Why do I do it?

i find myself asking that a good bit of late because i've been in this biz a good while. but really, i only start to ponder that question most of the time after friends and others ask me why i keep doing it. honestly, i love being a sportswriter 95 percent of the time. the other five percent is putting up with some crap from some folks who have no clue what we go through in this business at times ("oh, you're a sportswriter..man, you get in games free, go to exotic places, yada, yard..gee, betcha that's fun and easy to do.")...the deadline pressures, computer breakdowns, tough-to-deal with coaches, etc..but the good times far outweigh the bad. and it's also the only thing i think i could do. i've never done anything else. sometimes, i'll look down at my hands and thank the Lord over and over for being blessed with the gift. really, i do...so we keep doing it.

 

Before I got pushed out, I did what I did for a lot of reasons. Namely, it was what I was passionate about -- sports and writing -- and I loved to convey a story about an intense game to anyone who was willing to pick up a paper. I loved to hear said people ask me for more insight about a game after they read the story.

I loved talking to the stary-eyed kid who just hit the game-winning 3-pointer. I loved interviewing a tearful coach after an emotional loss and picking his brain to find out exactly what he felt at the moment.

I loved walking into an 18,000-seat arena and seeing my state's all-time leading scorer stick a 27-foot, turnaround jumper in a state championship game that brought the entire arena to its feat. I loved watching a team from a town no one's heard of kicking the ever-loving crap out of LeBron James' alma mater in the regional, and watching in awe as its fans chanted, "Who's your daddy?! clap clap, clap clap clap. Who's your Daddy?! clap clap, clap clap clap."

I loved watching a small group of girls from a town with no stoplight win two softball state championships in three years. I loved watching another small-school volleyball team win 5 consecutive state championships, a team that was so beautiful to watch it was downright poetic. I loved watching a little-used freshman step in and serve the game-winning point of that school's first state title.

I loved watching a team get outrebounded by 40 in a state championship game, only to lose by two points because it hit 10 3-pointers, and pressured the other team as if its collective lives depended on it.

I loved watching a high school pitcher who went on to play in the minor leagues will his team to a district championship after the plate umpire squeezed him into 12 walks.

This past football season, I loved watching a team that started 2-2 will its way to a league championship and a playoff spot by beating three state-ranked teams on the road.

Most of all, I loved being afforded the opportunity to put these stories into words. I hope I get the chance again.

 

This is about the best damn post I've read in a long time. I don't know you, but we walk a shared journey.

Like you, I'm ready to "move on", as my friends encourage me. But I lack the advanced training, and resources to acquire such, that I need to "move on". The idea of starting a new career at age 45 or so --- after 2-3 years of full-time schooling --- with thousands of dollars MORE in debt scares me.

I feel stuck, right along with you. Thanks for sharing your feelings.

 

Great, great stuff.

I just wish the bean-counters understood the passion that most of us have for our jobs. Hell, it's never been about 9-to-5 with us or how many pennies were in the paycheck. We do it for all the reasons you so eloquently described. And, because of that, it hurts all the more to be told that we're not wanted or needed doing the one thing we love.

 

No, but you can make a plan and follow it through and take charge of your own life and career. There are avenues available to everyone, if they are willing to put in the time and make some changes.

 

The alternative is getting to 2013 or being 45 and NOT being in the position to start a new career. And with your current career being gone or almost gone.

I don't think the choice is continuing as is or starting anew. There is no continuing. Most journalism jobs are going to go away out from under us. It's only going to get much worse. Then you will be starting over anyway.

I cover a profession with many second-career types. People who have gone back for 2 1/2 years of school and a new profession in their late 50s, even. It may not feel like it, but there's a whole lifetime after 45. I've seen plenty of people live it.

Yes, it can be a very long, very difficult road. But better to get started down it as soon as possible.

Because this current road is quickly washing out.

 

I understand there's a "You should only worry about things you can control" element to our working lives. But I also think that part of being an adult is seeing that horrible mismanagement is at least partly responsible for running this business onto the rocks and that the gap between what it is supposed to be, and what it is, is growing greater by the day. And acting on that realization.

One of my frustrations with sports journalists is that, in my experience, both our commitment/passion and our apathy are greater. We work arguably the worst and longest hours in a typical newsroom, we file for less OT, we go the extra yard more often and so on. And yet, we get less involved in union roles, we go-along-and-get-along with management without questioning and, again, so on. I think those traits combine to get us pats on the heads from the bosses and an image too often lacking in seriousness when viewed from the glass offices.

There's a point where, for me, I feel like an enabler, and that -- if I'm not actively making the situation in-house better (or feel blunted to do so) -- I no longer can throw that amount of dedication and effort into a misguided business, run by too many folks who don't share the same passion or are feathering their nests with way bigger paychecks. It's hard for me not to feel foolish for blithely covering a few little games and taking that role more seriously than it seems our alleged leaders do in their responsibilities.

So maybe I've moved on to the question of, not so much why I do it, but for whom do I choose to do it now? I know there aren't great (if any) alternatives for most of us. But I don't want to give that much of me and my family, at the costs involved in time and $ sacrifice, to ineffective and unappreciative bosses.

It's OK to feel like I'm giving better than I'm getting from this career choice, but only up to a point. Everyone's line in the sand is different. But mine, I believe, has been crossed. So the choices now are a) to have this business somehow cross back over, to where it's all worth it again; b) to backpedal and draw new girly-man lines in the sand, to the point that none of them really means anything anymore, or c) get out on the closest thing possible to "my" terms. Otherwise, sure enough, it'll be on someone else's.

 

It's just kind of hit me that my livelihood is in the hands of some of the dumbest people on earth: newspaper executives. I still enjoy my job, and I'm not desperately looking to get out, but that's not sitting too well with me right now.

 

i don't mean this in one of those "pat myself on the back" situations, but I really believe i put more passion and dedication into my daily gig as the sports editor than anybody else on our staff, save for another fellow sports scribe who is equally as passionate. we're a two-member staff on a small daily and the two of us together knock out copy constantly and put in tons of extra time that we're never compensated for..it's simply taken for granted that we are going to do it because management sees that we love our job and realize we're going to be there. if i added up the OT that i've done through the years, i would absolutely break the freakin' bank of our newspaper. again, not bragging, just the plain fact. because i go 24/7 on my sports editor gig..i am writing and chasing down stuff when others are sleeping or haven't even gotten out of bed in the a.m. and i have always done it because i love doing it. i get a thrill at the "chase", tracking down some coach or athlete for a feature story or whatever, finding out about something before somebody else in our coverage area does, etc....but at times, honestly, i think others who haven't put in the same type of time, dedication and passion to covering sports has little clue as to what we go through..i think too often, and this goes for management, that folks still perceive of sports as that old "toys and games department" and that any Tom, Dick and Harry can do it...oh, that is so far from the truth, fellow posters, don't you think?

 

I think you just summed up my feelings to a T.

 

You're right. But I did quit and try to find another job. And what I discovered was no one knows how my journalism skills applies to their job and I wasn't able to convince them that I could do their job.

Earlier, I said I do this because I don't want to work at Walmart. I said that because when I got out of the biz on 2002 (I was burned out), the only place I was able to get a job was Walmart. I was turned down by TV stations, radio stations and freaking video stores.

And thanks for the guilt trip with the out of work journalists line. I was an out of work journalist for 10 months. And I still didn't really want to get back into it and I'm not so sure I really want to be doing it now. But I'm not ever working at Walmart (or any place like it) again, so I guess I'm going to be at my newspaper until they decide to budget-cut my job out of existence.

Then maybe I'll get another student loan and go for my masters in another aspect of communication.

 

Yeah, but once they trade places for his job, but at this rate they'll just get laid off again within two years.