Pearlman does preps

Jeff,

It might have been overwritten, but that doesn't mean the writing was bad, and I actually didn't think it was. It was clear you were writing from another level than the typical first-time writer who overwrites something, and it really was a case of too much of a good thing, for the game/circumstances.

I was just surprised at the sense of surprise -- wonder, even, that I felt in the writing, and in the fact that the stats guy wouldn't share his information with you. But, maybe that was just exactly because, after many years, you were coming to it with fresh eyes again. I had that happen once, after I'd taken a little break from writing, and then gone out and covered a high school game for the first time in a while.

It felt good to "be back," and it made me remember, and feel, why.

 

Does anyone else think it's strange that the stat guy wouldn't share? What a dick.

 

Take it to another thread, Whitman.

Things that bug sports journalists | Page 9 | SportsJournalists.com

 

I've sure as hell read much worse gamers than that.

I guess some people don't like atmosphere to interfere with their play-by-play.

 

Without clicking through and reading anything beyond this thread...

Writing a feature with the final score in it is totally OK to me. In fact, I'd encourage it. But that's not the "traditional gamer" it seems like most people here are looking for from Friday night football.

With so much of the basic information already out there, the feature route is not necessarily a bad way to go. It can cover for a lack of knowledge about a particular sport, since the focus is on a person or trend rather than game analysis. It can also make deadline easier because much of the reporting and writing for the feature can be done in advance.

That said, I'll go back and actually read the original story and blog post... when I'm done writing my next feature. Jeff, thanks for sharing the backstory with us directly.

 

The thing that stood out the most to me was the unnecessary comparisons to professional athletes. These aren't pros. They aren't anywhere close to pros. They'll never be anything close to pros. So skip the comparisons to Russell Wilson and particularly to Mark Sanchez. A fumbled snap in a game between two bad high school teams isn't really a noteworthy event.

 

This should not have been a game story, should have been a sidebar or second-day ... or a special to the Laguna Beach weekly.
He forgot that he was covering the game and there were two teams on the field. Laguna and Bolsa are both O.C. schools. OCR covers both.
He forgot that names sell papers (3 Laguna players named plus coach, no Bolsa players named).
I'd bet that Bolsa's roster is not much bigger than Laguna's.
The only references to Bolsa portrayed it as a bunch of stumblebums, yet, it was only one score away from beating QB McDreamy. Somebody scored for Bolsa, wonder who it was.

 

I'm going to take this rare opportunity to give direct criticism to someone who has accomplished way more in the business than I probably ever will, and hope I'm not tugging on Superman's cape.
I'll follow along the lines of what others have said, in that the writing itself wasn't bad, the idea of taking a chance and doing something different wasn't necessarily bad, it was just the wrong time and place for it. You can do a good first-day gamer that offers insight/analysis, a feature angle AND some stats and play-by-play in around 500 words, and it doesn't necessarily make it boring or awful. And then you can use the same material a day later to do features or second-day stories that are more like this one.
This would have been fine as a second-day story or feature (maybe with some of the flowing prose toned down), or as a jumping-off point for a magazine feature. As a Saturday morning newspaper read, it's out of its element.

I'd compare it to working in fast food or retail, or some other fairly mindless grunt-level work like that. One day, the CEO visits and makes a big point to pitch in and stock shelves or work the line when things get busy ... only it's been 20 years since they've done it, so they're out of practice and screw everything up.
The CEO obviously knows what they're doing, or they wouldn't have gotten to where they are. The muscle memory is there, it's just out of shape. They're also coming at things from a business standpoint and not an operational standpoint, so they're thinking in terms of marketing, sales, product placement, etc. But to the grunts who punch the clock every day to work at that operational level, the CEO's efforts are at first humorous and then increasingly more annoying and condescending. He's trying to show that even though he hasn't worked at that level in 20 years he thinks he can come in off the street and do it better than them.
Jeff is the CEO. He's working at a different level than those of us trying to do a hundred different things on Friday night. He's writing in a style that's fine for SI, but to those of us who have read dozens of hamfisted attempts at copying that style it makes us groan and punch the wall because we know we have to edit it and make it readable. Too many people try to write for SI, when they should be writing in a more basic style.
He's taking a different approach to it that isn't necessarily wrong, but it's not necessarily right either. As a one-off stringer story it might have been a fun diversion for everyone involved. If he was suddenly having to work the Laguna Beach or Bolsa beat, having to plan and put out a section later that night and in the following days, and do the type of grunt work a lot of us do on a day-to-day basis then a different, more basic approach is warranted.
High school football gamers can be formulaic. It can be mindless drudgery with little room for creative freedom. But there is an art and a science to it. Part of that is learning when and how to inject color into the story without letting it overwhelm it, like what happened here.

 

I think you've been gone too long. There is no Bolsa Grande beach . I think you mean Bolsa Chica.

 

Bolsa Chica indeed. Too long gone.

But I did cover a Bolsa Grande game or 2.

 

Do a lot of you guys get back to it after your kids are no longer spending their own Friday nights at home?

I did it again once about four years ago, and I just didn't want to give up the family time any more.