the goalie’s been playing hurt, diving at pucks despite a broken finger or severely sprained ankle. Or maybe the goalie has just had a few bad performances. That happens to all of us—even those who write for a living. Sources won’t trust someone who’s unwilling to verify the facts. And you’ll lose sources rather quickly by making mean, lazy comments.
Fans can openly cheer for their favorite teams and players, high-fiving friends and joyously screaming after a game-winning score. But there’s no cheering in the press box. Or in game stories. Or while interviewing players and coaches after a game. Cheering clouds perspective, preventing a sports reporter from discerning the plays, trends, or strategies that enabled a team to win. In addition, you could lose sources, who might refrain from speaking with someone spinning everything for the home team.
In addition, sports reporters need to abide by professional codes of conduct, such as those outlined by the Society of Professional Journalists and the Associated Press Sports Editors (published later in this book). They can’t accept free tickets or eat the free food that, as fans, they’d happily scarf down.
Fans can steal others’ work, taking credit for a phrase or key argument when talking with friends or while tweeting. Sports journalists, though, must find new information and attribute older information, often offering this other information through embedded links.
Fans can skip a game for inclement weather, if the team is hopeless or when they have something else to do. Beat reporters faithfully cover games at night, on weekends, during holidays, and even when the job means missing important family events.
Fans can complain that nothing interesting happened in a midseason baseball or basketball game. Sports writers need to find something unique about a minor league baseball game in late July, an NBA game in mid-February, or a minor league hockey game in April, by taking detailed notes, asking precise questions, and keeping score. They must know the game well enough to find these new angles and write a comprehensive account of the game.
Fans prepare for games by listening to talk radio, watching pregame shows, and reading preview stories for their information. Sports journalists supply this information through exhaustive research and reporting.
Before behaving like a professional, you’ll need to look like one, by dressing properly—wearing slacks and collared shirts instead of T-shirts and jeans. For outdoor summer events, you can wear a nice pair of shorts or a skirt instead. Obviously, don’t wear any clothing that represents a school or team, something that destroys credibility.
Being a fan doesn’t qualify someone to be a sports journalist any more than enjoying Judge Judy qualifies someone to be a lawyer. Dress and act professionally and learn your trade, if you expect sports information directors, coaches and players to take you seriously.
Sports Insider: On Getting Hooked
I actually wrote my first sports story when I was in high school for the Daily Transcript in Dedham, Mass. I went to Westwood High School, and our girls’ teams were exceptional, but the local paper seemed to only cover the boys’ games. I was very frustrated by this and complained about it often. My dad, Fred MacMullan, finally said to me, “Stop complaining and do something about it. Call the sports editor.’’ He stood over me until I did. The sports editor was Frank Wall, and he very nicely explained he’d love to cover the girls, but he didn’t have enough manpower and would I like to write for him? So, I started covering high school sports, often games that I was actually playing in myself. It was an amazing thrill to see my byline for the first time. I was only 16 years old, and it was every bit as exciting as I imagined it would be. I was hooked from then on.
Jackie MacMullan, ESPN Basketball Analyst
Where Do You Start?
Glenn Stout was minding his own business, just a fan reading about sports during his gig at the Boston Public Library, when he fell into journalism.
Stout, now editor of The Best American Sports Writing series, had stumbled across an old article about a Red Sox manager who committed suicide in 1908. The article cited the pressures of managing as the reason for the suicide.
“If that were the case,” Stout says, “I thought there should be a whole cemetery of dead Red Sox managers.”
To satisfy his own curiosity, Stout, a 27-year-old librarian, investigated what really happened by reading old newspaper clips on microfilm. He then reviewed an old book on freelance writing to develop a query letter, which he sent to The Boston Globe and Boston Magazine. The Globe rejected his story idea, but the magazine’s editor invited him in.
Stout did not have a single clip, had never tried to write a magazine piece, and had majored in creative writing, not journalism. Yet the editor took a chance, buying the story on the Red Sox manager’s suicide for $300 on spec.
“I still had the idea in my head that I wanted to be a writer, but really had no plan on how to become one, but knew I could write,” Stout says. “I’d been reading sports stuff for fun forever. So I worked my ass off for a week at a time when you had to write longhand and then go to the typewriter, and turned in the story. He bought it as is, and asked me what I wanted to write about next. I blurted something out, and he gave me a contract for another story for $500. I was their sports columnist for the next three years and have never been without a writing assignment since. I’ve sold virtually everything I’ve tried to.”
L. Jon Wertheim, now a veteran writer for Sports Illustrated, wrote a profile on the New Jersey Nets’ Chris Dudley for Hoop magazine, an assignment that was a thrill for him when he was a college senior at Yale, partly because he could escape a few nights of scraping uneaten food off plates.
“The pay was something like $250, which doesn’t sound like much now,” Wertheim says, “but it was about 40 hours worth of wages working at the dining hall, so I figured I had pulled a fast one.” Today Wertheim is an executive editor and senior writer for Sports Illustrated and si.com.
Countless reporters enter the profession at high school basketball courts and football fields in small towns, at minor league ball fields, and in hockey rinks. There is no single path to success, although hard work, curiosity, and perseverance are excellent guides.
At the same time, there is no such thing as the typical sports story. Cookie-cutter approaches lead to stale, uninteresting stories. Instead, take chances and cultivate a voice, as you take readers through sports events.
“You’re looking at a game from a point of view,” says Bob Ryan, author and award-winning writer for The Boston Globe. “That’s the key phrase. Why would you send someone to cover a game if you’re going to force them into a very rigid box of formality? You could just take the wire story.”
Sports writers need to be confident, taking chances like a coach or player. “I think more writing is destroyed by an abundance of caution than by risk,” Stout says.
Sports Insider: On Criticism
I’ve been a full-time writer since 1993 and keep doing this because it beats working. But it is important for young writers to understand that you never arrive—each time you kick in a door there’s another one, and no one really cares what you did in your previous assignment. But it is not for everyone, because each minute you spend writing is a minute you spend alone inside your
