Skills and traits most needed for success

I just want to cast another vote for curiosity. I speak to a lot of college kids who tell me they want to be a sports writer, and when I ask them what their favorite books are, or who their favorite writers are, they mumble incoherently and stare at the floor, or they tell me they think Bill Simmons is really funny.

Read. Read all kinds of stuff, and talk to people about writing. Call someone you've never met because you liked a story they wrote and ask them if they'll talk to you about it. Read about politics, art, literature, music, culture, anything. Just read.

 

Time management.

Being able to consistently hit deadline (without sacrificing quality) is crucial. It's easy to craft a story when it's the only thing on your plate, it's an entirely different animal when you're trying to write, design and field phone calls within 2-4 hour window. If you don't plan beforehand, some aspect of your/others work is going to suffer.

 

I find that the people who pooh-pooh the value of knowledge don't have enough of it.

No, you don't need to be the Schwab. Does it matter if you can name the starting third baseman of the 1941 Red Sox? No. (It's Jim Tabor.) But it helps greatly to have a historical sense of the sports. It's so valuable -- immeasurably so. The galling lack of knowledge and perspective in our business is why have these shrieking, "They're the greatest ever'' and "They're the worst ever" stories that are written versions of talk radio.

Yes, you can fill in a lot of gaps by knowing how to look up things. But if you don't a sound enough foundation of knowledge, you don't always know what to look up.

As for other traits, I'd put personal pride up there.

If you have enough of it, you won't mail it in. You'll be as patient and diligent and dogged as you need to be to get a story right. You're work hard, and you'll do it with integrity.

 

Perspective is important, though, to help you become a better writer. Too often, inexperienced writers (beat or otherwise) can get tunnel vision about the teams or sport they cover, and lose track of their place in the sports world or in history, which is why you see the ESPNization of "LeBron = god" or "Dwyane = M.J." that we all get sick of. On a local level, we see prep athletes get annointed as bona-fide athletic superstars when all they are ... are kids. Teenagers. Losing a high school game is not the end of the world, not for most of them, and we shouldn't be treating it (or writing it) as such.

We need more people (writers or otherwise) with a little more perspective, a little better sense of history, instead of falling into this trap of Greatest Player/Team/Game/Series/Performance Ever just because it was caught on video, or because everyone says it is.

Again, it comes back to what your definition of success is. If you define success as being the best you can be, no matter your situation, then a trait like perspective will help you become a better writer. It won't help you much with interviews or office politics or "success" that way, although if you're a better writer, you'll be able to move up maybe a little quicker.

 

Haven't you done enough?

http://www.bostonsportsmedia.com/archives/shots/003013.php

why would you even keep posting to this place?

 

I post here because I enjoy most of the people and the discussions, they're informative, or funny, or just weird. I fucked up once and I'll live with the consequences. But I don't have any reason to hide, either.

 

I think "fearlessness" is a very underrated attribute in a writer/reporter. And I'll say honestly that my lack of willingness to keep sticking my head into locker rooms and make those phone calls is a main reason I moved inside, despite my love for the writing part.

 

I'm sorry, but a lack of judgment so profound suggests fucking up is something you likely do with regularity.

 

Well, this COULD remain an interesting thread ...

 

Well, the real question seems to me is "hasn't he paid enough already?" Not like he shot a man in Reno just to watch him die or even broke any law I'm aware of. Millions of people in 2004 voted for a guy who, by his own admission, once shot an unarmed boy in the back. And, in 1976, elected president a man who, not unreasonably, admitted to feeling "lust in his heart." Michael -- who I do not know -- seems, from what I can intuit, a normal enough fellow who got a bit whipsawed by the new technology. Shit happens.

Being a fan of Wendell Gee, I'm willing to give M.G. a pass from here. Some aren't. Tough titty.

 

I think you need God and talent. God will make a way for the talent to shine.

 

Fixed.