She was "shocked" and "horrified" the player had been singled out - a teenaged girl's psyche is so fragile there is no way she could possibly recover from such condemnation.
In a classic passive-aggressive manner, I was told that it's "all about respect", so just remember that in future reporting, mm'kay?
My reply was it would be unprofessional, and unfair, to downplay or even ignore key moments in a premier grade fixture.
This was no secondary school or development competition but premier in name - held to the same standard of reporting as Wanganui's top club rugby and football matches.
All players are on equal footing and while the abilities of an individual can be observed, it's not right to use two different standards of analysis, be they teenager or a 35-year-old mother of two.
Flustered, the caller suddenly abandoned her "fragile psyche" defence and proceeded to rattle off a laundry list of errors and infringements the WHS teenagers committed and demanded to know why they were not also mentioned. So, criticism is only acceptable if everyone gets it?
When told any 500-word story on a game where a team won by 43 points would only focus on key players in key moments, the response nearly made me fall off my chair.
If I was that girl's mother, the caller fumed, I would tell her not to be a shooter and move into the midcourt to avoid attention.
Read that statement above, one more time.
Fortunately, being the son of two school teachers, I do not hold the ridiculousness of this person's argument as being "unit standard".
But let's go through this alleged proper manner in which to address poor performance, shall we?
1. Ignore it: If no one acknowledges fault then maybe it didn't even happen? Downplay, de-emphasise, mollycoddle. In essence, lie.
2. Raise, or lower, all involved to that level: Make it the average mean rather than the individual responsibility. Statistically it looks better. Damn reality.
3. The biggest of all: If you meet with adversity, in this case "bad press", then immediately quit. Or at least, move into another part of the same area so statistically you don't look as bad. We'll pretend you didn't give up.
In 2012, St Peter's College teacher Peter Lyons wrote a good article in the New Zealand Herald about the historical problems of the NCEA system through the divergence in grading by individual teachers - raising some students above or below their actual abilities to produce a nice, non-offensive, even keel.
Is it not more "disrespectful" to shelter a teenager like this, only for them to discover as they enter tertiary study or an unforgiving workforce that they have been betrayed by inadequate preparation for the big wide world?
I'm not saying a newspaper should become the arbiter of a secondary school netball player's development. Not my job. What is my job, as explained to our favourite caller, is to "call it like I see it".
My belief, having covered club netball matches in three regions since 2004, is to have more faith in "fragile" youngsters to rise to the occasion.
This is not even a case of "prove me wrong" - one match commentary is not a continuous narrative for the future.
The article did not say the shooter is a bad player, only that she had one bad shooting game - rectifiable as early as the space of one week's hard training.
My other firm belief is that no sportsperson should hold their newspaper clippings as the true value of their own worth.
Good or bad, what is written in tomorrow's fish 'n' chip wrapping simply cannot help you play any better the following week.
Every player must know inside what they have to do to improve themselves. They must be their own harshest critic. Ever hungry to get better.
"Past experiences have taught me that self-acceptance is a priority over group acceptance when it comes to authenticity and self-esteem."
Wanganui's Rod Bannister said that, and he is a multiple time New Zealand and Australian Masters squash champion.
