How will sports writers establish an alibi?

Or the tweeted pregame photo of the teams warming up and of the pregame captain's meeting!

 

Note to self: MOAR PLAY-BY-PLAY!!

 

Peterson's parents should be bludgeoned for naming their son "Paisley."

 

#TodaysOffice

#guilty

 

Last week we had two high school football playoff games each being played three hours away. I was watching a live stream of one while listening to the other on the radio (via an internet stream). I took notes and called the coaches afterward. Didn't miss much.

 

I hope you list multitasking on your list of skills!

 

A few years ago, it was two soccer teams in Section finals and a basketball team in Section playoffs. Other writer went to hoops, I stayed in the office and had browsers open to soccer webcasts. Plus I called a guy who was recording one of soccer games, so could get a couple of more details on that one. Wasn't the greatest, but it was something.

 

Co-sign the OP on this one. I don't understand why people never try to include color in gamers. The problem is there are always fellow writers (like the person who made the quarter jokes a few posts ago) who think adding color is overwriting, which is silly. Stories should have something that people who watched the game couldn't get anywhere else. Otherwise, there's no reason to read your copy.

 

Oh, I regularly write from the radio broadcast when the local team is on the road. I'm going to listen anyways, so might as well get a head start on the game story. Haven't quite mastered the two-at-once thing though. Maybe in a couple years...

 

I've always wondered, if Red Smith or Grantland Rice came along today, would they become iconic sports writers? Or would they never make it out of Podunk because their writing was overblown and too fluffy for its own good?
I read a story by Red Smith about the Bobby Thomson's home run against the Dodgers. It was great and pretty writing, but looking at it through a modern lens it sucked ass as a game story. He tells the back story of the series and never once directly mentions -- even in passing -- the final score of the game. In a parallel universe where Smith had never written that, I can picture some preps reporter at the Podunk Times turning in the exact same piece as a high school gamer in 2016 and getting his ass chewed for it. I know I would fuss at one of my writers if they did that.
Our business tends to beat creativity out of people.

 

Adding "I was here" detail is helpful. Always. If a kid knocks down a pylon scoring a key TD, that's helpful.

But it has to be natural and notable, and it needs to be within the flow of the narrative.

Good writing should be stripped to its core - nouns, verbs, some adjectives, few adverbs - with padding added in key places as writers learn how to add those things in the right way. Too often today, writers start with the discursive and get stuck in that mode. The business led them there - we celebrate longform and the not-profound 2,500-word feature to much too great a degree - but it's a bad habit.

 

Agreed. I remember gathering some of my clips a few years ago, and one of the best ones was a nondescript 700-word high school football gamer. It was from a nothing burger of a game in September, but it hit every major point you'd want to with some detail and insight, without lingering on anything. It was just solid and to the point like it should be.

One of the things I've become most proud of as I've become a veteran of the business isn't the awards I've won. It's that, on my worst day, I feel like I'm still a competent writer whose work is better than 75 percent of the people in the business. I've learned what beats to hit and when, and how to frame a story. Not every story I write is going to be an award-winner and it doesn't need to be. It just needs to be free of mistakes and not suck.
I like to compare myself a good character actor or studio musician. Not a star, but someone you can rely on to deliver a good performance every time out.
That's a strange thing to strive for, but in this business it'll earn you a hell of a good reputation.