Rant: This business is not that tough

Second grade?! Holy @#$! ... guess it's been a long time since I was in second grade.

 

Tell me about it.

I didn't see a weapon in any school until I started covering preps and ventured back into the high schools that produced my folks.

Nice.

 

True, but things are different if you are covering a d-1 football program instead of watching your own. You are taking in a special experience many people will never be able to do in their lives.

 

The problem with sportswriting as a career, besides the lousy pay and long hours, is that you are on deadline most of the time and can never really just "mail it in" if you want to keep your job.

A lot of other professions you can dawdle through the day and look busy, and if you get one or two things done, you are in pretty good shape. As a writer, if you come up blank, that's just not gonna cut it. That hole in the paper has to be filled, on time, with something that won't bring the walls down around you. That is stress.

Add in lousy management, and it makes what should be a very rewarding career more stressful than it's worth many times.

 

Sorry, dude. Trying to be sympathetic here, because you're young -- but what you're talking about should have NO bearing on your job satisfaction. If it is, well, maybe you don't have a very good idea of what you're getting into.

On a thread about "having it tough," not being a good fan because you're working all the time is down there around No. 1,512,868 on the list of things to complain/worry/wonder about.

 

One of the board sages once said that if you care more about the sports than the writing, you're in the wrong business.

As to the original post, define "tough." I'm guessing there are some people here who wouldn't be able to handle my full-time job (shift work in a factory), but I also know I've got a hell of a long way to go before I can turn out a passable gamer on a tight deadline. So which is tougher?

 

Thank you for the most reasonable response on this thread. There are many forms of "tough." Physical labor is not the only definition, at least to some of us.

 

No kidding. One of my wife's best friends teaches in a high school that is filled with so-called "troubled" youth. We went to visit her just as school was letting out one day and wound up on lockdown in a classroom because -- as we later learned -- apparently one of the school's security officers saw a drug deal in the parking lot and one of the kids pulled a gun. Jeez.
There are many different definitions of tough, both mental and physical, but man, dealing with that kind of an atmosphere every day? Too tough for me.

 

Look. It's a tough gig for some. It's a good one for others. Everybody's going at it from their own experiences.

I'm sure not going to tell Mizzou he doesn't have it tough; I can't relate to waking up and wondering what the hell town I'm in.

I don't put a lot of stock in deadline pressure being a deal-breaker. That's the job. A lot of people thrive under it. And if they don't, this might not have been the right business to get into.

I feel fortunate in some ways that I always knew I wanted to be in this profession. And as a result, it's always been a little like sex -- even when it's been bad, it's been better for me than most anything else I could think of.

If I could be sure I'd have the same position for the next 15 years, chances are I'd jump at that. Of course, nothing like that is a sure thing anymore.

 

Only problem is, most of us aren't going to get our happy ending.

Bada bing!

 

And I do have to take exception with one of The Method's main premises.

Yes, you DO need an element of toughness to be a sportswriter. At least, you do to be an upper-crust sportswriter.

There are a lot of reporters, and we've all seen them, who either don't have the depth to attack difficult stories or the stones to ask the difficult question.

 

Ruh-oh. When Shottie talks sex, the Codas know its time to hit the bottle.





As for the topic at hand? Man, I'm just sick and tired of hearing about bitching on any subject right now ...











... unless its about Ned Yost.