Best and worst of sportswriting

Maybe I'm just a grade-A jaded asshole, but I can't understand what's so exciting about getting a business card from a D-I assistant coach?

Your enthusiasm is infectious, I suppose, but you have to lose the star-struck aspect of it in a hurry. People will notice it and they will take advantage of it. And people won't take you seriously, particularly in this profession.

Sounds like you might want to decide whether you want to be a sports writer or a sports fan.

A professional sports writer isn't just a fan with a press credential.

 

I'll give this a shot, though I think crimsonace nailed it pretty well.

THE BEST
1. Storytelling. That's really my passion, whether it be a Gary Smith piece in Sports Illustrated or a season of "The Wire." I'm addicted to great storytelling - both creating and absorbing - and my bookshelves are a testament to that. Dozens of books on the craft, alongside hundreds of novels and nonfiction narratives. Even when I watch a movie, I'm trying to figure out how writer was thinking through this. It's skillful manipulation and I love being able to take my shot at it.

2. The camaraderie. Now that I'm off a beat, at least until I get to do some spring football as a freelancer, I'm not getting that like I was. But this is probably the best part of covering a beat. The people we cover are interesting, sure. But like I've said, nothing beats being in a strange city at a strange restaurant or bar with the only three or four guys in the world who get it along with you. Early in my career, I covered a pro beat part-time - i.e. home games only - and just marveled at the chemistry between the guys traveling with the team. Now I completely get it. When I graduated college, I thought I'd never again experience the sense of brotherhood and camaraderie that my fraternity provided. I was wrong.

3. Travel. Because of this job, I have seen almost every great city in America (remarkably, however, still yet to set foot in New York City. Go figure, huh?) It's been amazing, and I am a better, more well-rounded, more a man-of-the-world because of it.

4. The readers. Sure they can be morons - we've all dealt with them - but I would often receive 100 or more emails on a single story if it really struck a nerve with people. And when I wrote a going-away column a few weeks ago, I got 200-plus emails from readers within the next week. I believe all but three were positive, telling me what a good job I did and how much they'd miss me. Some of them were the same people who ripped my ass limb from limb in prior emails.

5. Following the beat. Yeah, it can be a drag, too. It's tough to spend year after year worrying about sprained ankles or trying to break the coach's cone of silence about who the backup left guard is or trying like hell to reach the 17-year-old two-star linebacker who just committed. But it's also fun to follow a team with that kind of intensity. I could guess within a few slots where everyone would be drafted, usually by the time they were just sophomores or early in their junior year.

I knew who would probably transfer. I knew which plays worked and which didn't and where the recruiting gaps were and which assistant was responsible for filling those gaps and how good a job he was doing at that. It got to the point where quotes felt almost superfluous, because you just have your finger on the pulse of the program, and I liked that for some weird reason.

WORST
1. The pay. I know this is taboo around here, because "money isn't everything" and poverty is a badge of honor, but I'm married and beginning to start a family. And I'm tired of every time the brakes go out in the car, I'm paying interest on it until some windfall helps me get back into the black again. I'm tired of not being able to take my wife to a nice restaurant without breaking the bank. I'm tired of not taking vacations with my wife to some of those great travel destinations that I get to see on the job. If my children want to go to Princeton or Harvard, I want them to be able to. I'm tired of having to stretch every paycheck to its limit.

2. The wall between reporter and source. It always made me feel almost sub-human. It's not that I want to be one of the boys. I get it that we're not really of their world, and that's fine with me. I don't want to be - I want to document it. But a few years of "availibility" and regimentation and sports information directors - and I liked the ones I dealt with a lot - lording over me and 15 other people as we try to pry quotes out of an overwhelmed, overcoached 19-year-old ... yeah, that kind of wears on you a little when the other kids you graduated with at the top of your h.s. and colleges classes are heart surgeons and corporate VPs and so forth and so on. It makes you feel like a pariah.

3. The hours. I was fortunate enough that this one never bothered me too tremendously much, but I don't think I had too many years of it left in the tank. When I was working the late, late hours on high schools and then MLB, I wasn't married or living with my girlfriend (now wife) yet. When we got married, I became a football writer, and those are the best hours around. Now, you might get home at 8 or 8:30 three nights a week, and you're there a long time, but you aren't working vampire hours. Now that I've been stringing some prep games and don't get home until 10-11 or so, I realize that there's no way I would want that lifestyle permanently.

4. The industry's lack of vision. I guess this isn't sports writer-specific. It goes for the entire newsroom. But I grew tired of being a foot soldier under an incompetent army of generals. I decided I wanted to take control of my own existence, which isn't the case when you're a writer at the bottom of the company totem pole.

5. "The toy department" stigma. A lot of people here don't care about this, and good for them. I see posts all the time about "I get to watch sports for a living! And get paid!" I cringe at that. I really do. Because I never looked at it that way. I was contributing to a product - the newspaper - that brought in money. I was providing information for people, or helping them make sense of the information available to them with informed analysis.

And yet there was always a part of me that wanted to be on news side, covering murders or corporate mergers or elections. I don't know if I felt what I covered wasn't that important, or if the whole "toy department" thing made me want to prove my chops to newsies who look down at sports writers. Probably a little of both.

 

I appreciate hearing some kind comments about what I have written and feel pretty dang good when I happen to win an award, which I was very fortunate to do in the 2008 FWAA contest.
But I've also learned, after being in this gig a long time, to take everything with a huge heap of salt.
As soon as you start believing a lot of this, at least in my viewpoint, you're heading to a dead end.