ESPN Rise: At work on the court/My First Daily News article

Hey guys, Here's my third article I've done for ESPN Rise. It is about what high school basketball players do during the summer. I would appreciate any feedback on the article and how I can improve.

Thanks.

http://sports.espn.go.com/highschool/rise/news/story?id=4279974

 

Re: ESPN Rise: At work on the court

That's another really clean story. Good job.

My only thoughts are:

(1) I'd try to avoid quoting editors (i.e. LongIslandBasketball.com) when you can get the same info -- with far more credibilty -- from a scout or a coach.

(2) The piece was pretty thorough as far as explaining what these players do in the summer, but I felt like it was little one-dimensional. Other things that might have been worth mentioning:

-- It might have been interesting to quickly contrast this approach to the way former pros used to spend their summers. (i.e. and I'm totally making this up...As a teenager, Larry Bird spend his summers bagging groceries and Michael Jordan worked at a movie theater, but now it seems minimum-wage jobs have gone the way of [passe fad tk] for talented high school basketball players.)
-- If this is a recent trend, when did 24/7 summer hoop become standard for high schoolers?
-- I might have pushed these athletes harder to say what they're doing when they're not playing summer ball. Surely, there must be some down time. Where do they get their spending money if they don't work? When are they doing their drivers' ed? (We used to do it in the summer.)
-- Are there any downsides or risks to this approach? Has it ever backfired on a player?

Just some ideas. Nice work, though.

 

Re: ESPN Rise: At work on the court

Thanks.

1) That is true. I'm kicking myself because I had intended to interview Moore's coach but I forgot. I figured at that point just to get anyone with some credibility would be OK.

I would have loved to go more in-depth or compare/contrast the times and everything, but I had a word limit of 800. I sent it in 100 words over (it was published 79 words over but obviously that wasn't a concern). I didn't want to touch on some things and not be able to expand it. I also only had a week to write it, so it might have been tough to get more interviews to do that.

 

My first article for the Daily News was published today online. I would love any feedback. Thanks.
http://www.nydailynews.com/sports/high_school/2009/07/13/2009-07-13_years_abroad_have_turned_glover.html