Letter submitted by Donald Weyer:
Man, oh man, Rick Rapone, the baseball coach at Batavia's Notre Dame H.S., knows how to "talk up" his team's players and performance, and by extension, that school's standing in the eyes of local sports fans! He could give a teaching seminar to the area's public school coaches in the art of public relations, contact with the media, the construction of sports narrative, call it what you want. What it all accomplishes is the elevation of Notre Dame and the motivation of the players on the team.
Read a report that he provides to local media on an individual contest: all the reports have a context, a scenario; a development of that scenario, of suspense; a climax of the scenario, a resolution or conclusion, a win or loss. Compare his reports of competition to the often three-sentence reports given by his compatriots in local high school reports: score of the contest, and two sentences describing, usually lackadaisical, a couple of names of the contributing players.
What the public school coaches don't understand is that if you don't "talk up" your team and school, no one else will talk up your team and school. Some of them even sound like they're ashamed of their team's win or not embarrassed by their team's loss.
Rapone is an asset to our area's media, high school sports, Notre Dame H.S., and especially, in my case, a reader of his media narratives!
I look forward to his future ones and some improvements in local public high school coaches' media relations after reading or listening to some of his!
