"Athletes tend to be pretty boring"

It's part of the formula, which tends to rear its head in NFL areas about this time of year.

Team signs or drafts Player X. Must do feature on Player X. Is he really interesting? Doesn't matter. Must do feature on Player X.

And the less chance the player has of actually making the team, the more urgent it is to do the feature on him, because he won't be around in late August or during the season to do a feature on.

 

Well, I agree, but not everyone can be awesome at their jobs and love it unconditionally. Someone's gotta be the bottom-feeder hacking away in the middle of nowhere, and I choose to be that guy.

Well, actually, it's just that I find the games more interesting than the people. Until my boss starts letting me write exclusively gamers and previews, I'll suck it up and write the features. I also find the Olympics almost unwatchable because of all the athlete background stories.

 

I'm actually the opposite of you. Games, for the most part, are boring. If you cover, say, 82 NBA games a year, I'd say maybe 15 will be memorable.

I like to talk to people and tell their stories and share their experiences. I like introducing our readers to the people behind the games. That's why I'm in this business.

However, I do agree with you on the Olympics. That's just overload.

 

I'd say the vast majority of sportswriters, including pretty much every good one, is on your side.

 

Not necessarily. Everyone - well, not everyone - has had to do those "prep of the week" features. You've got to feed the beast, and just because a kid runs a 22-second 200 doesn't necessarily make him an interesting feature subject.

The biggest struggle I always had with high school kids was that they had usually lived in one place their whole life. To me, half of what makes someone interesting is where they come from and where they've been. At a local paper, covering high school sports, that element of your story building is largely taken away from you.

Oh, and the best sports writers I've found make the sports themselves interesting. Otherwise, you're just writing about a guy who likes to read Shakespeare and just so happens to also be good at football. If that guy worked in sales somewhere, no one would care. The sport has to be an indispensable part of the narrative. Has to be.

 

The Olympics on TV and covering Olymppic sports are two different things. TV overwhelms you with up-close-and-personal BS.
Talking to Olympic sports athletes is a different deal, especially those in individual sports like track and swimming who don't have to give BS credit to their teammates but can talk about how great they are. Some superegos are great quotes.

 

That's a pet peeve of mine as well. Teammates, students and parents all feel like they have to yell that out while you're trying to ask some questions. Just...ugh.

 

I tell you what: Boxers are anything from boring.

 

Insufferable? Really?

I just tuned it out and went about my job. Didn't seem that difficult.

 

Chico Harlan hates athletes.

 

Bingo! And if they don't talk, their trainers sure will.

 

I always feel slimy after talking to boxers. They're interesting people, but a lot of them give me that used-car-salesman vibe where they're always trying to pitch me something.