Tuesday, September 18, 2012

Get The Facts Straight

As an athlete, nothing frustrates me more than bad sports writing. I understand that grammatical errors and typos happen. What I do not understand is how a writer can publish a story without getting the facts correct. Volleyball is simple, and to write about it should be even simpler. However, after reading the article published in Sunday's Technician, I may just be naive. 

The NC State Volleyball team is off to one of their best starts in program history. Being the captain of the team, I take a lot of pride in what we have accomplished and what people are saying about us. This past weekend we upset UNC in a 4-set match and continued our momentum into Sunday's game against Ohio. We beat Ohio in three sets and impressed a lot of people. 


I was excited to get a hold of the school newspaper on Monday to see what kind of publicity our team would receive. Not only was I disappointed with the placement of our story, I could not help but cringe when I read numerous errors throughout the story. 
Let's begin with the first error.

The first error is when our middle blocker, Brie Merriwether is referred to as an outside hitter. That is like writing about football and mistaking the running back for a wide receiver. 

The second error occurs when our coach is quoted. Anyone who knows volleyball knows that there is no such thing as an "outside back set". There is an outside hitter, outside set, back set, but no outside back set. When I read that Coach Bunn had said that I knew there must of been some kind of misunderstanding. 

The third error goes back to volleyball positions. Brie Merriwether is not an outside hitter but now a middle back. In volleyball, middle back is a position on the court in which players play defence. This is like mistaking a running back for a member of the offensive line.

Overall, this is not the worst coverage that I have read about volleyball but it is frustrating nonetheless. I appreciate Technician for all the coverage that we as the volleyball team receive but I just hope in the future errors like this can be avoided. I have posted the article below and you can find the errors throughout. 

You can find the article here: Carolina Crushed



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