Covering a team you have/had an emotional investment in ... is it different?

Been there. I found I often rooted for teams to lose early in the playoffs because it reduced my workload. When you have a team that goes deep in the playoffs, it can be fun but it also increases the workload and can be really tough if you have a small staff and the seasons overlap.

I think most reporters probably were fans before they became journalists, although our emotional attachment may vary as time and circumstances change. I knew my days were numbered when I found myself sitting in a press box thinking "I really don't give a rats tail about any of this stuff" and wishing I were somewhere else.

 

This is why I'm a big hockey fan. It's the one sport I don't cover. I can actually be a total fanboi without any work obligations getting in the way.

 

The closest I've ever come was covering a game between my alma mater and Big Powerhouse State School (BPSS). Alma mater won and I wrote a story that I think captured the moment pretty well without any bias -- I'm actually regularly accused of being biased toward BPSS since that's my beat.

As a journalist, it wasn't at all a problem. I did my job just like I always do. That said, I do have fond memories of the night. The school had been D-II when I had attended it back in the Stone Age, and it was fun to see the students experience something that would have been utterly impossible back in my day.

 

I cover some teams I have vested interests in, but the coaching staffs understand I'm going to call it just like I see it. The coaching staffs also know I will ask tough questions when needed. Fortunately, I'm lucky enough to have such coaches to deal with which understand I have a job to do as well, and I won't shy away from calling out when one of the teams suffers the worst loss in school history (which just happened) or things of that nature.

Call me idiotic, but I still enjoy covering games for this reason.

 

you've never covered a major college or pro team. ever.

 

I've covered men's basketball and football at a D1 school for my four years as a student. After a fanboy incident at my third hoops game as a freshman I got a stern talking to from the press corps and buckled my ass down. Every game I go to I hope to hell they win, but when the football team scores less than 120 points over an 11-game season, which it did this year, there was no pulling punches.

I think we all have our teams that we want to win, but I agree with the gist of this thread that it's mostly about the players and people.