Seeking SEC football features pitches from freelancers

Currently I'm looking for three things at SDS:

• Experienced reporters interested in pitching and writing strong features ideas. We're paying between $100 and $1,000 per story, and would not rule out more than that for the right writer/idea. We're still early in the game in terms of branching out into more reporting and feature writing. For example, recently we went to Indianapolis and followed around Dak Prescott. Anything with reporting or research counts. There are a ton of SEC-related ideas here -- I have some that I haven't found the right writers to produce, and I need to get to the point where we're getting regular pitches.
• Potential beat writers for the bigger SEC schools. It's going to be some time yet before I'm able to hire a full-time beat writer to cover programs like Alabama and Georgia. But I'd like to work in that direction this year by getting regular freelance work from someone in Tuscaloosa, Athens, etc. If someone proves they can add value as a paid freelancer, we could hire one or more full-time team beat writers in 2017.
• Regular freelance contributors. We're in the process of upgrading our content standard across the board. Our numbers are reduced during the offseason. We're offering $30 per post for stories that don't involve reporting -- i.e. 5 most important SEC players missing spring practice. Most of these stories take 1-2 hours, some less. We've had a few of our regular freelancers lose availability this month. There's not much room here, and I'm not going to add people just to add. But if you're a talented freelancer (or a full-time journalist looking to make a little extra money writing SEC football), please contact me.

My email is csmith@saturdaydownsouth.com. Please send me links to your work and a resume if you're interested. I'm open to questions as well.

-Christopher Smith, Editor-in-Chief