Favorite lede you've written

Nonsense. The score should be clearly visible in the packaging of the story, in most cases, but it doesn't need to be in the lede.

Before the jump? Yes.

 

I wouldn't be so sure Henry. I think this is the kind of free thinking that's going to save newspapers.

 

Damn, I like that. Nice job.

 

I have a similar first name and the same last name as a Rose Bowl quarterback from a few years ago. I wrote a feature on him in which the lede, under my byline, said:

What's the greatest thing about xxxxx xxxxx besides his name.

We put an editor's note at the bottom saying the writer and the quarterback are not related.


Another one was a feature on Hank Gathers, who was an awful free-throw shooter and had really ugly form. The lede to the fun feature was:

What is worse, fingernails on a chalkboard or watching Hank Gathers shoot free throws?

 

When Nicklaus won the '86 Masters:

The crowd roared Sunday at Augusta National, but the Bear roared louder.

 

If that's your philosophy, you truly are expendable.

 

I covered a SWAC game between Alcorn State and Mississippi Valley State in 1999 or 2000. Alcorn ended up going 0-11, and Valley got one win -- when it beat Alcorn that day. It was a nasty day, muddy, and the game was sloppy. I think the final was something like 13-3.
It started raining, hard, about 10 minutes after kickoff and stopped right as the game was ending. My lede?

"The football gods wept on the Delta Saturday."

Going on 10 years later, and it's still my favorite.

 

I haven't been back on this thread since my first post, but I thought the sarcasm was dripping enough without the blue font. Apparently I was wrong.

 

"Call me Ishmael"

 

OK... so this is a gamer from a state semifinal basketball game that finished at Noon one day -- some 17 hours before the paper hit the stands and after all the local TV stations had it at 5 and 10 p.m. newscasts. Since the game's time made it old news by the time the paper came out, why would anyone write a lead consumed by the final score?

---

You’re a guard who hit just one shot in the game and that was 26 minutes ago. ¶

Your teammate who usually gets the call in this situation has been on the bench with five fouls for an eternity and the play, so carefully crafted on the sideline, fell apart quicker than the time it takes to read this sentence. ¶

What do you do? ¶

Big Suburb's guard Jimmy Job Bubba’s answer was simple and to the point. Drive the lane, make the basket, win the game, send the Rednecks to the finals for the first time in school history. ¶

That’s the simple version of Big Suburb’s 48-44 semifinal win against Southern School. The more complex answer: The Rednecks stole one they had no business winning. ¶

“We were trying to run a play and it broke down,” said Bubba, whose only other basket was a first-quarter 3-pointer. “The play just opened up and I drove the lane.” ¶

The bucket gave Big Suburb the lead for good with four seconds left – a lead that was sealed a blink of an eye later when Southern School called a timeout it didn’t have, earning a technical foul and cementing the win for the fifth-ranked Rednecks (31-4) and earning the right to face Overrated in today’s 7 p.m. final. ¶

 

"The football gods..."

UGH!

 

My favorite I've ever read was from a high school football game where a team's star player got hurt. Not sure if it was too insensitive or not:

Jimmy Quarterback had the three biggest moments for Eisenhower on Friday.
First he intercepted a pass and returned it 40 yards for a touchdown.
Then he broke free for a 40-yard scramble on a busted play on offense.
Then he didn't get up.