What constitutes a "helluva sports editor?"

On the flip side, having good people who want to be pushed and are willing to make trust a two-way street goes a long way toward making a good sports editor.

 

Wow. Sounds a lot like Kevin Whaley (currently in Atlanta) and Dan Dinsmore (formerly the AME Sports in Portland, ME., before he got kicked upstairs).

Let me also add two other qualifications:

1) Smart enough to know what they don't know. The worst SE's were those who knew just enough to be dangerous or THOUGHT they knew just enough to be dangerous. I worked for one of those in Victorville and one of those in New Mexico; both were colossal wastes.

2) Flexible enough to understand that real life intrudes on you from time to time and that you may need some flexibility in your schedule: i.e. working from home, etc.

Here's a great story that sums up why I'd run through a wall for Whaley. At my last stop, I wrote a tongue-in-cheek column ripping Warner Bros suits for selling out their timeless characters doing this cheesy festival at a local mall skate park.

I wrote I wanted to see Wile E. Coyote sailing off a cliff, not sailing off a skate ramp and on and on. Well, after the VP of Marketing called our editor (who referred him to Kevin), one of their marketing suits called up Kevin asking him why he allowed such a column to run in his section and why he didn't change it.

Here's what Kevin told her:

"Ma'am, do you know what a column is? It's the writer's opinion on a given subject. And if I change it, then it becomes MY column... and it wasn't my column. It was Bird's.

"Now unless he libeled Warner Brothers, which he didn't, I don't think we have anything else to discuss. So we're through here, right."

This was SOP for Kevin. He always had your back.

 

Correct. Which goes back to my first -- and most important -- point: bring in good people.

 

Five years ago: Would talk to you now and then and give you feedback on what you're doing well and what you need to improve on. Deal with the staff honestly, have a handle on the office scuttlebutt and keep everyone on the same page.
Now: Will meet with you face to face when you get laid off and offer a recommendation, perhaps give you some names of people in and out of the business that might be hiring. Maybe even call you a few times after you walk out the door for the last time.

 

Incredibly, all three of mine have exuded all the traits y'all have talked about. Shockingly, all three of them are no longer SEs. I only wish I could have kept up my imitations of them longer and better.

RB

 

I'd agree with all of that except No. 6. In this day and age a great sports editor would not be well respected or liked in other departments because the 9-to-5ers in these departments cannot respect a person who does not punch the clock. In this day and age a great sports editor is 1-5 and most importantly fights the other departments as much as possible to get off the backs of the hard working sports people.

 

I worked for a guy and I'd have to say that a "helluva sports editor" would be everything that he was not.

It wouldn't hurt, just in the abstract, to be a Marine.

 

Fred Turner was one of these people.

 

A good SE will recognize how much workload his people can bear and be willing to get his hands dirty when necessary. He'll also lay out a game plan, both small scale and large scale, that's clear enough for everyone to follow, from the ASEs to the deskers to the beat folks. He's also willing to listen to his people when they have an idea of how things could be improved or when somethings need to be no longer done.

 

Why is it that all of this sounds like a great boss to work for and yet this business is going to hell with just the opposite kind of people in charge? I know, they're not sports people. But this screams for attention.

 

Agreed on Turner, and also agree on every nice thing said about Anger. But that just goes to show you you can be good at this in different ways.

Fred was the antithesis of a micro-manager, and in fact, on those occasions he was criticized (certainly not from inside the department, but you know how newspapers can be), that was the crux of it: "What the heck does that guy do all day long?"

What Fred did was recruit talent, obtain resources, help plan well and then spend a lot of time getting the hell out of the way, letting that talent put those resources and plans to use and create great sports sections.

Paul wasn't a micromanager either, but he WAS more hands on and more involved in what was going on with the daily sports section and the special sections. Tim Burke was more like Anger than Turner, very involved in everything that was going on.

This are three of the best I've worked for.

I'm more of a "get out of the way" manager. Just have always believed in doing in that way.

 

Most SEs want to hire someone who they can just let do their thing and I hardly blame them for that. The ones like Fannin and Burke and Hoppes work with the writers to make them better. That's what separates the good SEs from the great ones.