Sports Insider: On Specific Details
Every sports feature should include the same elements as a really good feature story. The fact that it is a sports story makes it no different. First and foremost, there must be an attention to detail that quickly convinces the reader that the writer knows what he or she is talking about. A writer should accrue as many specific, revealing details as possible. This helps establish the writer’s authority, makes for richer writing, and helps ground the reader in the characters and place where the story is unfolding.
Pamela Colloff, Texas Monthly
“A voice is crucial,” says Dave Hyde, whose piece “Where’s Jake Scott?” won an Associated Press Sports Editors writing award in 2006. “It makes it easier to write. It also makes it easier on the reader—you tell them what’s important through the voice. I typically don’t go first person in long features. Off the top of my head, the Jake Scott story is the only one in which I’ve used the first person. Some people can pull it off well. It just feels forced to me. The reason for using first person in Jake’s story was mainly because this is a guy who hadn’t been interviewed in decades and was living in this exotic locale, so I thought the first scene had to be me approaching the home and trying to interview him. What was it like? How did he take civilization infringing on his life? And I was nervous before doing it myself, because I didn’t know how he’d take it and, let’s face it, the paper was spending some good money to send me there in hopes I could pull it off. So that first scene would set up the rest of the story, I figured. I used the first person through the story—trying not to overplay it—because it was easier to tell his story when he was introducing me to his friends: the taro farmer, the poker player. It wasn’t that I needed to be in the story. It was just that it was the best vehicle to show who he was and how he was living now.”
Like any writing genre, sports writing can’t be easily categorized—especially today when you also have blogs, slideshows, and other multimedia presentations. There are also game precedes, predictions, sports profiles, perspectives on historical events or figures, columns, Q&A pieces, of all sorts of list and analysis presentations. On Bleacher Report, you can find analysis on Serena Williams’ recent loss in the French Open final; an assessment of the best players in each Major League Baseball division is offered in Sports on Earth; and a list of five reasons why the Warriors-Cavs would play out much differently than the previous season is presented on FOXsports.com, analysis on how Golden State’s bench outplayed Cleveland’s starters in Game 1 of the NBA Finals that includes screen shots and video to visually illustrate the main points. Think beyond bats and ball coverage to deliver creative, fun, in-depth pieces that fans will devour.
HEADLINE: A Wonderful Life
BYLINE: Dave Sheinin, Washington Post
You can read the complete story by going to WashingtonPost.com.
Chapter 5 Developing Sports Columns
Ron Higgins had rarely left a press box during a football game in his 20 years of reporting. This time, though, he knew he had no choice. Craig Zeigler, a tight end for Ole Miss, lay on the football field, his leg broken in two spots and twisted in a grotesque position after being leg-whipped by a Vanderbilt player. Teammate Eli Manning said later he could not look at his friend.
Zeigler, Higgins knew, was a beloved teammate who had worked through numerous injuries to earn his starting spot. So after the senior was carted from Vaught-Hemingway Stadium, Higgins walked out of the press box, headed to Baptist Hospital—North Mississippi, spoke with Zeigler and his father before the surgery, and wrote a column that prompted Vanderbilt’s chancellor to call in praise and the Football Writers Association of America to award first place in a national competition.
“Think outside the box,” says Higgins, now a columnist for New Orleans’ Times-Picayune. “Think differently. Columns are not just about good writing.”
Columnists also need to bring readers to places fans rarely, if ever, see, which often includes locker rooms, practice sessions, and team road trips. “I’m a big believer that the greatest advantage we have is our access,” says the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Mike Sielski, named the nation’s top columnist in 2015 by Associated Press Sports Editors. “We have to use it. Only so many of us have access to these people. In your columns, you have to ground what you do in your reporting, the freshness of your take. You need to give people something they won’t find in a box score, Twitter or ESPN.”1
Columnists are reporters with an opinion. The best columnists are also keen observers, precise writers, and excellent storytellers. Frequently, we forget that readers love stories. But that is difficult to do in 15 to 20 inches or 500 to 800 words.
A good sports columnist offers fresh, meaningful insights and cultural criticism, analyzes games in considerably more depth than the average fan, covers ignored sports, addresses sensitive issues—and, at different times, afflicts and comforts us. In addition, a sports columnist offers strong opinions sharpened by facts in a suitable tone and style. Don’t write a column if you are only mildly interested in the topic—be as passionate as your readers, the fan(atics) who follow these players and teams.
sports insider
A columnist is important, primarily I think, as a guidepost for readers and consumers of news. With the proliferation of media in the 21st century, not only does everyone have an opinion, but most people have a vessel through which to make it public: a blog, social media, talk radio, and so forth. The value of a columnist lies in his or her ability to combine excellent writing with insight that can come only from reporting well. It lies in an unspoken pact he or she makes with readers: I have done my homework. I know what’s really going on here. And my informed opinion, I hope, will help you understand this issue/person/situation better.
Mike Sielski, Philadelphia Inquirer
At the same time, columnists have to know the teams better than fans to avoid making statements that are either implausible or laughably wrong.
“Before long, readers lose their faith in the writer’s knowledge,” says The Palm Beach Post sports producer Scott Andera, “and will either actively avoid reading the columnist’s work or spread the word to other knowledgeable readers that the columnist doesn’t know what he/she is talking about.”
Columnists frequently write opinion pieces, offer notes, or playfully address an issue and tell stories, using a variety of approaches, such as the following:
▸ Game column. Address the one thing fans should extract from an event in the moment. For example: Did the quarterback or goalie have a great game? What does this game mean for the team as a whole? Did a team end a winning streak? Make the playoffs? Did the opposing defense shut down the star running back?
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