Challenges of covering a veteran college team

The SID I'm around puts it in these players' heads that the media is a nuisance and he asks them to do interviews in a way that makes them dread it. "Can you do me a favor and come talk to these reporters for like 5 minutes? It won't be any longer than that. You get a free lunch out of it."

A good SID would pimp an interview up as being added exposure toward the players career. It's all the reflection of the head coach, though, and many of them in college football are, to be blunt, assholes.

 

New on a college beat. Need advice. We get no access (once a week). How do you write something different from everyone else when you get the exact same quotes.

I don't think I have ever spent 10 minutes alone with a player without another media guy coming in and jumping the interview. And I end up doing it too because you have 5 days of garbage to write.

How do ya'll veterans deal with it? It is easy in a sense because you write like a robot. But I do like writing good stories.

 

Well, that and opposable thumbs.

 

If you cover a college team and you can't think of story ideas you've got problems...

There's always something interesting happening on a college campus.

If you can't think of your own ideas, go on the Internet and read the AJC or the KC Star, which in my opinion cover colleges as well as anyone...

 

I usually make it through an entire regular season with more than enough story ideas, and I have a byline 7 days a week.

That month between regular season and bowl can get a little thin, though. Especially when the access is limited like it is on my beat.

The coach I cover would prefer no media attention, and then 75,000 fans at the games.