Covering a sport you know nothing about

I read that as "y'all" at first.

 

Volleyball. Played some in PE class in junior high, but that was it until a few of the high schools around here started playing it a few years ago. I've covered a few matches, and I still wouldn't know a kill from a dig, but I've learned enough to know which players are good and where the momentum shifts occur to focus on in post-game.

However, sometimes even sports you think you know can fool you. I've been a college basketball fan for most of my life, and when I started working for the school newspaper in college, one of my first assignments was to cover one of their games. Local U. got trounced and defense was a big reason why, so after the game I interviewed the coach, and asked him about Visiting State's zone defense. He looked at me kind of funny, and replied, "they played man the entire game." Oops.

 

This is a fairly good example of how to cover a sport with which you are unfamiliar:

 

Much agreed. When I started covering high school wrestling, I did exactly that. The wrestling people are so evangelical about their sport, they bent over backwards to explain it (scoring, strategy, et al) to anyone who might have any interest. I became a pretty solid wrestling writer during my time as an SE, although I haven't willingly watched any matches since.

 

First time I covered a track and cross country meet, I had no clue what the hell I was doing. Wrestling, though, was easy since the high school I went to was -- and still is -- one of the top teams in the state.

 

100 percent agree with this. If coaches, especially on the high school level know that you don't know a lot about the sport but that you're willing to learn, there shouldn't be any issues.

 

You can always ask the wrestling coach why he keeps yelling shoot when doing so would get the kid pinned in 5 seconds because he has poor balance and not strong enough to escape.

 

My first wrestling experience tonight went without a hitch, because that little bit of research I did equipped me to not come across as an idiot.

The one thing that threw me was the refs, with their big wristbands and hand signals that were foreign to me. I kept waiting for one of them to go to the middle of the mat, point both fingers and yell, "DODGEBALL!"

 

Hahaha.

Once you get the hand signals down, wrestling is pretty easy to cover.

 

Hand signals are pretty easy.

Takedown = Two fingers in the air
Reversal = Doing the false start motion (or traveling in basketball)
Near-fall points = Either 2 or 3 fingers tapping on the shoulders
Potentially dangerous situation = One hand on the back of the head
Illegal hold = Two hands on the back of the head
Locking hands = Holding the hands together above the head
Unsportsmanlike conduct = One hand straight out to the side
Flagrant misconduct (Which means an ejection) = Tapping the top of the head with one hand

That's about all you need to know

 

Volleyball and rodeo always aggravated me. Especially bad HS girls volleyball. Rodeo? Jeebers, the few rodeo events (usually the summer) that I went to was an adventure in terminology. Coggins never seemed to look right in any format. The way they describe the pots is mind-boggling. I always dreamed of what it would be like to talk to the bull rode, the calf that was roped, the steer that was wrestled with. Now that would have been a great read.

 

Fencing. Happens too quickly to understand anything.

Same with diving. Jump, flip flip flip, splash.