Missing It

Tonight made me miss it.
Freelanced for a paper and a website tonight. Game ended at 7, sent story to the paper by 7:10, went to presser, got added quotes and did some light changes, sent final story at 8:30. Wrote story for website, was in the car at 9:45, home At 10:30 and it's almost midnight and I can't remember when I've been this awake.
Excited for next weekend because I'm working for the same website as their No 2 guy behind a writer who is extremely talented. I'm gonna try my damndest not to fanboi all over him.
God I need to get back in the biz. It's too much fun.

 

And how much were you paid for that work tonight? 25 bucks? Did it pay for your gas and meal?

 

And for copy editors ....

Demonstrating your knowledge of grammar by being able to use the F word in its various forms (f---, f---ed, f---er, f---ing) as a verb, noun, adjective and adverb.

 

I can do that all in the same sentence.

 

I left journalism a few years ago for a communications job with normal hours and better pay. Short of getting married, this job is the best thing that ever happened to me.

I was worried I'd miss journalism, so I directly asked my new boss, before I started, if I was allowed to freelance. He said yes.

So I'm covering prep gamers when I can, making $75 bucks a story. When I told a photographer how much I made, he balked.

"I would never freelance anything for just $75," he said.

The money is nice, don't get me wrong. But there's something wonderful about hustling to a high school, writing a gamer on deadline and keeping my foot just a bit in the industry. For me, that fulfills any journalism "itch" I may still have.

And that's good enough. After working through furloughs, pay cuts and layoffs, I am glad to be rid of an industry that has turned its back on the hard-working people who were helped build it.

 

Oof. Getting away from high school sports was far and away the best thing about making the switch. I'll freelance college stuff, but there's nothing at all appealing about covering prep games, short of state championships.

 

And $75 bucks is on the high side for freelancing a prep game.

 

Give me preps any day over college, especially large programs that have dozens of reporters at every practice and hundreds at every game who trip over each other to write about the same story lines. In my first few years I was the No. 2 guy for our chain at the area Big Ten school, and there was nothing worse than being crammed into a small room with 100 other guys in the zoo that is their postgame presser.

 

The way parents, grown-ass adults, acted during most of the games I covered soured me on the "purity" of prep sports. Though truth be told, the way some grown-ass adults act on message boards when discussing college teams isn't much better.

 

Totally agree. The best and most enjoyable work I ever did was covering preps. I made connections with coaches and administrators that I still have even though I am about four years out of the business. One high school football coach I worked with still emails me occasionally to tell me how his team is doing. We will email back and forth about the schedule and how other teams I used to cover look.

If I miss anything about the business, that is it, the relationships you build with the people you cover regularly. When I left my last newspaper job, I had such an outpouring of encouragment from the coaches and ADs I worked with that it almost made me regret my decision. These were good men and women with whom I shared many great conversations.

I know that is possible in college, but I just didn't experience it. With the levels of red tape you have to get through to get to a coach or player, I think that is harder covering college or pro than it is in preps.

 

I think covering bigger colleges, at least, you tend to build the stronger relationships with SID people.

In my prep days, I liked/respected some of the folks I covered, but I think you have to be careful.

I know more than a few prep writers who became to buddy-buddy with coaches and -- in my opinion -- they were not able to do their job well. They would automatically take the coaches side in any issue and were unwilling to dig into stories that might be perceived as negative.

 

Yeah, that is definitely a line that is easier to cross in preps. I came across more than a few of the "cheer in the press box" types while covering prep football, and I think it is important, especially for younger writers, to make an dedicated effort to keep it professional and objective.

The coaches I had the best relationships with were those who understood I was not just a PR rep for their team, that I would be calling when a player was suspended or their team was upset by a smaller school. As long as I gave them a fair shake and covered the good news too, we were able to maintain a mutual respect.

Of course, I definitely got my fair share of "you only cover us when we lose" coaches. There are some who just can't be reached.