Feedback on basketball feature

[JPW]

Hey folks, I would love to hear some feedback on this feature I wrote on a sophomore point guard who had a break out season and will become the team leader next season. Since it is a school without a journalism program, my work at the student newspaper is how I have built my writing skills and I would appreciate any lessons from this piece. I have my own thoughts on how it turned out, but usually we don't get much feedback so I'd like to hear what outsiders think.

Thank you very much.

***

Even before he played a minute of his sophomore season, LMU hung banners with Anthony Ireland's face on them. As a part of the 'LMU at 100' campaign, a photo from Ireland's freshman season adorned some of the banners hanging along light posts on campus and down Lincoln Boulevard. His reaction the first time he saw the banners?

"It was crazy, it felt like a dream come true," Ireland said. "You only see that in movies or hear about it." Making the moment even more surreal, Ireland's mother was in town when they first went up, so the two saw them for the first time together.

And that was before this season, one in which Ireland garnered All-Conference honors by averaging 16.1 points and 4.9 assists per game on LMU's first 20-plus win team in more than two decades.

With the graduation of senior leaders like redshirt seniors Drew Viney and Tim Diederichs as well as senior LaRon Armstead, the leadership role will fall increasingly on Ireland's shoulders next season. It is a responsibility that Ireland looks forward to having.

"I just want to be more of a leader than I was this year," Ireland said. "I kind of took a back seat sometimes because [we had] upperclassmen like Drew. Next year I feel like it will be my team, and I just don't feel like we're going to lose next year." It is a hyperbolic prediction, but he says it very matter-of-factly.

Plenty was expected of Ireland coming into the 2011-12 season. After starting 26 games and averaging a shade over 10 points per game during his freshman year, Ireland was named to the West Coast Conference (WCC) All-Freshman team in his first collegiate season. The departure of Vernon Teel following that season, however, placed almost all of the ball-handling duties in Ireland's control. The five-foot-10 sophomore from Waterbury, Conn. gladly took the keys to LMU's offense and revved the engine. The Lions were 14-0 when scoring more than 70 points in the 2011-12 season.

Rarely did a possession start in any way other than a teammate feeding the ball to Ireland. Every LMU defensive rebound was quickly passed on to Ireland, often already streaking up the court.

There are not enough words to express the amount of trust that teammates and coaches have in Ireland.

"Ultimately," said LMU Head Coach Max Good.

"One-hundred and fifty percent," said Associate Head Coach Myke Scholl.

"One-hundred percent, 1,000 percent, whatever the maximum trust is," said Viney. "Whenever we're in trouble, whenever there is any situation where we need to break a press, we need a good shot, we need a play to happen, we get the ball to Ant and say, 'Ant, make something happen.'"

Developing that trust was something Ireland knew he needed to do coming into his second season. "I felt like I needed my teammates' trust," he said. "I feel like with my play on the court and how I work in the offseason, they're able to know how bad I want it, how bad I want to win."

Each game presents the unique challenge Ireland constantly faces in toeing the fine line of what Good calls being a "points guard" – a facilitating point guard but also one who can put up points in bunches. Ireland is capable of creating opportunities and slinging passes, but he is also one of the team's better 3-point shooters.

"He has a little bit of where you tell him you want him to pass the ball, that's all he'll do. If you tell him you want him to shoot the ball, then that's all he'll do," Good said. "He's got to be able to blend the two. He's got to know when to shoot and when to pass."

Only twice this season did Ireland have a game where he recorded double digits in both points and assists.

"Its definitely tough. You have to switch it game to game, play by play," Ireland said.

Talking about the All-Conference award, Ireland is surprisingly unenthusiastic. Not that he doesn't like personal accolades, but Ireland's confidence and fierce competitiveness drive him to be more than just one of the 10 best players in the conference.

"I mean, it's a good accomplishment, but I felt like I knew it was going to happen. Not to be big-headed or anything, but I felt like I put that much work in, I deserve it," Ireland said. "So it wasn't really nothing, I just wanted that Player of the Year."

A naturally quiet person, Ireland points to his vocal leadership as an area where he needs work. "They already respect me, I just have to be more vocal and help them make the right play," Ireland said. His teammates and coaches, however, have already seen improvement during the 2011-12 season.

"His vocal leadership, it was a 180-degree turn around [from his freshman year]," Viney said. The senior noted that in big games when Ireland did raise his voice in the huddle it struck a strong chord with teammates.

Good agreed, calling Ireland a silent leader who "became a little more vocal as the year went on."

Viney and Ireland roomed together on the road – A chance for two All-conference team leaders to share knowledge, goals and motivation. Viney brings up a goal that Ireland shared for next season: developing freshman point guard Bruce English. With Ireland logging almost 37 minutes per game this year, there was not much time to be had in the backup point guard role. English appeared in 19 games this season, averaging just 1.5 points per game in around seven minutes per contest.

"He wants to learn and Ant's going to take him under his wing," Viney said.

"As a leader, [and] as a guy that's leaving, for the next leader to come in and want to help somebody else in his same position – most guys want to beat out the guy in their position, but he's that type of person that whoever is going to be with him … he wants to get them better everyday," Viney said. "That's the type of person Ant is. To hear that, it's just a refreshing thing."

When his standout sophomore season ended, the first thing that Ireland did was hug Diederichs at center court of Utah State University's Dee Glen Smith Spectrum. Instead of sulking in an ugly loss, he sought out the seniors who had built up the program. He embraced those who had taught him so much and made his stellar season possible.

"I just wanted to establish myself. … I wanted to establish myself as being one of the best guards, not only on the West Coast, but in the country," Ireland said about his preseason focus. "That was my main motivation. Just making everybody be familiar with my name." If anyone didn't know the kid on the banners, they should by now.

 

[Versatile]

This feature was not bad, overall, but it definitely needed some work. I'll come back to what you did well later, but I'm going to hit you with the constructive criticism first.

The lede is grammatically incorrect or unclear, depending on how much of a stickler you are for dangling modifiers. "Even before he played a minute of his sophomore season," should be followed by the noun "Anthony Ireland" (not "Anthony Ireland's face," either) because you need to clarify whom you're refering to with your third-person pronouns.

Also in the lede, you didn't need the question at all. It was an extraneous transition that actually dampened the effect of the quote.

Wordiness is an issue for most writers who post here, particularly the young ones. There are many segments that would be better truncated, but I'll go with three examples, then some general advice:

===EXAMPLES===

Your writing: Rarely did a possession start in any way other than a teammate feeding the ball to Ireland. Every LMU defensive rebound was quickly passed on to Ireland, often already streaking up the court.
My editing: Ireland would streak upcourt after defensive rebounds and initiate the offense on nearly every possession.
My reasoning: Your writing was passive and negative. Concrete subjects make for better sentences. You also had the better description of his style second.

Your writing: Developing that trust was something Ireland knew he needed to do coming into his second season. "I felt like I needed my teammates' trust," he said. "I feel like with my play on the court and how I work in the offseason, they're able to know how bad I want it, how bad I want to win."
My editing: Ireland knew he needed to develop that trust entering his second season. "I feel like, with my play on the court and how I work in the offseason, they're able to know how bad I want it, how bad I want to win," he said.
My reasoning: Your writing was passive, and the first part of the quote is redundant.

Your writing: Viney and Ireland roomed together on the road – A chance for two All-conference team leaders to share knowledge, goals and motivation. Viney brings up a goal that Ireland shared for next season: developing freshman point guard Bruce English. With Ireland logging almost 37 minutes per game this year, there was not much time to be had in the backup point guard role. English appeared in 19 games this season, averaging just 1.5 points per game in around seven minutes per contest.
My editing: Viney and Ireland were roommates on the road, sharing knowledge and goals. Viney recalls Ireland saying he wanted to help develop freshman point guard Bruce English. With Ireland playing about 37 minutes a game, English was limited to infrequent and brief stints on the floor.
My reasoning: You can establish Viney's bona fides in the quote that follows, i.e.: "said Viney, an all-conference performer last season." Sports writers tend to clog stories with unnecessary statistics as a force of habit. The story isn't about English, so lose the stats about him.

===EXAMPLES DONE===

Student journalists struggle with sentence structure. It's practically a constant across all levels of journalism school. Most professionals struggle with it, too. But better grasping how to structure sentences will make your writing leaner, cleaner and more engaging. Be careful about clauses at the front of sentences, as you will often wind up with situations similar to your lede.

You also repeated yourself often, particularly through quotes. The best quotes require no transitions at all, but even the worst don't need to be spelled out as you often did. Tighten your words by asking what they add. Furthermore, don't stack quotes the way you did unless you can justify why each adds something unique. The quotes from the head coach and assistant coach seemed only to exist to prove you talked to them. You would have been better off leaving them out of the story entirely or choosing better quotes or anecdotes. Also, after quotes, it's generally best to start a new paragraph. It's OK to tack a quote to the end of a paragraph, but if a quote starts a paragraph, it reads smoother to let it stand alone.

Now, to the promised positives: you did a good job structuring the story. The writing needed work, but you identified a good lede anecdote and a good closing quote. You built the character well based on the material you had. You should look for more conflict in your reporting, though. What drives Anthony Ireland? What obstacles has he faced?

I think your piece showed a lot of potential, so keep with it. And post what you write here whenever you feel comfortable. I'll try to give it a read, even if others don't.

 

[JPW]

Thank you very much for the read, it means a lot and was quite helpful. Because of the nature of my school and our newspaper, my stories are essentially never edited from a content standpoint. It really makes a difference to have somewhere that I can get feedback not just on my spelling, but actually on the writing and the content. Thank you and I will post more often.