Speaking At Career Days

Go into law.

 

Tell funny sports stories from your experience, drop some cool names that they would know, and wrap it up by telling them that in the title "sports writer", the "writing" is about 80% of the job and "sports" is 20%.

 

Encourage the class to ask you questions. Before you go to class, ask the teacher if each student can prepare a question to ask.

 

Advice? Run! Run like hell!!!

I've done a few of these even if you don't count the times my mom has me come to her kindergarten class to tell them how important it is to read and write and pay attention to her. Cougar's idea is a good one...the last non-kindergarten class I spoke to all had questions ready.

 

Tell them about SportsJournalists.com and let them know that we are looking for new blood.

Seriously. Tell them what you would have thought was interesting when you were young. Have a story ready about how you decided to do what you are doing. Questions are always the easiest rout.

Good luck.

 

Tell them about the groupies.
Y'all do get groupies, right?

 

Diddy is one cool dude to go work for -- and he's hiring!

 

do the groupies have to be of legal age?

 

I wish.

I was intimidated by those little fuckers.

Combined with my being shaky teaching anything to begin with.... it wasn't the best.

However, one eighth-grade girl said I changed her life. Go figure.

It was the exact opposite of a Pyrrhic victory.

 

Some years ago at my last paper, the ME brought a bunch of us to talk to her son's sixth-grade class. The other people talked to them like they were children. I was supposed to talk about design and I brought a bunch of newspapers, including some in foreign languages, to try to teach them that even if you had no idea what they were saying, you could tell what's important by its play on a page. The ME said, "I think you went a bit over the heads." The features bitch said, "It's obvious you don't have kids." I felt like an idiot, although I clearly remember being 11 and being able to understand some adult conversation. A couple weeks later, the ME was a big enough person to call me into her office and show me the thank-you notes the kids wrote, and those who mentioned learning anything mentioned what I taught them, maybe because I was the only one who tried to teach them how something works. I will never forget her for doing that, but I also never will forget that if you try to give them something and don't treat them like idiots, you will reach some of them.

 

My advice? Drink heavily.