How do you go from covering preps to a college beat?

[Jay Sherman]

I'm curious how some of you have been able to make the leap. I'm in a gig where I very rarely cover any colleges. I'd say it's 93% preps, 5% pros, 2% colleges at this point. Since I'm not regularly covering a pro team or college team, how do I ever get considered by a paper looking to fill a beat writer position for a college team?

 

[Moose A. Moose]

Have Danny Manning as a son.

 

[Cosmo]

If you demonstrate an ability to cultivate sources and break news on a prep beat, it will translate well to a college beat. But as some have posted on here before, if you just send in clips of gamers and features, you're not going to make anyone ready to believe you have the reporting experience necessary to cover colleges, where the administration and coaches aren't always as accessible.

 

[bigpern23]

If you demonstrate an ability to cultivate sources and break news on a prep beat, it will translate well to a college beat. But as some have posted on here before, if you just send in clips of gamers and features, you're not going to make anyone ready to believe you have the reporting experience necessary to cover colleges, where the administration and coaches aren't always as accessible.

This brings up a question ... I've written several stories that have broken news, such as coach firings, etc., that are well-reported and required good sourcing (most of which I got on the record), but I don't feel the stories themselves necessarily reflect my writing talent. Are those worth including in a clips package? Should a note be included about the obstacles faced in getting said story?

 

[Cosmo]

Not a bad idea, pern. Editors look for people who are strong at reporting and writing. I know plenty of people who can turn a great phrase but can't report their way out of a paper bag, and vice versa. Sending in clips that demonstrate both abilities is a smart idea.

 

[GlenQuagmire]

I'm curious how some of you have been able to make the leap. I'm in a gig where I very rarely cover any colleges. I'd say it's 93% preps, 5% pros, 2% colleges at this point. Since I'm not regularly covering a pro team or college team, how do I ever get considered by a paper looking to fill a beat writer position for a college team?

So much of this business, like so many others, is about relationships and networking.

For the most part, you've got to go beyond writing great features and game stories to get that college beat. You need to break some news, write some trend stories and show you can report. A college job never stops. It's a daily animal you must tame.

 

[HejiraHenry]

Do good work.

That's how it happened here in August.

When our Mississippi State beat writer left just before football season started, I turned to the guy we'd had doing preps for the last 3-4 years. Great writer, good reporter, good attitude, "gets" the Internet, etc., etc., etc.

That was a no-brainer. Good for me, I suppose, being a bear of very little brain.

 

[accguy]

Jay,

Not to be smart, but what kind of place are you at? Tiny? Smallish? Mid-sized? Big?

I ask because there are plenty of college folks at mid-sized and big places who started there and proved they could handle it. They got tossed bones like covering women's college hoops or the WNBA or the secondary college beat and then get promoted.

 

[Ohiowriter]

In this day and age in all honesty? Keep working hard, don't *****, don't ask for a raise. Wait for the guy making more on the college beat to take a buyout or get laid off and the cheaper employee with the positive attitude to get promoted.

 

[GlenQuagmire]

In this day and age in all honesty? Keep working hard, don't *****, don't ask for a raise. Wait for the guy making more on the college beat to take a buyout or get laid off and the cheaper employee with the positive attitude to get promoted.

Or be the only guy left at the shop able to do the job.

 

[Drip]

In this day and age in all honesty? Keep working hard, don't *****, don't ask for a raise. Wait for the guy making more on the college beat to take a buyout or get laid off and the cheaper employee with the positive attitude to get promoted.

Or be the only guy left at the shop able to do the job.

Or have the ability to pucker up.
But seriously, work hard. Show versatility. Pray. It works.

 

[Jay Sherman]

Jay,

Not to be smart, but what kind of place are you at? Tiny? Smallish? Mid-sized? Big?

I ask because there are plenty of college folks at mid-sized and big places who started there and proved they could handle it. They got tossed bones like covering women's college hoops or the WNBA or the secondary college beat and then get promoted.

20K daily, 2.5 hours away from Big State. A couple of D3 schools in our coverage area, but nothing regular (i.e. no "beats"). A few D1 schools within an hour, but again, nobody gets sent to cover on a regular basis.

 

[strunk_you]

In this day and age in all honesty? Keep working hard, don't *****, don't ask for a raise. Wait for the guy making more on the college beat to take a buyout or get laid off and the cheaper employee with the positive attitude to get promoted.

i don't think i've read anything more true this year.

i've seen a complete lack of talent and a proven inability to report on deadline be completely thrown out the window in a case just like you're describing, ohiowriter.

it's pretty disheartening to ponder how many hard-working people with some skills and desire might be slaving away in the trenches while nothing more than a warm body gets promoted elsewhere in some twisted journalistic game of duck, duck, goose.

 

[Tom Petty]

In this day and age in all honesty? Keep working hard, don't *****, don't ask for a raise. Wait for the guy making more on the college beat to take a buyout or get laid off and the cheaper employee with the positive attitude to get promoted.

Or be the only guy left at the shop able to do the job.

i was thinking exactly that with a "glug, glug" attached to the end.

 

[Jay Sherman]

In this day and age in all honesty? Keep working hard, don't *****, don't ask for a raise. Wait for the guy making more on the college beat to take a buyout or get laid off and the cheaper employee with the positive attitude to get promoted.

Yeah, but my paper doesn't have a college beat writer, which brings up my question, because I'll have to move to another paper and I assume they wouldn't give me a college beat without any regular experience covering college.

 

[Drip]

In this day and age in all honesty? Keep working hard, don't *****, don't ask for a raise. Wait for the guy making more on the college beat to take a buyout or get laid off and the cheaper employee with the positive attitude to get promoted.

Yeah, but my paper doesn't have a college beat writer, which brings up my question, because I'll have to move to another paper and I assume they wouldn't give me a college beat without any regular experience covering college.

NEVER sell yourself short Jay. The only thing stopping you, is you.

 

[WaylonJennings]

I think about the only way in this era is to go somewhere as a stronger or part-timer, somewhere with regular college beats, and kind of wait for the dominoes to fall.

I think the chances of moving from a prep beat somewhere small directly into a major college beat somewhere else is absolutely miniscule in 2008.

 

[Jay Sherman]

Heck, it doesn't have to be a major college beat. I live within 2 hours of three major cities with an abundance of Division 1 schools around each one of them. Few of them are in BCS conferences, most are in one-bid NCAA conferences for b-ball.

 

[Stitch]

Heck, it doesn't have to be a major college beat. I live within 2 hours of three major cities with an abundance of Division 1 schools around each one of them. Few of them are in BCS conferences, most are in one-bid NCAA conferences for b-ball.

you get a job at a paper that has a college beat. there will be chances to move up from there.

 

[Saint Lou]

20K daily, 2.5 hours away from Big State. A couple of D3 schools in our coverage area, but nothing regular (i.e. no "beats"). A few D1 schools within an hour, but again, nobody gets sent to cover on a regular basis.

Can you ask to cover more of the local colleges at your paper? You could get some clips from that and also network more with some of the writers that cover those schools.