was working for the Daily News. At this point in his life, its too much hassle. If you followed Ted's site throughout the years you can see the growing frustration he had with the public league getting rosters, stats, and cooperation from the coaches.
The Pub as a league needs to do a better job of managing itself. From too many schools with inadequate coaches and disinterested student populations to asinine decisions to cancel games instead of giving options to move them to different times. It's a shame that the district can't come together to form a single league that could be properly managed.
The Catholic League and Inter Ac teams are paying a fee to maintain the stats. Plain and simple. It's a very nominal fee per team. Pub Teams not paying it. No conspiracy on Pub getting shorted so no need to start kicking that cloud of dust up. Daily News not doing a stats package anymore for City teams. Huck and Ted stepped up so at least there would be a place to have this since the city paper doesn't deem it important any longer.
Allow me to shed a little bit light on what transpired here. Since 1981 the Daily News has compiled football stats. These are the leaders you would usually see in Tuesday's paper. Much of this was spearheaded and maintained by Ted. Obviously, Ted couldn't be everywhere all of the time, so he got guys like myself to go out and cover games. We'd get paid like $35 a game. Of course, most did it because of the passion and enjoyment we got from being around the game. However, the little bit of money was still good to get for gas purposes and such.
Ted retired a couple of seasons ago and basically just did things on his website. The last two years the DN still did weekly leaders, but I compiled all of that. We were still able to pay guys to go out to games and I worked something out with the paper to maintain the team pages on my own and keep track of the stats.
Shortly before this year started the DN sports editor informed me that there was no money in the budget to have guys go out and cover games like they have since 1981. Not sure what the budget was in total, but I'd venture to say somewhere between $6500-$8500 for the football season. Most of this went to cover PUB games because we always needed someone at a city game featuring a pair of PUB teams. It was not uncommon to use stats from other local newspapers (Delco, Courier, Times Herald, West Chester area, etc) to get info of games involving city league teams, specifically PCL & Inter-AC teams.
So, when I learned that there would be no more stats in the DN I quickly wrote up a proposal (I've always had this in my head because I knew this day would come) to offer to do the stats for the PCL. Their preseason coaches meeting was two days after I found out. Coach Fluck of WC took the proposal to the meeting and informed me that the coaches were all for it 100%.
I'm PCL guy and I love our league. I enjoy doing this type of stuff and it comes relatively easy to me. It takes a decent amount of time, so I needed to be compensated to make it fly well at home (SMILE), but I believed it was very reasonable and the coaches did, too. I'm only one person, so I could never do it for all 48 teams that exist in the three city leagues. The 14 PCL teams was enough. but don't think for one second that I didn't feel sorrow for the PUB kids that will now be excluded from this.
I know it's a pro sports town and I realize the newspaper business is not in the best of times, but it bothers me that a major metropolitan publication can't scrape together 8K to fund such a thing. To be honest, I'm not sure they care all that much anymore.
The Inter-Ac guys have been approached, but to date we are still waiting to hear back if they want to contribute to the stat-keeping. It would be great if they did because then I would be able to send more guys out to cover games. As of right now we are limited in doing this. Hopefully, an answer comes this week.
All of the PCL coaches have given me access to their HUDL pages. Most of the games are on the same two days and at like times, plus I have a life with a 2 & 5 years old at home. Can't be everywhere and usually just two games are covered in-person a weekend, but I have watched a ton of HUDL compiling the stats (It's not hard and only takes me about 35 minutes to knock a game out). We still use other papers to retrieve stats, too.
To date I have been at the three WC games, watched 14 via HUDL, 1 WBCB, and 2 SFBN. We have used guys to cover a few games and I've relied on Aaron Carter and Rick O'Brien to get some games, too.
With the league season beginning this week the amount of games will diminish with teams playing each other. So, it should run smoothly.
Anyway, all of my usual stuff will be posted on Ted's site and I send out e-mail with the documents to every head coach on a weekly basis. Assorted leaders and team leaders will be out this week.
In the future maybe someone will take a project like this up with the PUB teams. It would be good exposure for their league and I'm sure all involved would appreciate it, especially the kids.
Ted retired a couple of seasons ago and basically just did things on his website. The last two years the DN still did weekly leaders, but I compiled all of that. We were still able to pay guys to go out to games and I worked something out with the paper to maintain the team pages on my own and keep track of the stats.
Shortly before this year started the DN sports editor informed me that there was no money in the budget to have guys go out and cover games like they have since 1981. Not sure what the budget was in total, but I'd venture to say somewhere between $6500-$8500 for the football season. Most of this went to cover PUB games because we always needed someone at a city game featuring a pair of PUB teams. It was not uncommon to use stats from other local newspapers (Delco, Courier, Times Herald, West Chester area, etc) to get info of games involving city league teams, specifically PCL & Inter-AC teams.
So, when I learned that there would be no more stats in the DN I quickly wrote up a proposal (I've always had this in my head because I knew this day would come) to offer to do the stats for the PCL. Their preseason coaches meeting was two days after I found out. Coach Fluck of WC took the proposal to the meeting and informed me that the coaches were all for it 100%.
I'm PCL guy and I love our league. I enjoy doing this type of stuff and it comes relatively easy to me. It takes a decent amount of time, so I needed to be compensated to make it fly well at home (SMILE), but I believed it was very reasonable and the coaches did, too. I'm only one person, so I could never do it for all 48 teams that exist in the three city leagues. The 14 PCL teams was enough. but don't think for one second that I didn't feel sorrow for the PUB kids that will now be excluded from this.
I know it's a pro sports town and I realize the newspaper business is not in the best of times, but it bothers me that a major metropolitan publication can't scrape together 8K to fund such a thing. To be honest, I'm not sure they care all that much anymore.
The Inter-Ac guys have been approached, but to date we are still waiting to hear back if they want to contribute to the stat-keeping. It would be great if they did because then I would be able to send more guys out to cover games. As of right now we are limited in doing this. Hopefully, an answer comes this week.
All of the PCL coaches have given me access to their HUDL pages. Most of the games are on the same two days and at like times, plus I have a life with a 2 & 5 years old at home. Can't be everywhere and usually just two games are covered in-person a weekend, but I have watched a ton of HUDL compiling the stats (It's not hard and only takes me about 35 minutes to knock a game out). We still use other papers to retrieve stats, too.
To date I have been at the three WC games, watched 14 via HUDL, 1 WBCB, and 2 SFBN. We have used guys to cover a few games and I've relied on Aaron Carter and Rick O'Brien to get some games, too.
With the league season beginning this week the amount of games will diminish with teams playing each other. So, it should run smoothly.
Anyway, all of my usual stuff will be posted on Ted's site and I send out e-mail with the documents to every head coach on a weekly basis. Assorted leaders and team leaders will be out this week.
In the future maybe someone will take a project like this up with the PUB teams. It would be good exposure for their league and I'm sure all involved would appreciate it, especially the kids.
I for one, am sad that the DN stopped the initiative. I enjoyed the pub stats as much as any pcl or IA stats. It was also a great conversation starter. To be honest, I haven't purchased a daily news this year.
Huck, I know you don't do this for the money or the thanks....there's not enough of either. We all know it's your love of high school football and West Catholic. All the same thanks for everything that you (and Ted) do.
I was told by one of the Imhotep coaches that their stats on MaxPreps are accurate and captured by one of their coaches from their HUDL account.
