Covering the SUPER BOWL

if you really want to, you can find good stories that nobody else is writing Super Bowl week

trust me. if you really want to, you can write your ass off. there are so many stories off the beaten path. now, are you going to get 1-on-1s with the top 10 guys on the roster? no. but Wednesday and Thursday you're going to get access to everybody on the roster for an hour and the bottom 30 to 35 guys plus assistant coaches you can get at length. there are so many good stories that aren't beaten written to death. find 'em. it'll take some work the week before the Super Bowl. dig around. read clips files. google your ass off. talk to people. call people. ask around. talk to PR guys.

I've covered a bunch of Super Bowls and it can be done. you just have to want to do it and don't take the easy way out and follow the pack.

 

Ask the coaches a lot of questions about Coors Light and you might wind up in one of those commercials.

 

Here's a column on staying home this year after covering so many Super Bowls in previous years:

http://www.presstelegram.com/sports/ci_5116109

Here's a couple of excerpts:

"I won't miss having to walk through the media center where, inevitably, I would have to pass by radio row where, inevitably, a lot of loud-mouthed guys - and now even some gals - spew a lot a irritating psycho babble and ridiculous opinions and where, inevitably, I would always come across that squeaky-voiced twerp, Jim Rome, reigning pinup boy for the dumbing down of America. ...

"I won't miss having to see Chris Berman, a nice guy, and always thinking to myself how much fatter he seems to get every year."

 

If you hadn't been goofing off in the press box, you would've gotten it. [/rockbottom]

 

And not just the players' stories.

Always hate to bring up a board favorite (cause it seems like everyone else brings him up anyway), but one thing that made Wright Thompson's Super Bowl stuff so enjoyable when he was with the KC Star was that he had stories no one else did. Last year, he went to Ohio and found out what happened to the guy who was ahead of Ben Roethlisberger on the high school depth chart. He went to Papa and Mama Bettis' house and hung out with them for an afternoon while they cooked and prepared a meal for family. And he went to coal mines in western Pennsylvania to get the workman's perspective on what the Steelers meant to the region.

And they were all damn good stories with plenty of legwork.

The stories are there. Can you get stories like those three? With enough time and money, yes. And even if you don't have time and money, you should still be able to find different angles. You just have to plan.

 

Here's another excerpt. I'll leave you to parse the "sentence"

...There was a time in my existence, for instance, that the prospect of my not attending a Super Bowl in person, of which I have 26 times, would have been unbearable and would have inspired angry protestation from me at such an indignity. ...


Methinks the columnist doth protest too much, engaging in overarching bitterness, of which he may have before, in protestation of the budget cut indignity.

Or else he's just turned into a cranky old codger.

Man, readers just do NOT want to read that kind of stuff. Their first response when they see that is, "What, chump, you don't wanna go? I'll trade places with you in a second."

 

Dear Mr. Bobcat: I think you should note the stories by Thompson you cited were off-site, that is, they weren't happening at the Super Bowl itself. You may also note none involved the Seahawks.
Pittsburgh is a 4-hour drive from Detroit, so Thompson, an excellent reporter whose work I admire, availed himself of the opportunity to pursue these angles. If last year's Bowl had been in Miami, he couldn't have.
And while Thompson went afield, rest assured the Star had reporters and columnists doing the school figures reporting back in Detroit.

 

Jeebus. This guy's covered 26 Super Bowls yet he writes like a college freshman. The first except ballscribe provided is the mother of all run-on sentences. Quit bitching about the Super Bowl, chief, and learn how to use a period once in a while.

 

I'll second that. I've been working my ass off this week.

 

At least that'll help keep it supple. Just sayin.

 

OK I did go watch Prince. Just to compare supple asses.