What's the biggest misconception people you know have about sports journalism?

That we like sports.

 

That all females in the Sports Dept. like scrawny, pale, tatted-up young punks.

;D

 

Um, Norman, that is true. No misconception there.

 

So are you implying you don't? With all the negatives discussed ad nauseum here -- low pay, crappy hours, deadline pressure, etc -- I don't think people are too out of line to assume that sports writers actually like sports. If you're going to do a job you don't like I would think you'd do a better paying one.

 

Hey, that's a great idea!

 

Scarcasm is lost on some people.

 

From outside the building: "You work for the Daily Metro Shitrag? Wow. I have a friend who likes to write; his poetry is awesome. Could you get him a job?" Standard response: "Does he have reliable transportation? We're hiring for routes."

From inside the building: Managers who think hiring more and more managers is a better idea than hiring writers and deskers when we're woefully understaffed in the writing and desking departments, and news desk people who start freaking out when someone calls in sick because they're so "shorthanded" even though they have less space and more people than sports and they're not getting an avalanche of stories filed 10 minutes before deadline.

 

All the misconceptions are a major reason why I wrote "No Time Outs: What It's Really Like To Be A Sportswriter," because there are so many out there and so few people who have a clue about what we really do (and that includes people in my own newsroom).

However, since then I've had people actually come up to me, or write me, and say "I had no idea," or "I'm sorry."

The one that did it for me, and I put this in the book, was after ordering a pizza and when the delivery person arrived I was wearing a Super Bowl sweatshirt (I think I paid $40 for it). She asked about it and I told her I covered it. "Oh, so you got a freebie?" I could have told her I wrote 27 stories that week (which I did) and got almost no sleep and it wouldn't have mattered at all.

 

Shamless plug alert!

 

See, I find it's the opposite. When my school loses, every fan wants you to absolutely level them. When they win, they don't want to hear anything except that the coach is a genius, the program is pristine, the players call their moms every night, etc., etc.

In other words, they want you to overreact each week just as they do.

 

I guess so. That wasn't the first post that said the same thing in this thread, I'll have to assume they were being sarcastic too.

 

Yeah, it was. But I couldn't figure out a good way to do it without the plug, so figured what the heck.

That also makes this a post-pad. See, you guys are rubbing off on me.