style="font-size:15px;"> “It’s a lot of work, frankly,” says Bob Ryan, sports columnist emeritus for The Boston Globe. “And you don’t know which 5 percent you’re gonna need. But it’s all there if I need it.”
Sportswriters write all sorts of news and feature stories, blog postings, and columns, but most of them spend much of their time covering games. If writing about a game were as simple as showing up and watching, anybody could do it. Journalists, however, realize that far more is required. You need to understand the context of the event, know the key participants, and have some idea what makes today’s game unique—all before you even arrive. And that’s what comes after you’ve gotten a handle on the basics, like making sure you have press credentials and know how to read the stats.
In the chapters that follow, you’ll find practical, how-to information on covering every sport to which you’re likely to be assigned: what to look for, whom to interview, what to ask. All of the resulting material will go into your notebook or recorder or camera—or some combination of the three. This chapter helps you figure out what to do with the information once you’ve collected it.
In simplest terms, your job as a sports reporter is to look for angles, leads, and storylines, so that even fans who saw the game themselves have reason to revisit it through your eyes. “The goal of a newspaper story, especially in the 24/7 information age of online, is tell people something they couldn’t know without reading the story,” says Bryce Miller, sports columnist for The San Diego Union-Tribune. “We talk about these key words high in stories—‘first,’ ‘biggest,’ ‘only’ and ‘most.’ If you can use any of those words, it means your reporting has identified the uniqueness in the event. Newspapers also have the chance to take you into locker rooms, into interview areas and places quick radio/TV sound bites do not.”
Fans have more access to sports information than ever before in newspapers, magazines, websites, blogs, social media, TV, and sports-talk radio. As a result, fans’ expectations have grown. Readers now expect:
▸ More sophisticated stats
▸ To know more about trends (why a team is on a winning or a losing streak)
▸ To know what’s coming next
▸ To understand what a loss or a victory means
▸ A unique angle they cannot get elsewhere
Sports writers need to research teams and players before they even get to the field, so they can prepare possible storylines. Then they need to take comprehensive notes. And finally, sports writers need to ask questions that probe why something happened on or off the field.
Crafting a story on deadline is a challenge—whether the deadline is 20 minutes or two days away and whether you became a sports writer last week or 20 years ago. “You need to keep readers interested by telling a story, whatever the story is that day, in a readable, entertaining way,” says Tyler Kepner, national baseball writer for The New York Times. Kepner used to write 150-plus game stories a season covering the New York Yankees. “It’s a grind because you have to churn out so many stories. But I try to make sure, when I sit down to write each one, that they’re appealing for more than the dry facts.”
There’s no trick to meeting a deadline, except to start quickly and keep plugging away. After a game, think about the most important thing you want to say—on this day, about this game—and make that point in any words that come to mind. Then, keep writing. You can always change the lead later, when you’re done with the first draft; your first goal is simply to get something down.
“I don’t worry myself into corners,” says Glenn Stout, editor of The Best American Sports Writing series and author of more than 20 books on sports. “If you keep working, the words come. Writer’s block is a luxury.”
Navarro says print deadlines present the biggest challenge for game coverage. Writers typically have to file game stories within minutes of the game concluding. Jenifer Langosch, the Cardinals beat writer for MLB.com, files her game stories in the bottom of the eighth inning, sending in an update only if the final score changes. Then, she goes downstairs to attend the manager’s post-game press conference and to interview players lingering in the locker room. Langosch inserts these comments into a revised story that is filed roughly 45 minutes after the first story.
Digital Assist: Preview Packages
Create a preview package online. That’s what The Columbus Dispatch does for the Ohio State football team, something that should be a model for all sports departments. This package includes a cover story, profiles of players from each team, rosters, schedules, updated weather reports—and five keys to winning games. Check out “Buckeyextra” at www.dispatch.com.
For late-night basketball games, Navarro generally develops a storyline from a shootaround or practice held the day before, if it connects to the main action in the game. Then, he’ll insert a big picture nut graf and follow it up with key moments in the game, stats, and important news on injuries. After he returns from the locker room, he’ll review his notes, tweet his best quotes, and start revising the final draft. The best post-game quotes go into the revised gamer, but he’ll save interview material, preferably from a one-on-one interview, for a blog or next-day story. Teams often won’t practice the day after the game, so he likes to keep some material in reserve.
Leads
Start with the most interesting story, not always with the winners or leaders. That story might include a key play, a trend, a significant stat, field conditions, post-game observations, or how this game affects the future. All key information about the event should be high in the story, but you don’t have to shoehorn it all into the first paragraph.
If a tennis player who’s been in a long slump played surprisingly well today, you can lead with that player’s story instead of the winner’s. If Jordan Spieth shoots a quadruple bogey on a par-3, that’s bigger news than Donny Willett leading by two strokes. A player returning from appendicitis or a heart transplant is a better story than simply reporting who leads in the opening rounds.
“Here’s a good rule of thumb,” says Doug Ferguson, golf beat writer for the Associated Press. “If you were to call a friend who asked you, ‘What happened at the golf tournament today?’ then your answer is probably the story.” Substitute the word game for golf tournament, and you’ll have almost foolproof advice for figuring out what’s important about any game. What would you tell a friend?
Every story has an infinite number of possible leads and approaches; no self-respecting writer works by formula. To start getting a sense of your options, read as many game stories as you can. Here are some ways to start your game stories:
Sports Insider: On Getting Unstuck on Deadline
I once was stuck as a young writer for a P.M. paper. Agonized over a lead for hours, literally. I took the office electric typewriter home with me. At long last the way out hit me. I wrote a straightforward lead, finished the story, and then went up and revised the lead. I haven’t had to do that since—maybe once or twice—but I vowed that day never to agonize over a lead again. Just write,
