How do you approach game coverage?

If you're like me, covering a six-team or eight-team high school basketball league, how do you approach games?

Do you cover each game from the winner's angle?

Do you cover every game from the home team's perspective?

Do you cover it from the angle of which team had more to lose? Or gain?

Obviously, I find a quirky angle or storyline about a player. Tonight, it was a player who was asked to do a better job on rebounding after dismal performace at a tourney, then he went out and grabbed a game-high total in his team's road win.

Just wondering what others do?

I think it's tough to cover each team "fairly" as parents say. I just pick a story, usually from the winners, and run with it.

 

off topic, but never use "grabbed" in a story when writing about rebounds

ever

 

"snared," however, is golden.

 

If it's any consolation, I didn't tonight. Why I did in the post? No clue.

 

Fastest threadjack ever. Nice work, write.


Personally, when its two local teams playing each other, I go with the winner. I try to find a way to featurize it as best I can, or at least eliminate as much play by play as possible, and provide as much context as possible. Tonight I covered a game between last year's league winner and the team it beat to win the league, which had won five straight league titles before losing last year. The defending champ lost four starters from last year, was expected to suck but won and is coming together much quicker than anyone thought. There's some rivalry history from last year there as well. The story practically wrote itself.

As for the losing team, I had a few graphs on what place they're in and why they've struggled because it's so unusual for that team to do so. I've always figured that the team that lost doesn't mind so much when you don't spend the whole story pointing out why it lost.

 

I just noticed that Write was the first to say never use the word "grabbed" but never offered up an alternative word choice. I'm just sayin'.

Oh, by the way, in tonight's story, I said he corralled 15 rebounds.

Before there's argument:

cor·ral /kəˈræl/ Pronunciation Key - Show Spelled Pronunciation[kuh-ral] Pronunciation Key - Show IPA Pronunciation noun, verb, -ralled, -ral·ling.
–noun 1. an enclosure or pen for horses, cattle, etc.
2. a circular enclosure formed by wagons during an encampment, as by covered wagons crossing the North American plains in the 19th century, for defense against attack.
–verb (used with object)
3. to confine in or as if in a corral.
4. Informal.
a. to seize; capture.
b. to collect, gather, or garner

 

You won't use grabbed but you used "corralled?"
Good thing I wasn't editing that copy.

 

I never said I wouldn't use grabbed. I said I didn't tonight.

Just wondering, would have changed it to "had 11 rebounds?"

And if so, THAT'S why people lose interest in reading, every story reads the same fucking way.

 

Yeah, you're right Sue Me. We need colorful writing.
We need to use bullshit words like corralled.
Using normal English is boring.


Note to self: add "corralled" to the banned list in case one of our HS hoops writers decides to get stupid some night.

 

THAT'S thinking I hate to hear from a writer. You write with CLEAR words, and you'll be readable. There's nothing worse than the writer who tries to find 37 different synonyms for the verb "scored."

 

I assume this is how you’d want the story to read:

Tuesday night, the Podunk Puppies beat the Bumville Bandits 48-24 in a senior high school basketball regular season game.
On the weekend, at a tournament, forward Tom Smith was not good at rebounding. His coach, Bob Jones, wanted him to get better. Smith had a game-high 15 rebounds Tuesday. He also scored eight points.
Tim Pop had 10 points for Podunk.
Bryan White had 15 points for Bumville.
Earlier in the season, Bumville beat Podunk because they scored more second-chance points.
Tuesday, Podunk had more defensive rebounds than Bumville had offensive rebounds. That was a big factor.
Podunk is now 4-3 and Bumville is 5-2, and not in first place anymore.

Seriously, if your reader doesn't know the meaning of - or can't appreciate - a word other than "had" or "scored" he or she shouldn't be reading in the first place.
And if your writers are different from those down the street, what makes your product better, more interesting or more enticing?