Being a fan and covering a team

Amen to that

 

No place for fans here, at least on the reporting side. I have no patience for that sort of thing.

 

Yeah, we get it. It's not appropriate to be an active fan of the team you're covering. Hopefully four or five more people pop in and say that without reading the thread first.

I agree with the main message that has emerged: covering "your" team washes being a fan away, whether you want it to or not. I've never cared less about my school's fortunes than I did when I covered it every day. Now that I don't and that I haven't for six or seven years, I definitely cheer for that team, but I have no doubt if I were back on the beat, it'd go away again.

That's something non-journos don't understand and probably never will. And if you've never covered a team like that, I guess I can see why it's hard to believe, why you may think every crappy headline is a shot at your team, every page 2 story placement a slight and every dumb turn of phrase an attack.

 

I may be one of the biggest St. Louis Cards fans around, but you bet your ass if I'm in that box my mouth stays shut and all comments in the box revolve around the game or talking to others about what we saw.

As it is, I've routinely covered my alma mater (a major Division II school) in sports like soccer, volleyball and basketball, and if I'm doing the game no way in hell do I cheer.

Just my two cents.

 

Definitely showed my youth on that one. Covering HS baseball does that. Obviously MLB is a different beast.

 

Unless your state doesn't cancel games. When we had a spring rainout, I though my boss was going to lose his mind with all the rescheduling in the area.

 

I have had to cover two of my former schools (HS and college) in the past and never had any problem being unbiased and treating them like any other teams.

However, that doesn't mean that everyone can check their fanhood at the press box door. I can't even begin to count the number of radio guys that I have heard refer to the team they are reporting on as "we." Like, "If we can get the passing game going, I think we can beat Auburn today."

At my last paper, I had an ad rep scold me for not wearing the local high school's shirt when I was covering their football game. She told me that she was going to buy me one. I told her, thank you for the offer, but I can't wear that to a game, nor would I want to. I told her that I cringe any time I see one of those weekly paper sports guys (no offense if you work for a weekly) decked out in "their team's" colors. ... She was shocked to hear that I don't care if the local team wins or loses.

 

I will say that covering a beat intensively for the first time has made me subconsciously hope the team I cover wins more often than not because a.) the people involved are exponentially easier to talk to/write about when they're playing well and b.) good teams get more buzz which allows me a larger platform. Plus the more you interact with the players and coaches as people, the more you empathize with the tremendous pressure they're under to produce results.

That said, I don't have any problem covering them when they lose either other than getting non-cliche quotes from the coach and players. And there can be equally intriguing storylines when things collapse, though getting those involved to talk about them is like pulling teeth from a freaked out cat.

I have also done some blogging about a professional team that I do actively root for, and I tried to approach writing for that the same way. It was interesting because as a fan, I was intensely interested in the minutiae that even the professional writers covering the team thought was stupid. And it made some good entry points for the blog because I didn't have to appeal to the wide audience of general sports fan. I could go super specialized and geektastic without some editor giving me a side-eyed look and saying "too much jargon."

But that has a lot more to do with the platform and the audience than it does with my approach as a writer.

 

Honestly, I generally like the schools and kids I cover and in addition to hoping they do well for the sake of a story, I hope they do well because having covered them for four years, having met and chatted with their parents, I like to see them succeed.

 

Once covered a state girls high school basketball tournament. The most evil high school I've known (yes, the arch rival of my high school) won a semifinal thriller against Podunk. Podunk had two free throws with no time left in regulation to win the game. Girl bricked both. Evil High then won in OT on a last-second shot. Great game.

Someone asked Evil High's coach if that was the most exciting game he'd ever been in. He just stared at the reporter and said, "No, we've been in a lot of games like that."

I swear, I wanted to give this guy a swift kick to the nuts.

 

You're asking too much for high school and college games.

 

How about the ump calling pitches strikes?