RedTail Athletics Style Guide

Also see the Web and Print Style Guide.

All-America, All-American: Use All-America only when referring to a team. Use All-American when referring to a player.

bye week

cancel: Also cancelled, cancelling, cancellation.

Cedar Valley Soccer Complex: Always spell out.

class standing: As a two-year college, students are first-year or second-year: The first-year class, three second-year students. ATHLETICS ONLY: the labels of freshman (plural: freshmen) and sophomore are acceptable to align with NJCAA designations.  

coach: Lowercase in all uses, as a job description, not a formal title.

come back (v), comeback (n)

cross country: No hyphen.

datelines: Follow AP style when writing datelines.

• Ex. STEPHENSON, Ill.–
• Write city names in all-caps.
• Do not include the state for any location in Iowa. It is not necessary to identify the state of a major city.

Use AP Style state abbreviations in the dateline. Do not use ZIP code abbreviations.

Following are the state abbreviations, which also appear in the entries for each state (ZIP code abbreviations in parentheses): Ala. (AL) Ariz. (AZ) Ark. (AR) Calif. (CA) Colo. (CO) Conn. (CT) Del. (DE) Fla. (FL) Ga. (GA) Ill. (IL) Ind. (IN) Kan. (KS) Ky. (KY) La. (LA) Md. (MD) Mass. (MA) Mich. (MI) Minn. (MN) Miss. (MS) Mo. (MO) Mont. (MT) Neb. (NE) Nev. (NV) N.H. (NH) N.J. (NJ) N.M. (NM) N.Y. (NY) N.C. (NC) N.D. (ND) Okla. (OK) Ore. (OR) Pa. (PA) R.I. (RI) S.C. (SC) S.D. (SD) Tenn. (TN) Vt. (VT) Va. (VA) Wash. (WA) W.Va. (WV) Wis. (WI) Wyo (WY)

dates: Avoid abbreviations in sentences. If a date is in the middle of the sentence, use a comma after the year. The event was Tuesday, February 22, 2017, at the Brock Student Center. Do not use ordinals such as “st”, “rd”, "th", and "nd" with dates. The event was held on September 4. Do not use a comma between the month and year alone. Please return your application by the February 2017 deadline.

days: Spell out days of the week in sentences, do not abbreviate them. When a range of days is needed, the preferred format is: Monday–Friday, Monday to Wednesday, or Monday and Wednesday.

doubleheader

Esports: No hyphen. Never eSports.

goalkeeper: goalie is acceptable, goaltender is not.

golf: birdie (one stroke under par), bogey (one stroke over par), eagle (two strokes under par).

golf numbers: Use figures for handicaps: He has a 3 handicap; a 3-handicap golfer, a handicap of 3 strokes; a 3-stroke handicap. Use figures for par listings: He had a par 5 to finish 2-up for the round, a par-4 hole; a 7-under-par 64, the par-3 seventh hole. The first hole, the ninth hole, a nine-hole course, the 10th hole, the back nine, the final 18. 

halftime (n; adj.)

Hawkeye Community College: Use Hawkeye Community College or Hawkeye. Do not use the college, HCC, Hawkeye College, Hawkeye CC, or Hawkeye Tech. HCC can refer to many colleges and businesses; it doesn’t clearly identify Hawkeye Community College.

Health Education and Services Center: Spell out on first reference, then HESC. Never HESC-Recreation, HESC center, Rec Center, or Hawkeye Gym.

Iowa Community College Athletic Conference: ICCAC fine in all references.

mascot: Proper name is Rusty the RedTail. On second reference, use Rusty, along with masculine pronouns. “Rusty the RedTail is our mascot. He is very popular.”

National Association of Collegiate Esports: Spell out on first reference, then NACE.

National Junior Collegiate Athletic Association: NJCAA fine in all references.

Official athletic program names: Capitalize only when preceded by Hawkeye RedTail or RedTail as part of an official title. Lowercase on subsequent uses.

• Ex. Hawkeye RedTail Men’s Track and Field. The women’s track and field team at Hawkeye Community College.

Include “men’s” or “women’s” before the sport when applicable. If referencing both programs, use only the sport name. For co-ed programs, use only the sport name.

Intercollegiate Athletic Programs:

• Bowling
• Men's Cross Country
• Women's Cross Country
• Dance
• Esports
• Men's Golf
• Women’s Soccer
• Men’s Soccer
• Sports Shooting
• Men’s Track and Field
• Women’s Track and Field
• Women’s Volleyball

offseason: no hyphen

Order of finishing in a competition: Spell out first through ninth, then 10th, 11th, and so on. Avoid superscript letters.

• Ex. Sally Jones placed first, while Sarah Smith placed 17th.

play off (v.) playoff, playoffs (n. and adj.): The noun and adjective forms are exceptions to Webster’s New World Dictionary, in keeping with widespread practice in the sports world. 

postseason, preseason: No hyphen.

RedTail: Always a capital R and capital T. Use the singular form when referring to a specific team, program, or student-athlete, and plural when referring to athletic programs in general.

• Ex. Hawkeye RedTail Athletics. The RedTail Women’s Soccer team. The RedTails won their home opener, 4-3. Sally Smith will join the RedTails in competition this fall.

On first reference, always precede RedTail with Hawkeye, unless “Hawkeye Community College” is used elsewhere in the same sentence, then just RedTails on subsequent uses.

• Ex. Joe Smith is joining the RedTail Sports Shooting team at Hawkeye Community College. Sarah Smith is joining the Hawkeye RedTail Dance team.

runner-up, runners-up

scores: Use figures exclusively, placing a hyphen between the totals of the winning and losing teams: The Reds defeated the Red Sox, 4-3, the Giants scored a 12-6 football victory over the Cardinals, the golfer had a 5 on the first hole but finished with a 2-under-par score.

shutout (n), shut out (v)

student-athlete: Always hyphenate.

team: Always lowercase unless part of an official name.

track and field: For time events, spell out "minutes" and "seconds" on first reference: "She finished with a time of 3 minutes, 42.8 seconds. Subsequent times require only a colon and decimal point: 3:42.8

Do not use a colon before times given only in seconds and tenths of seconds. Use ".0" to record a "flat" time: 5.0 seconds, 10.2 seconds. Extend to hundredths when possible: 17.38 seconds.

Spell out the first reference to running events: the 100-meter dash. Subsequent references can be shortened to such phrases as "the 100," "the 400" and so forth.

For hurdle and relay events, the progression is "100-meter hurdles" on first reference and "the 100 hurdles" in subsequent references: "He ran both the 400-meter relay and the 200 relay."

For field events, which do not involve running, use these forms:

23 ½ for 23 feet, one-half inch. Note that there is a space between the whole number and the fraction. 28 feet, 7 and three-quarter inches is written 28-7 ¾.

versus, vs.: The abbreviation vs. is always preferred over the word versus. Never write just the letter v.

their/its: Use plural when referring to Hawkeye RedTail Athletics, or RedTails in general, and singular when referring to one team or program.

Ex. The Hawkeye RedTails are a members of the ICCAC. The RedTail Volleyball team had its first win last night.