What do you guys write about during downtime?

Ditto, what the Wise Man, said.

 

It sounds like you guys live in a different world than me. Hockey? Wrestling? Cheerleading? We have baseball, basketball, football and a few HS's have soccer. That's it. So any other suggestions?

 

What is this "downtime" thing, again?

 

Our "downtime" of two weeks is working on the basketball preview tab with high school hockey and wrestling sprinkled in with some NAIA basketball.

 

As mostly a one-sport freelancer, my downtime is the entire offseason. Once the games dry up, I'm scouring for stories and trying to convince editors I'm an expert who deserves compensation for a variety of topics from technology to fashion. Do some photography work, some product reviews (that I'm lucky enough to get free from PR contacts), and write the occasional college paper for friends.

The downtime really isn't welcome.

 

Just because there aren't organized school teams of it out there doesn't mean people aren't doing it. If you have some down time, now is the time when you want to scout for things like club volleyball teams, soccer, etc. I just found out tonight that apparently, there is an AAU-like outdoor soccer league year-round in my area.

Just kick the tires a bit with some coaches that you have a good relationship with and ask them if they have any coverage ideas. You might stumble on things like a group of five to seven players who lift every day after school, etc., just anything kind of neat and off the beaten path.

 

Once we call all the area coaches for the "Christmas Wish List" and "New Year's Resolution" stories, things have pretty well started up, again.

 

Take vacation . When I was in the biz, I pretty much was a rumor around the office in July (the dead month) because our publisher demanded something local and I wasn't about to begin writing Little League gamers just to keep him happy.

End of the year -- time to pull out profiles of local college players, maybe a "big picture" feature you've been working on for some time. I like to do a mid-season assessment of the local basketball teams around that time. I've asked coaches and athletes for the one thing they'd want on their Christmas/holiday lists sports-related, maybe a good feature, I've done new year's resolutions, an end-of-year wrapup.

Where I am, the week before Christmas is often pretty dead, with a smattering of prep basketball games. The week after always included our county basketball tournament and some huge wrestling invitationals, so we never wanted for much. I'd have the county basketball tourney previews (boys & girls) in the can to run on the 26th & 27th, and then we'd have game coverage thereafter.

 

Year one of cheerleading was a huge feature with preview on the team and what people thought of the sport.
Last year - preview on what the team hopes to accomplish.
This year, same as last, only with different names. It's shitty, but it sells papers.

 

Yep, I have a list of features/enterprise stories two pages long that I would like to do if/when "downtime" arrives.

We also have Male and Female Athlete of the Year, top stories of the year, which we normally run during Christmas week when we actually don't have live events to cover.

 

Thank God I don't have to do the Top Stories year-ender anymore. I used to dread the hell out of that. One entry would always be the catch-all HS state champions, and I would invariably miss a small-school division relay at the state track meet or something. And they would invariably bitch.

 

I don't blame 'em.