17 Hours


So, You Want to be a Sportswriter?
November 9, 2008, 11:36 am
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Writing about sports is enthralling at times. Other times it is used as a mechanic to release your anger about something that is creeping on your nerves (perhaps the BCS system in college football).

It’s a great tool if you’re a writer wanting to get your thoughts out onto the web for people to read because speculation is open and debates are welcome (usually). Debating about sports can either be fun or futile. Fun being if you’re debating two teams strengths and weaknesses, futile being if you’re debating whether a player from a different position is better than the other.

But most people don’t understand how to write about sports.

Sportswriting — you write about sports and you leave yourself out. I know I don’t follow that a lot on here, but I can do it with ease if I want to. This being a blog, it’s not a professional website so to speak, as thoughts are recorded with several “I’s.” If you’re looking into being a sportswriter, you will have to avoid that.

Sportswriters are prolific. There’s a lot of sports news websites, and if you write for them, a lot of times it’s not going to be one blog a day — oh, no, it’s going to be more like five blogs a day, more-so because news around the sports world is like billions of atoms flying around. You learn to write fast and efficient. I think that’s why I have already written so many blogs for 17 Hours — I’m used to writing several posts at a torrid pace. This is a good thing and a bad thing (good because the site is receiving more content; bad because it could be more intermittent — but the good still outweighs the bad here).

You can’t be a writer without reading a lot and writing a lot, so you can’t expect to do anything less when you want to become a sportswriter, so don’t just think that all you have to do is have your eyes glued to the television screen all day to post some incoherent thoughts on the web about sports.

You have to be powered by crafty, sharp prose and have a knack for grabbing reader’s attention either in the lead or in the first paragraph. If you can’t do that, you’re done with an article, as most people won’t bother to read on if you don’t hook them like a fish in one of the starting sentences of your article.

Read anything and everything. I did. I kept reading everything no matter what it was from books to billboards. “Huh? Billboards?” Yes, billboards; I wanted to compact so many words into my mind because at the end of the day it would pay off and I would end up having a carousel of words to choose from when writing. I’ve read a lot and I’ve written a lot, and I’m still not done — I’ll never be done.

Avoid jargon and cliches. Back up your arguments with facts. Don’t talk down to the reader unless it’s a style of yours, but it only works if you’re comical.

If you write now, with no experience under your belt, your writing will be tenuous. However, if you make the strenuous efforts to become better, you will appreciate it in the long run.

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I Here, I There, I Everywhere
November 8, 2008, 9:27 pm
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I can see the flames growing in your journalistically pure eyes. And they’re hot, I know.

But before you send me the worst virus ever created, give me a few sentences.

I have a hardcore habit of using “I” in everything I write. The way a lot of people go about it makes them look arrogant and as if they know more about what they’re covering than their reader.

However, sometimes I try to apply the Hunter S. Thompson rationale to the issue. I believe writers cannot be absolutely ‘objective’ in stories or else it’s completely bland. This said, why not tell the reader where you’re coming from when you describe something like crowd or player reaction, a team’s energy, or a player’s rhythm. Sure, a column is the place for stuff like that, but, if not tastefully, I think it can enrich a story a bit.

The inverted PYRAMID should not restrict one’s ability to describe a scene. If you write about the experience, what you sensed, saw, heard, etc. there is no need for “I.” It’s like using “I think. . .” on a message board. Of course you think that — you’re posting it. If in a story you are describing the scene based on someone else’s reactions, you would cite that. But for the most part, you are describing the scene as you saw it, and readers know that.

Just don’t ever, EVER use “this sportswriter.” That’s annoying. Hell, or the ultimate copout of “we.” It’s your story, and everyone knows that.

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Sportswriting and why I want to do it
November 7, 2008, 8:13 pm
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I want a job where I can be wrong almost all the time. A job where I can take pot shots at people who are actually doing what I can only dream about, and cut them down. I want to berate them, make jokes about them, and all else poke fun at them until I drive the general consensus of society nuts. I want to say one thing one day, and then when I am proven wrong, be able to sidestep my original opinion for a more popular one. I want to make bold predictions, and then disown them the moment they don’t happen. I want to hold someone up, put them on a pedestal and worship them. Then, I want to knock them down, spit on them and turn my back when they “fail” me. In short, I want to be a sports writer.

All I want is the chance to pontificate about how absolutely essential it is for a certain athlete to do something, and then when it happens, move the goal post back another 50 yards and start again. And, when I can’t find fault with an athlete’s performance, I will find fault with his/her so called character. For writers, this usually means picking apart their comments, TV ads or shoe color. Anything to bring him or her back down to earth. So, I can feel superior. And, if you offend someone, well, just get them to yell at you, and you’ll have column fodder for the rest of your career.

And I’m on my way to be doing just that. If you haven’t noticed yet, then believe me, I am an overly opinionated, sarcastic, dark/sexual humored, randomly pissed off person. Let me at these overpaid, overblown, overhyped jerks that I want to spend my life writing about on newspaper/magazine print.

When kids are playing basketball in the driveway they try to emulate Michael Jordan or Larry Bird. When I’m writing I try to emulate Hunter S. Thompson, Bob Ryan and Bill Simmons, then turn it up a notch to my own style.

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Sportswriters Hate Sports
November 3, 2008, 5:46 pm
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Nobody realizes how much the people who write about sports despise the subject they write about. There is nothing they hate more. I know that seems paradoxical, and most of them would never admit it in public. But give them four drinks in a deserted tavern, and you will hear the truth: The people paid to inform you about the world of professional, collegiate, and high school athletics would love to see all sports — except for maybe the NCAA basketball tournament — eradicated from the planet.

What’s depressing is that this was not always the case for people.

So if you want to become jaded and bitter in the shortest period possible, become a sportswriter. You will spend your Friday nights trying to write up some grueling pseudo-informative SLAM Online article until you’ve reached the point where hitting the backspace key wants to make you throw a deadly dart doused in poison at the people or things you are writing about.

That’s not the worst thing about it all, though.

The worst part about being a sportswriter is that no one will ever have a normal conversation with you for the rest of your life. Everyone you meet will either A.) want to talk about sports, or B.) Assume you want to talk about sports. Strangers will feel qualified to walk up to you somewhere and complain about Rasheed Wallace; and if you’re trying to be frank with your ex-girlfriend’s parents, her father will immediately ask you oddly specific questions about the New York Yankees. Just a couple of examples (the last sentence is an experience of mine).

You may have insightful thoughts on the Middle East, religion, or racial disparity, but no one will care; they will be interested in your thoughts on middle relieving or the premise of the designated hitter.

Over time, you will see your life disappear into sweat and depictions of Plaxico Burress contract negotiations and descriptions of the wishbone offense. And you will hate it. And normal sports fans deserve to know this. SO NOW YOU KNOW IT. They deserve to know that people telling them about the Boston Celtics or San Antonio Spurs enjoy pro basketball as much as Christians enjoy watching George Carlin’s Religion is Bullshit.

But I feel like the one guy who accepts one very important truth: The single best part about loving sports is hating sports.

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