Being a fan and covering a team

What are you left with? You're left with some kind of mini-drama every day.

Sports is the very best reality TV. Check that ... it's better than reality TV because unlike reality TV, the fix isn't in (usually!).

Every day I went to work, I didn't really know what was going to happen. I might have thought I knew -- the Cubs will lose; the Timberwolves will embarrass themselves; Ozzie Guillen will say something crazy -- but I didn't really know. Nobody who went to the ballpark expected Mark Buehrle to pitch a perfect game. So it wasn't an "event" as the events I described earlier were, but it became a huge event as the game went on.

And that happens all the time, obviously in more subtle ways. There's always a great play, an argument between a coach and a ref, a feud between competitors, a seemingly innocuous quote that turns into something big, an epic upset that couldn't possible happen (but does).

That was one of the things I enjoyed most about covering sports. Anything really could happen. I covered thousands of events during my three decades and I can't count the number of times I went home and told my wife and kids that I had seen something that day I hadn't seen before.

So, yes, it is quite possible to be a fan of sports -- not to mention being a fan of writing about sports -- without root-root-rooting for the home team.

I'd say it's not only possible, but highly recommended.

 

That, in better words, was the point I was trying to make. You have to be a fan of the game, for sure. But turn in a fanboi story, and you'll be asked to try again.

 

I don't root for the teams I cover to win, but I'd be lying if I said I don't care whether they win or lose. Win stories for preps are always easier to write. Everyone, especially the players – and most especially the girls – are more talkative, more excited when they win. I've been in situations where I had to try to get quotes from star players who were simply inconsolable after a season-ending loss, and it was almost impossible. And sometimes, like in the case of a kid from one of our schools who missed a game-winning field goal in the state championship football game last year, they flat-out refuse to talk. Now, sometimes, you can get a really poignant quote from a kid on a losing team, but it isn't easy.

 

Then you paint a picture and don't rely so much on quotes that probably would have sucked anyway. Describe the emotions, the way the kids were inconsolable. Use description and detail. Be the reader's eyes and heart and soul. And maybe you will be lucky and get one of those poignant quotes, too.

Too many of us -- present company included, especially when I was a youngster -- put way too much emphasis on the quotes.

 

Trust me, I've done that many times. You figure out a way to tell the story. Still, I think it's better if you can get a comment from the losing team's star.

 

Exactly what I was thinking when reading his profile on Goodell last summer.

 

Covering hockey tonight...2-2 tie into the final minute. Visiting team scores, and the first person off his seat, arms in the air, screaming loudly. Yes, the douche in the seat next to mine in the press box. Nothing screams unprofessional more than a moment like that.

 

The first part was my experience too. I covered my college while a student there and discovered that I just couldn't care about how they did anymore. Wins and losses didn't matter anymore and the jokes about my school's rival that I used to laugh at became juvenile and annoying. It's been three years since college, and I still couldn't care less how my alma mater does.

 

Surprised the words "Bill Simmons" hasn't come up much if at all in this thread.

Simmons is who he is because he had a encyclopedic knowledge of a few teams, wrote at dizzying length with unbridled emotion. Now he runs a boutique site with all the esoteric wunderkinds you could ever hope to employ.

People know how I feel about Simmons, but, really: You have to make a case, in this day and age, that playing it strictly objective is more profitable and what readers want.

 

This.
I've been in markets where I've known everyone and everything heading in and I've been in markets where I didn't know a soul before arriving in town. You do your homework, you talk to the right people you develop your sources. You learn your background and become an expert in short order. Papers have archives, read up if you are unfamiliar with a team. If a sports editor is hiring a sports reporter, you take the better actual reporter every day of the week, leave the fanboi/girl at home.

I've worked with homers and it just gets embarrassing. At my last stop one guy unabashedly chose sides, he would argue with officials from the stands, throw chairs in the press box (even during an inter-city rivalry if his team lost despite both teams drawing regular coverage). Even the way he handled himself and treated teams behind the scenes at the office was terrible. But he had been at the paper for 40 years and was an "institution". In my current city, our rival paper, not really a rival -- we're a daily and they're a three times weekly -- their sports guy openly roots for teams, to the point where after a goal or touchdown is scored, he tucks his note book under his arm, adjusts his camera and starts clapping. We call him clappy. Again, it's embarrassing.

Being able to remain unbiased goes to the root of your credibility, and that's all you have as a journalist.

Do I still have teams I root for? Yes. But not in any league I cover or have the hope of covering any time soon. One day maybe, and when that happens, the fandom dies the second I get offered the job. That's what it is, a job. A job you can absolutely enjoy and should enjoy, but maintaining a professional decorum is a must.

It's a story win, lose or draw. I don't really care what happens as long as it doesn't go to overtime. Only time the heart strings get pulled in hopes of the home town winning is when my beats start dying out in the early spring with seasons coming to an end and there is a slight chance I may be able to stretch a beat out a little longer. If it doesn't happen, it's not the end of the world.

 

That's a big reason why I have no desire to cover the NHL unless it's the only way to advance in my career. I know that the day I cover a sport is the day I lose any fan loyalty in that sport, and of my teams, the Senators would be the hardest to give up. I'd cover MLB, the NFL or the NBA tomorrow if I was asked, but I'm not ready to give up having a team in the NHL yet.

 

Go through a typical sports page every day and count the number of good quotes, quotes that add something to the story, quotes the story couldn't be without......

If you can find five of them, I'd be surprised.

The worst thing about reading most prep stories is they are loaded with quotes that are awful, meaningless, cliche and frankly just a waste of space.