Reporters as fans

That could be said about a half-dozen NHL markets.

 

I never stopped being a fan when I was in sports. I was mostly in preps. I did cover a college rival and region for a while. I probably could have been a little more in the closet about it, but hey, whatever and I was young. I wrote a column about it once. Wasn't my worst.

The bigger things I did, some pretty big time college sports and events for a few years, were in an area I wasn't from. So never an issue there. I did cover the Broncos one time in college. Obviously didn't wear gear or cheer in the press box.

I would wear team stuff in the newsroom after hours. When I was an editor and on the desk everyone had teams they rooted for and games were always on at night, even in news.

This was all before social media, so I probably would have been quiet on it. I never touched my school's fanboard as a journalist, especially when I was in the rival area. I didn't want any lines crossed. I am probably too active in it now!

I am sure many of us are the same. I am not sure I would go crazy on social media about it, but covering preps and wanting your team to win the Super Bowl? So what. Also, most of us are pretty professional overall. I still have to warm up to cheer at games as a fan and I've not been in a press box in a long, long time.

 

“We’re a podcast at the crossroads of sports and pop culture”

 

A colleague of mine at the Herald once said that "you want the team you cover to do well enough to hold the readers' interest for almost all the season, but never so well that they generate a special section. So that's how I root to myself."

 

It can be weird if a sports writer meets up with a group of family or friends, they are all hyped about their team and you remain detached and in the outer edge of the party. Makes you look like an arrogant POS. You probably have to do it, or just don't go to the party. We have lives, too.

 

I'm afraid I'll never be as casual as some about "no cheering in the press box." I'm as old-school as it gets on that.

The guy who is groaning about his team's luck in the press box should be doing it from the stands. Sure, nuance has its place, and I don't care if the preps writer is a Seahawks fanatic. But I also don't care if the fans expect you to back the home team. That's not what you're there for.

I'll continue to roll my eyes at the local scribes who do that (and there are plenty, at least around here). I don't want you congratulating the young athletes on Twitter; I don't want you posting what a delight it is to cover Team X. Just play it fucking straight. Please.

 

One year one of our local schools was playing for the Section football title (which was as far as you could go in California then). Somehow the SE had lobbied to get deadline extended an hour to get some photos of the game (we were still shooting film and the game site was about an houts drive away). Of course a few days better game the publisher came through the newsroom crowing about this and asking how "we" would do in the game. After he was out of range, I turned to a newsie at an adjacent desk and asked "We? I didn't know the Podunk Fishwrap had a football team."

 

I suddenly "got" the ethos when I started out covering preps. You start watching game after game where you really don't care who wins and you realize "fandom" is kind of a weird deal. Seinfeld had it right - you are rooting for laundry. I didn't "like" teams more or less - but I did "root" for a good story.

 

Thing is the congratluators and the rumpswabbers get more follows, more likes, more attention on social media, so those of us clinging to playing it straight are sacrificing readership and recognizability so we can look ourselves in the mirror.

We might be cutting off our nose to spite our face

 

Jared Carrabis makes a lot more money doing what he does than the Boston Herald or Masslive baseball beat guys who play it straight.

On preps there’s no Carrabis path to fame but if someone’s trying to move up the ladder the traditional way, an editor has two applicants, one has 7500 Twitter followers and high engagement with nonsense, one has 3500 and low engagement playing it straight…… Do we really know if the hiring editor is going to see the follows and say “great” or if he’ll be old school and frown on the bombast?

How many Athletic hockey beats got going on social media bombast versus playing it straight? 50/50 at best

I want to agree with you I hope playing it straight is a successful long game but I spend a lot of time wondering if I’m wrong