Is there any way to avoid a preps gig as your first job?

Make room for someone who wants to work. Go see if Wal-Mart is hiring.

 

You don't want to be the guy over 30 who hasn't moved on from covering preps.

 

... which, of course, is a close cousin of:

 

You could become a copy editor. Of course, you'll remain one for the rest of your days if you do.

 

So did we ever find out what happened to the original poster? It's been a few months.

 

He's now a features editor for the Los Angeles Times.

 

Lol. I've been a preps reporter for five or so years now. Moved off to a city all on my own to "pay my dues" and I'm now the last standing from a staff that was five-deep with 80+ years of experience in 2015.

As one would expect of a young 20-something, I was wrong about quite a few things in this thread, though some of my worst fears have played out, unfortunately.

What I Was Wrong About

- High School Sports Is Soul-Draining - I could not have been more wrong. End of story. There are always stories and histories to record and I've grown to appreciate the intimacy, exclusivity and responsibility of providing preps coverage for a community. It is an honor and privilege.

What I Was Right About

- "I don't want to get buried as soon as the next crop of talented writers comes up the ranks." - It happened more or less immediately. I've lost count how many better-paying gigs have passed me over in favor of a Mizzou/Syracuse/Penn State/Michigan grad walking straight out of school into college beats without any time "paying their dues" at smaller beats and papers.

What Y'all Were Wrong About

- "You think you’re too interesting a person to have a shitty job." - Louis C.K. ~ Brian

- "You don't want to work that hard for not that much recognition." ~ WriteThinking

- "I just love this "I want it now" me generation coming up. God help us when I'm in retirement and they're running the world." - Doc Holliday

Fuck y'all.

It's funny, the only other time I thought about this thread was during one of my late-night shifts with Target fulfillment last year. "I'm pushing 50-pound carts 10-15 miles a day for 30 hours a week just to keep a job at the local newspaper." The epitome of the 'I want it now' generation, I suppose.

In all seriousness, I think I'll stash that story away to score "I'm a real, hard-working American" grievance dunks on the younger generation like Doc, Brian and Write when my mind and body start to go.

- "Saying you want to be a big-time sports writer but don't want to cover preps is kind of like saying you want to be an H&R Block bigshot but don't want to deal with people's taxes." ~ Ace

- "You learn by starting at the lowest levels of the biz and working your way up if you can cut it." ~ Chris Long

- "It's incredibly naive to think someone starting out in college who maybe has experience covering D-I sports for a student newspaper is going to be more favored than someone who has paid their dues slogging through real deadlines for a real newspaper." H-Dale 08

I know this is a fairly standard Boomer/Gen-X mentality, but it was so obviously wrong for this industry then and now.

What Y'all Were Right About

- "You can do great work anywhere," ~ Craig Sager's Tailor

- "I think every game is different, not that some of them aren't dull, but it's a rare person who lives his life without encountering dull spots. It's up to the writer to take a lively interest and see the difference." - Red Smith, Mean Green ATO

- "... and prefer the simplicity of the preps. One day, you might be one of them." ~ Batman

- "He wrote that he felt that he owed it to everyone, including the participants, his viewers, his bosses, and himself, to approach each event with the same professionalism that he gave when he was working a big-time professional or college event." - Marty Glickman via Baron Scicluna

- "If you want to write something that your voice will be the only one, or one of very few, painting the picture of the story of the game, then write preps.

If you want to be one of many, many voices, then write college or pro, if you can.

I would also argue in today's media, prep reporters have more job security." ~ 93Devil

- "The traditional preps/small college/big college/pros/takeout writer/columnist path doesn't exist anymore ... if you start out covering preps for a weekly, I'm not sure you're going to climb any kind of traditional ladder." ~ DD

- "You don't want to be the guy over 30 who hasn't moved on from covering preps." ~ John Hammond

Takeaways

FWIW I look back at my original post and can definitely understand why it was received poorly. I was frustrated at the time and strongly regretted my pursuit of journalism over my original aerospace engineering path. I still have that regret, particularly as I clear out my savings from the last five years to cover surprise car and medical expenses while my peers from college continually pour money into real estate, DogeCoin and GameStop investments.

Undeterred, we press on. Here's to another five years...

 

Crazy thing about covering Preps is how many people you find deep connections with along the way since you are dealing with athletes and coaches early in their careers.

 

Is it too late to pursue aerospace engineering - or something else that uses the skills and knowledge you have from that path? If not, I'd strongly encourage you to do so. If you feel you have to "feed the rat" with writing or journalism, you can probably do so via freelancing.

Or, you could leverage your aerospace engineering background (lots of math and operations-research type of knowledge, I would imagine) to distinguish yourself in sports reporting ... developing mathematical models for use in sports analytics, for example.

The same initiative, imagination and determination that would have made you stand out as an aerospace engineer can be applied as a journalist to make you stand out in that field.

 

I do wonder why local papers don't cover other extra-curriculars the same way - some of the things kids do with robotics, science, music, etc. - maybe you don't cover them like you do football or hoops - but very featureable. Shoot, do a real feature on Cody Pepin of Mid-Pen. He really can't be that boring, can he? Shoot, the kid has to have something going on to motivate a teacher to throw their career away.

 

Wow, thanks for checking back in.

As you noted, there was some truly terrible advice in the original thread.

The old days of working your way up the ladder are basically over. There is no ladder. It collapsed more than a decade ago. In the unlikely event that my paper ever has an opening, we're hiring the youngest, cheapest person we can get our hands on. When they were on a hiring spree, The Athletic was looking for someone established who could bring subscribers with them; barring that, they were looking for young, cheap and diverse. They had no interest in dues-paying, nor does any other internet outlet.

I'm glad you found some degree of fulfillment if not financial success.

My advice: If you decide to leave the business, don't undervalue yourself. You sound like a smart and hard-working person. You have the ability to put a sentence together and a job history to prove it (which is surprisingly rare in this world). You can find happiness outside of journalism. Many have.

 

What a fascinating thread.
I feel like I’ve just read GAWalker’s SJ High School Yearbook’s signature pages from 2015.