Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Robert Appleby (American football)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was keep. SoWhy 15:11, 11 August 2018 (UTC)

Robert Appleby (American football)

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fails WP:NBASE and WP:NGRIDIRON and WP:GNG Dom from Paris (talk) 06:01, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Sportspeople-related deletion discussions. Dom from Paris (talk) 06:02, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of American football-related deletion discussions. Dom from Paris (talk) 06:02, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Baseball-related deletion discussions. Dom from Paris (talk) 06:02, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Note: This discussion has been included in the list of Oklahoma-related deletion discussions. Dom from Paris (talk) 06:02, 2 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep. Article was prematurely nominated for deletion about 75 minutes after the initial stub was created. The article has now been fleshed out a bit and has sufficient coverage to satisfy the WP:GNG bar. Cbl62 (talk) 07:10, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I looked at the sources added and it is all local interest routine coverage. Hardly enough to show he meets the naotability requirements so my nomination stands. GNG requires in depth coverage and this isn't enough I believe. Dom from Paris (talk) 07:20, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Um, no. Articles like this 16-paragraph piece, reviewing his career at length, are the antithesis of WP:ROUTINE coverage. And bear in mind that the article was just created today. Cbl62 (talk) 07:29, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
 * This is a piece in the Decateur daily review about the new coach for Milikin University in Decateur. It is essentially a biography of the new local coach which you will find in any local newspaper when a new coach arrives in town and he stayed for 1 season as head coach for the football team. He clearly doesn't meet WP:NSPORTS as his career is not sufficiently impressive to get a pass, if this kind of source is considered sufficent to get in on a GNG pass why not but I do not believe it does. If you had more recent sources to show that his contribution to coaching had made as per WP:ANYBIO "widely recognized contribution that is part of the enduring historical record in his or her specific field" then again why not, but don't forget his football coaching career went downhill from head university coach for 1 year, assistant college coach for 3 years, to high school coach for 25 years. From what I can see his long high school career was not crowned with success. This is really not the stuff of encyclopedias IMHO. Dom from Paris (talk) 08:49, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Appleby was a head coach in two sports at three American universities for nine years from 1949 to 1957, and yes head coaches at American universities usually do receive sufficient press to pass WP:GNG. See Head coach AfD library. I wish more AfD nominators could just keep an open mind. When you nominated the article, it was an unsourced 2-sentence stub. Seeing its development, many would simply say, "Ok, there's more here than I thought." Cbl62 (talk) 14:20, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
 * As the sources were added I looked at them but as I said not convinced by them. I don't mind withdrawing when I think I'm wrong but as I do not see him meeting GNG and no where near meeting NSPORT I'll let it ride and see what happens. Dom from Paris (talk) 15:42, 2 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep per Cbl62. Jweiss11 (talk) 14:04, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep Seems like the coverage present in the article shows significant coverage, and the likelihood of more offline sources existing. – Muboshgu (talk) 14:07, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep per Muboshgu, there seems to be sufficient coverage. Lepricavark (talk) 16:24, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Delete per nominator - fails sports notability guidelines as a coach of a lower-division amateur football team, and most coverage (apart from the feature article listed above) appears routine. SportingFlyer  talk  21:48, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Comment This one troubled me for some reason, so I went through the sources: the Courier News, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Chicago Tribune, Decatur Herald "Once over lightly" and "Commies, Appleby Whip All-Stars", "Appleby gets Toledo U post", arkbaseball.com, "Appleby to Varsity", "Schools Reopen" and his obituary are all short articles/trivial mentions/routine sports coverage and don't count towards notability, as per general sporting article consensus. Baseball-reference does not count towards notability either, and the Toledo media guide is a primary source. This leaves "Kurth Comments," which profiles Appleby in the context of the fact he was a high school football coach - not the context of his notability as a college coach, and the "Robert Appleby new Millikin Grid Coach," which is the best source, but given the era in which this was written a long article about a new football coach in the small town wouldn't be all abnormal. Hard to find other sources that would get this over the line. Fails WP:GNG.
 * Even though this is a pre-Internet figure whose greatest fame came at Toledo (a city whose newspaper archives are not accessible on-line to my knowledge), we've already got in-depth biographical coverage from two different media outlets -- the Kurth profile from 1968 and the Decatur Herald profile from 1951. Not sure what "general sporting article consensus" you're referring to. My understanding of consensus is very different. The consensus I'm aware of is that passing mentions are deemed routine, but not articles of substance focused on the subject.   Further on the topic of consensus, head football coaches at US colleges/universities generally receive plenty of coverage to pass GNG, as reflected in the results found at "Head coach AfD library". Cbl62 (talk) 01:57, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
 * According to the article, he was only an assistant at Toledo. I disagree with you on the Kurth profile, which is a story about him as a high school football coach - there are many feature articles of this type written about high school coaches all over the country. The in-depth profile from 1951 is okay, though again I'm concerned it's in the context of him getting hired. I've looked through the AfDs and the arguments there continue to assume college coaches are notable under WP:GNG simply because coverage gets generated - an AfD like Articles for deletion/W. C. Riley mentions WP:CFPCOACH, which seems to be a very inclusionist essay, and it appears this project continually interprets WP:MILL sources as passing WP:GNG (for instance, I would've voted delete on Riley.) (Keep in mind I'm mostly active in other football codes and am basing my interpretation off of articles from those sports.) SportingFlyer  talk  02:31, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
 * He was head baseball coach at Toledo for 3 years. As for WP:MILL, it is an essay reflecting a deletionist view that IMO is inconsistent with WP:GNG -- indeed, it is an effort to override GNG with a subjective assessment of "importance" or "uniqueness" rather than "notability". Cbl62 (talk) 06:52, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Head college baseball coaches need to pass WP:GNG as there's no presumption of notability. Looking through everything, I'd nominate a couple other Toledo coaches as well for an AfD. I understand WP:MILL is an essay, but I disagree about "importance" or "uniqueness". Keep in mind WP:ROUTINE is policy, and synthesizing an article off of routine sports announcements isn't commonly accepted as WP:GNG, at least in other sports projects I've been associated with. SportingFlyer  talk  07:06, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
 * While the coverage here is beyond the routine (e.g., passing mentions in game coverage), this article concerns a person, not an event. WP:ROUTINE is part of the notability standard on "events". No such limitation is found in either WP:GNG's non-event standards or in WP:PERSON. Cbl62 (talk) 07:23, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
 * WP:ROUTINE does actually get a passing mention in a footnote in WP:PERSON. The trouble is that this kind of coverage would not get a pass on GNG for other biographies outside of college sports regardless of the period. There is presumption from the college sports projects that all head coaches get a pass because there must be coverage out there even if it can't be found. This is the basis of NGRIDIRON but for much higher profil coaches. I am also concerned that the arguments used on these deletion discussions are mostly based on project guidelines rather than community guidelines and you only have to have a couple of members of the project to vote keep each time. One could argue as to whether the article in the Decateur paper is not simply trivia, I agree with SportingFlyer that this kind of coverage is systematic for a new local coach. He only stayed for 1 season so did not make a lasting impression as a football coach. This is really a pretty ordinary coach. Dom from Paris (talk) 08:25, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
 * The coverage surpasses the definition of "routine" (essentially basic sports scores and statistics) and therefore is WP:NOTROUTINE.--Paul McDonald (talk) 00:35, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I've always understood WP:ROUTINE to mean articles that would almost always be written, for instance a person getting a promotion, and at least over at Wikiproject Soccer articles such as transfer announcements, contract signings and game articles (articles that would be written about any player in the position) are frequently interpreted as not being enough to pass WP:GNG. SportingFlyer  talk  05:27, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I've always understood passing mentions in game coverage and mere announcements (injuries, releases, trades, hirings, firings) to be routine, but articles that go into details of someone's career are the opposite of routine. Cbl62 (talk) 06:17, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I agree with you - but under that guideline, that leaves only one good article (Millikin hiring) and one article about him as a high school coach (Kurth) - and high school coaches (even ones who get lots of coverage) don't typically tend to have articles per what we're not, if I'm not mistaken? SportingFlyer  talk  06:23, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
 * At minimum, the Kurth, Decatur Herald, and The Norman Transcript pieces have sufficient detail so as to be considered not routine. That's pretty solid for a pre-Internet era coach. If we had access to the Toledo Blade archives, there would certainly be even more. Cbl62 (talk) 06:39, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, the Norman Transcript piece doesn't show notability since it's an obituary - and while obituaries can be notable as long as they are independent of the subject, this looks to be an obituary that's been submitted by someone close to/not independent of the subject. The clue is in the second sentence where it discusses when the memorial service will be. The Kurth article makes me nervous since it's a profile of him as a high school coach, evident with the mention of the team's schedule, and the article's placement on the high school sports page. Per WP:YOUNGATH, most of this type of coverage is treated as WP:ROUTINE for notability purposes. I know I'm arguing against consensus here, but I really don't see Mr. Appleby's notability based on the available sources. I'm also not certain a Toledo paper will have significant coverage of him, though I agree it might - I'll have a look now for sources. SportingFlyer  talk  09:18, 4 August 2018 (UTC)
 * I've looked for additional sources but I still don't think this comes close to WP:GNG for the reasons discussed above. SportingFlyer  talk  00:30, 9 August 2018 (UTC)


 * Keep per the sources that have been added to the article. Meets WP:GNG and WP:BASIC. Ejgreen77 (talk) 23:13, 2 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep nice article, well sourced. Clearly passes WP:GNG.--Paul McDonald (talk) 02:59, 3 August 2018 (UTC)
 * Keep - Easily passes GNG with non-routine coverage. Rlendog (talk) 14:49, 3 August 2018 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.