Advice on writing a game story

The phrase 'because of poor play calling,' does not belong in a high school gamer. It is pretty easy to write about what you think is poor play calling without EVER using that phrase. Like Albert said, get the quote, explore the series of events. Don't use that phrase.

 

Is this a general English class or a class of students that want to be journalists?

If general ed, talk to them about how a hard news lede will quickly summarize who, what, where and when in 31 words or less. Restating events or a reading passage in the best way possible is a skill teachers try to teach students. Also, eliminating the words "then" or "next" from writing about an event is another important skill to have.

You can also bring along a couple of Roger Ebert movie reviews as examples of great writing.

 

You could also talk about...

- inaccuracy in the desire to be first in the news cycle
- what is a believable news source
- bias in news coverage
- opinions in news coverage

 

Some good stuff here. A few things I can think of to add:

You don't want to sugarcoat things but you don't want to sound like you are putting people down, either. Example: If a team gets blown out, it's OK to use "a rough outing" or "overwhelmed by" in describing the losing team, or that the winning team "put the game away early." None of it puts a team down but it avoids being too harsh.

Keep your lead sentence tight. Don't use too many words in the first sentence. Save more of your who, what, when and where for the second sentence.

Remember that, with high school coaches, you'll sometimes get cliches but there's a reason for it. As an example: Several coaches have used this phrase after their players didn't have a good game: "You play like you practice and we didn't have a good week of practice." That's coachspeak for: "We were terrible tonight."

But, with that said, if the coach comes right out and says, "We were terrible tonight," you have every right to quote him. Just make sure you do it as a quote.

 

Had a game years ago where a coach of an underdog team playing over its head calls a fake punt in his own end of the field in a tie game late third quarter. Blew up in his face and team lost the game. I asked him about postgame, gave some very nondescript answer that I quoted.

Sports editor (who was younger than I) said I shouldn't have mentioned it. I told him it turned the whole tide of the game (team lost by two TDs after being tied). His idea was we shouldn't ever criticize high school players and coaches. I told him then I wouldn't cover high schools if I couldn't report what actually happened or what was actually said.

 

Why 31, out of curiosity?

(I'd also tell them 31 words or fewer, but then I'm a pedantic ass like that.)