Breaking into Sports Writing at a young age

Learn photography and videography. That's part of the job for many modern sports writers. Even the guy who covers the local MLB team for our area 100,000 daily circulation paper has to take his own photos.

 

Another extraordinarily helpful book (which I've always found easier to digest than "Elements") is Bill Zinsser's "On Writing Well." He makes his points very quickly and colorfully.

 

I started doing prep agate when I was 16. My football coach used to send me out to talk to the reporters after games and after one of the games I asked the reporter if they had interns at the paper and he gave me the number of the preps editor and I was there a few weeks later. They even let me write a few times.

I ended up getting a scholarship through the paper that paid for a decent portion of college. I got $1500 a year and $1000 a year for books. My college was only about $8K a year so that helped a lot.

 

Read a lot of sports stories in newspapers and online, especially, at first, the basic NBA, MLB, NFL, NHL roundups. Those boring, repetitive but straightforward little capsule gems are exactly what any editor will want when you are starting out on a freelance basis for their organization. You can and will gain speed, confidence and poise on deadline, as well as develop a good sense of the important basic information (and how to write it in at least a formulaic fashion) that should be included in any story.

After you get that stuff down, it can always be expanded upon and some quotes included easily.

It might also be good to try to make some connections at any local-area media outlets, perhaps by attending high school games, taking note of local reporters and introducing yourself to them, and going from there.

Another thing to do would be to develop and practice a football stat-keeping process, one you can either come up with yourself, or ask a local high school writer about how they do it. When I did it, I had two sets of information going -- a page (or pages) of running play-by-play with information like the starting yard-line of the drive, the down- yards-t0-go and line-of-scrimmage in another one, then ones for the play, the yardage gained or lost, and a highlights/scoring/time-clock, notes column. It's good to use different colors of ink for each team. On another sheet (or sheets) you should have a running tally of individual statistics kept as each play occurs. I just used some basic graph paper for this, with each individual ball handler -- especially team leaders, if you're not sure you can keep track of everyone -- listed for rushing, passing and receiving, with each category in a different section. I also had areas on the stat sheets for defensive players who made sacks, tackles for losses, interceptions, and another section for a cumulative tally of penalties for each team. This way, you don't have to go back through your play-by-play to find such stuff should it prove important. Everyone tends to develop their own ways of doing stats, but this might be a basic start for you. If you're not sure you can keep up both the running play-by-play and the running stats sheets, just keep the play-by-play and tally things up at halftime and at the end of the game. You can try clipping/taping the stat sheets for each team on the front and back of a clipboard, turning it over and back as needed, and see how that works for you, with play-by-play running through a notebook or steno pad. Or, just find some way that you like to do it, yourself.

I would suggest practicing your stat-keeping right off some TV games, either college or pros. The advantage of this is that there will not be any pressure, and the fact that there are broadcasters/announcers who will be verbally keeping up with the play-by-play will help you to do it, too. They can also help clarify things if there are any questionable calls, or if there is something that you miss or are not sure how to score. You'll learn a lot because you'll be really actively listening, not just watching the game as a fan and having the announcers' talk be background noise.

And, SFIND's suggestion to learn -- perhaps you should even emphasize it -- photography and videography is very important these days.

Oh, and no matter what you do, don't do it for nothing. Just don't. Get paid or get school credit, one or the other. And do not tell anyone that you don't care about money at all (unless you are already filthy rich and can really actually afford to say something like that, of course). Because that will not always be the case, and even you will get tired of working for free -- probably after not too long, too -- if everyone around you is getting paid.

 

Do every damn thing you can. If you intern at a paper great. If they'll pay you to do small things, even better. Read a lot and try to find a place with good editing. Also, if you're already doing something as SBNation, I wouldn't drop that to go full-on into newspapers because that's not a bad place to develop some voice. Often, we look around and feel "this is the way to do it," focusing on a narrow path rather than branching out.

 

Thank you to everyone for the advice in this thread. I've gotten a lot of good ideas and tips, I really appreciate it! One question, what's the easiest way to get into stringing? Would it be easiest just to email a sports editor directly?

 

Not sure how easy it is to do from "the outside," but I happened to know of the AP stringers on my beat who later referred me to them when he quit to take another gig. So my advice is to reach out to the guys you enjoy reading, tell them you'd like to pursue a career in journalism, and build your connections. For me, nearly all of my writing gigs have come to me via word of mouth. Someone referred me to Paper X or Website Y when there was an opening. One writer once told me that your reputation is your best resume in the writing game. If you've shown that you've worked your butt off, more often than not, opportunities will come your way.

 

This. If you don't think there's more of this in the future, with so much emphasis being placed on web content vs. the dead tree edition, you're only kidding yourself.

 

So I would first like to say thanks to all who have contributed to this thread. I have gotten a lot of great advice from very knowledgeable people and I am thankful for that. I sent emails to just about every editor of every local paper trying to see if I could do some freelance work. Out of 20 or so emails I received 3 replies. One asking for samples, one that said they'd get back and never did, and one from a writer I really enjoy reading who gave me tons of great advice. I understand its a business and that theres always going to be non-responding people and I'm not taking any of this personally. I was wondering besides sending emails describing who I am, what I do and providing some samples, are there any other ways to get into freelance work? I completely understand these are professionals with jobs to do and certainly dont expect a response from everyone who I email. I am just wondering if there's any other ways to get in contact with people who can help me get into freelance work.

Thanks.

 

Do you have any non-newspaper online start-ups in your area doing local high school or college sports? Some places do. You might check with them. That won't put much money in your pocket, but it might be the opportunity to work on your writing.

 

Think of those initial emails you sent to the sports editors as resumes and you did pretty well getting three actual responses out of the 20 you contacted.

I'd like to suggest that if there are any smaller, or even medium-sized newspapers or web sites you've contacted -- or perhaps you could just do it with the three from whom you received responses -- you might ask if it would be possible for you to have an actual unofficial introductory sit-down meeting at the editors' convenience sometime in the near future.

There are editors who will do this for and with reporters, and such informal, low-pressure meetings -- either in the office or perhaps, over a lunch, are a great way for both sides to ask questions, get to know one another, and get a real feel for each other. You never know what might come of such "interviews," either now or in the future.

 

You showed real hustle by reaching out to 20 editors. So that's great! And it's great that you're not taking the non-responses too personally (because that will happen regardless of your resume). A few thoughts about the next step: you could try writing to editors in different sections; you could try pitching 1-2 ideas. You can also develop or mention some unique skills. Example: if you're fluent in another language, maybe you can suggest assisting a reporter who might need an interpreter. Or if you have a passion for local history, maybe you could parlay your knowledge and research in that area to fresh angles for a few sports stories.

Basically, instead of thinking: how can I get my foot in the door? Try to think: how can I be extremely useful to this paper? It has to be more than a willingness to do anything (which is a great attitude, but not a deal-sealer).

If you still come up short, then just keep writing - make a blog or do whatever you can to continue to practice and polish your work.