Remembering why I left the field

[50 scent]

I left the field in December, and still talk to a few people from the field. It was a local daily, and often times I was unprepared for what was expected. I checked the paper online yesterday, and immediately remembered why i left the field; There were a dozen stories about the youth soccer tournament the paper is putting out. Youth sports were the bane of my existence and said paper. So much work , just to fill up space on a mid-week edition.


I respect you guys that work the locals, but that **** drove me crazy (which wasn't a long trek anyways)

If I was ever going to go back in, it would HAVE to be at a larger paper.

 

[HejiraHenry]

And I do not mean this unkindly, but you have made a good choice to seek your bliss elsewhere.

If your goal was really to work at a larger paper, then you should have been prepared to do the work you're assigned as well as you could -- not in order to advance your career prospects, but in your role as a professional.

Better that you cash a check elswehere amd let somebody else give it a crack.

 

[Riddick]

does anyone really enjoy attending those youth soccer camps and **** like that?

 

[Lester Bangs]

Covered a community run one time ... a big, big, big community run that our paper covered to a silly degree. I hated the damn thing, but had to cover it, along with two other guys. Standing there with the other two, looking for angles, bull****ting, the usual. One of the guys is just bitching up a storm ... making snarky comments and just generally being a miserable prick of a human being.

The other guy says, "Doug, take a look around you. See all of these people, having a good time, smiling, they looked forward to this for months and can't wait to read about it tomorrow in the paper ... and you are the only person who doesn't seem to be enjoying himself. Think about that for a moment."

Then he walked away. A smart guy who made a great point.

 

[flaming_mo]

I feel your pain, Fiddy. I don't think I would be in the business today if I had had to cover youth sports regularly at my first job. There are indignities in every job, but we all have our limits.

 

[Ace]

Covered a community run one time ... a big, big, big community run that our paper covered to a silly degree. I hated the damn thing, but had to cover it, along with two other guys. Standing there with the other two, looking for angles, bull****ting, the usual. One of the guys is just bitching up a storm ... making snarky comments and just generally being a miserable prick of a human being.

The other guy says, "Doug, take a look around you. See all of these people, having a good time, smiling, they looked forward to this for months and can't wait to read about it tomorrow in the paper ... and you are the only person who doesn't seem to be enjoying himself. Think about that for a moment."

Then he walked away. A smart guy who made a great point.

That is a good point. Conversely, I once covered a triathlon and talked to the female winner who spent 20 minutes bitching about why our paper didn't cover her or their sport better.

 

[Flash]

I loved covering the minors ... now mind you, high school basketball and volleyball I can live without. But bantam and midget hockey is pretty damn good and the kids are often refreshingly honest.

 

[Lester Bangs]

Most fun thing I have ever covered -- and I have done plenty of the traditional "big stuff -- was a regional NASCAR series. Most down-to-earth, eager guys I've ever talked to. Great quotes and easy writing. Was bored out of my effing gourde during the races, but they were great people to deal with and made what would have been a miserable story pretty good.

 

[Terd Ferguson]

Thanks to your post, I'm remembering how glad I am to work with people who just STFU and do their jobs.
Yeah, it ain't always the Final Four, Daytona 500 or the Super Bowl, but every job, every profession has it's "**** that drives me crazy." I'm not a proponent for blowout youth coverage, but there are good stories out there no matter the level. That's the thing a lot of people don't understand: Stories are stories. Being able to professionally handle the "**** that drives me crazy" says alot about how you'll handle the "large paper" stuff.

Peace out. Enjoy whatever it is you do now. Hopefully you're at the top of that profession in the six months since you left ours.

 

[Songbird]

I got a tersely worded e-mail from a disgruntled parent today, but hey:

I WAKE UP EVERY DAY AND LOVE WHAT I DO.

Got the best job in the world.

 

[Birdscribe]

And I do not mean this unkindly, but you have made a good choice to seek your bliss elsewhere.

If your goal was really to work at a larger paper, then you should have been prepared to do the work you're assigned as well as you could -- not in order to advance your career prospects, but in your role as a professional.

Better that you cash a check elswehere amd let somebody else give it a crack.

You know, H-squared, you make a good point in a bad way.

Perhaps, like many if not most on this board, 50 Scents HAD paid his dues, HAD covered more than his share of youth soccer and Little League tournaments, HAD busted his ass with the preached-to hope that it would pay off down the line with a better gig.

Does he have the right to mail it in? Of course not. He does have an obligation to leave it all on the field -- on every assignment. And if the above isn't true, I sit corrected.

Does he have the right to vent about this and not have someone take an unwarranted shot at him? Absolutely.

 

[HejiraHenry]

And I do not mean this unkindly, but you have made a good choice to seek your bliss elsewhere.

If your goal was really to work at a larger paper, then you should have been prepared to do the work you're assigned as well as you could -- not in order to advance your career prospects, but in your role as a professional.

Better that you cash a check elswehere amd let somebody else give it a crack.

You know, H-squared, you make a good point in a bad way.

Perhaps, like many if not most on this board, 50 Scents HAD paid his dues, HAD covered more than his share of youth soccer and Little League tournaments, HAD busted his ass with the preached-to hope that it would pay off down the line with a better gig.

Does he have the right to mail it in? Of course not. He does have an obligation to leave it all on the field -- on every assignment. And if the above isn't true, I sit corrected.

Does he have the right to vent about this and not have someone take an unwarranted shot at him? Absolutely.

No shot intended, which is why I wrote the thing the way I did. It's possible that fiddy's time at the local paper had all the backstory you suggest -- and if so, you gotta take that into account. I just didn't get that impression from what he/she wrote.

 

[Mystery_Meat]

Covering the sports themselves isn't really the problem in that there isn't that much of a dropoff between interest in a youth football game and interest in the lower-rung high school sports. The problem is the parents at the youth level are way more hyperactive, trying to dictate coverage priorities, wanting to edit the story, making sure Bob's Auto Parts and Aunt Mildred's Country Cooking get prominent spots in the story, then bitching and moaning if you didn't mention some kid who had a single with his team up 22-4 which was ruled a single because they don't believe in giving errors, or don't cover the next six games the East Side Broncos play. The kids are usually fine if you treat them simply like athletes and not like Special Olympics participants, but their parents can eat the biggest part of me.

 

[DrewWilson]

The kids are usually fine if you treat them simply like athletes and not like Special Olympics participants, but their parents can eat the biggest part of me.

I think every small to mid-sized paper has a whole list of youth sports parents -- and high school parents, for that matter -- they'd like to line up in front of a firing squad.

 

[Freelance Hack]

There's bitching and whining in all aspects of sports reporting.

In the preps and kiddie sports, it's some parents and some coaches. Usually the kids are great to deal with.

As you work your way up the chain, the bitching remains but it's by different people.

Do you think I like going into visiting locker rooms, chatting up half-naked people I don't know (and they don't know me) about a game they just played? Especially if they lost that game? No, not really.

Some people are great to deal with -- Chase Utley immediately comes to mind. Jose Guillen as well. Others aren't so good.

If you think covering a major beat is heaven, then I suggest you talk to someone who has had to cover Ryan Leaf, Barry Bonds or another contemptous athlete.

 

[patchs]

The grass is always greener on the other side.
Thing is, with the "more local" mentality we're seeing because of falling circulation, you're going to see more youth coverage in bigger papers.
It won't be the big boys but the medium sized papers will be doing more features on this stuff.

 

[Ace]

The thing with youth or rec sports -- I don't mind covering something if there is a story.

If you have a 4-year-old swimmer who is beating 10-year-olds. That's interesting.

If you have an 11-year-old skateboarder winning events against teenagers. That's good stuff.

If you have a 16-year-old female golfer qualifying for the men's U.S. Open, might be worth a story.

I just never liked going to events, tournaments, etc., just to cover it when there is little direction from above and -- really -- except for a lot of kids running around, little going on to warrant coverage.

 

[50 scent]

Perhaps, like many if not most on this board, 50 Scents HAD paid his dues, HAD covered more than his share of youth soccer and Little League tournaments, HAD busted his ass with the preached-to hope that it would pay off down the line with a better gig.

And perhaps he wasn't good enough to cut it.

We don't admit that possibility exists much on this board, but it does.

That's not a criticism, incidentally, just an acknowledgement of the fact there are a lot of people who chase the dream way too long. I've seen plenty of guys pushing 30 as part-timers. Everybody in the building seems to know they're never getting hired FT, but nobody ever levels with them and says so. Some of them become bitter. Some of them don't ever seem to catch on.

And the fact is, if you're not good enough, it doesn't matter how many dues you pay, or how much you bust your ass, you're never getting the big beat.

Not saying that's the case here, of course, just that this is a fact rarely addressed when threads like this come up.

I wasn't the best at my job, I definitely accept that. I didn't put my whole heart in my work for those AYSO reports. It was hard for me to take seriously. I knew people liked them, and enjoyed reading them, but I had trouble busting my balls on that. T

If I realized what a significant portion of a local paper covers youth. I would have kept looking. It was frustrating because I turned down an opportunity wasn't a local. I do dig high school sports and above, and actually enjoy sports without the parents.

I also was working a second job at 30+ hours a week, and suffering from depression. I have since worked with physicians on the other part. I have moved to a sales career. Don't worry It's not in the media industry.

In the future, I may try and freelance down the road. I feel I can write it off as a learning experience about the industry and that particyular market as well.

 

[Gold]

I've said this before but it bears repeating... if sports writing required a unique talent, sports writers would be getting a lot more money.

Some people who are sports writers see sports, watch people go through the minor leagues and colleges working their way to the top professional ranks, and assume that sports writing is the same dynamic.

It ain't the way it is. I don't know that there is that much difference between leaving the business as a writer or going on the desk and not writing - except being an editor in the sports department has lousy hours if you have a family.

If it's a case of not being good enough to cut it, does that mean the writers who become editors "aren't good enough to cut it." There are tons of writers for each position, but journalism organizations keep talking about "the crisis in copy editing" There ain't no crisis, the suits don't want to pay the wage it takes to have a supply of good copy editors.

 

[JME]

I've said this before but it bears repeating... if sports writing required a unique talent, sports writers would be getting a lot more money.

No, but good sports writing does.