Sports Team

I'm always sad when I read headlines like this: " Honus Wagner card sold for record-setting $2.35 million." I can only think about all the cards I sold to pay the rent in college, all those cardboard Aarons, Mays, Clementes, Mantles and Roses sold off for another couple of months in a dingy apartment or for a few more credits at the community college. (As if education is as important as pictures of childhood heroes.) Collecting those cards were some of the best times of my life. I learned to negotiate by trading with the neighborhood kids, gladly handing over the Mets' Rusty Staub and Cleon Jones for the likes of Steve Carlton, Harmon Killebrew or Bobby Murcer. I learned to organize by putting cards in order both by team and by numbers, depending on my mood. And I also learned to finish what I started by trading for even the most obscure players (like Cleveland Indians pitcher Steve Kilkenny) because I needed a complete set in 1972. I also pored over statistics on th...

Storming the court is a fine way to celebrate a big victory. But fans need restraint when their school defeats a lower-ranked team, even if the game had been close, writes a columnist at Loyola Marymount . Unlike a columnist at Michigan State, Allison Hong writes that racing onto a field or court does not always create excitement. Hong implores fans at Loyola Marymount to stop storming the basketball court after every victory. Running onto the court after a major upset is fine, but fans should not run out after a win over, say, Santa Clara University, she writes. In an open letter to fans, she writes: “Please stop storming the court. We've done it three times and now it's just getting old.” Sometimes, columnists need to take on their readers in order to affect change, especially when it can cost the school money. Hong does a fine job doing that for a good read. Check it out. -30-

A good sports columnist should offer meaningful insights, cover sports ignored by others, offer cultural criticism, and analyze games in considerably more depth than the average fan. A sports columnist should, at different times, afflict and comfort us. A sports columnist needs to write with style and grace, should have strong opinions (but be willing to sharpen them with facts), and should offer fresh perspectives. Most of all, a good sports columnist needs to be an excellent reporter. As the great Red Smith once wrote: "The guy I admire most in the world is a good reporter. I respect a good reporter, and I'd like to be called that. I'd like to be considered good and honest and reasonably accurate." That’s a tough job description to fill. But many student journalists are cutting their columnist teeth on campuses across the country. And many are doing a pretty decent job. A review of more than 50 online newspapers across the country yielded several strong sports colum...

Here is a great opportunity for college sports reporters to cover the NCAA Women's Final Four. I have posted the information below that was forwarded to me by Eleanor Dombrowski, the program's Internship Director & Special Events Coordinator. You can send her a note at e.dombrowski@csuohio.edu> PRESS RELEASE Cleveland State University is pleased to host the U. S. Basketball Writers Association's Sports Writing Seminar and Scholarship Program. This program has been held for the past five years in conjunction with the NCAA Men's Final Four. This is the first year it will be held at the NCAA Women's Final Four. The program begins on Friday, March 30, 2007, with a panel of national sports writers. Journalism students will compete for media credentials to cover the following NCAA Women's Final Four events at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio. Four teams practices & press conferences - Saturday, March 31, 2007 Semi-Final Games - Sunday, April 1, 2007...

As a former sports reporter and sports copy editor, I have more than a passing interest in sports journalism. I read as much as I can in print and have recently started to scour the Internet for fresh voices and new insights on issues related to sports. Professional beat reporters and columnists are typically more informed than the average fan whose commentary often reads like a poorly written letter to the editor. But that’s no surprise. Too often, average-fan bloggers spend too much time debating who should start at quarterback or berating the work habits of an athlete they have only read about elsewhere. You need to attend games and practices to properly evaluate players and coaches. Many posts on regular fan sites read like rants heard on second-rate sports radio. Many of these fan-blogs are all opinion and no research. Of course, that’s the point with some fan web sites – acting as a continual message board. Letting fans speak is important to any news media. It’s fun and enjoyable...

I am accepting nominations for the Cool College Sports Columns: Weekly Top 10, a feature that will begin next week. Send nominations to me at jgisondi@gmail.com. My e-mail is also listed under my profile (to the right). Blogs are also welcome for submission. This way college sports journalists can learn style and techniques from one another; plus, you can see what issues columnists are addressing. I cannot go into the web sites of every college newspaper, so I am going to rely on referrals by advisers, student-journalists, moms, dads and roommates. ( Suggestions by ex-boyfriends and ex-girlfriends will not be considered, although they should make for an interesting read. Would love to see them. ) I'll pick 10 columns/blogs each week, listing them by columnist and college publication along the right rail ( see Cool College Sports Columns: Weekly Top 10 ). Eventually, I would like to add other sports categories. But, for now, I'll start by reading college sports columns/blogs. I ...

Covering sports can be daunting at first -- watching the action, keeping score, writing effective notes and then talking with coaches and players. Then, you must organize and understand these notes before writing a story under deadline pressure. This entry is the third in a series created to help reporters focus on key information and statistics, both before and during the game. Swimming is a much more individual sport, unlike basketball, football and baseball. Reporters frequently focus on team results in game stories for team sports. In sports like swimming, tennis, and track & field, reporters should focus more on individual results. The team winner is not typically significant in dual and tri-meets. Instead, you should focus on the top individual and relay performances. Even in meets where a team winner is significant, reporters can first focus on individual performances. If the school from your area wins the regional or state titles, place that information higher in the sto...

Jim Gray was vilified about eight years ago when he asked Pete Rose a tough question at the World Series. Rose, banned from baseball for gambling, had just been named to major-league baseball’s All-Century Team. Current players flocked around Ted Williams, Willie Mays, Hank Aaron, Stan Musial and Nolan Ryan. But fans in Atlanta cheered for Rose the most, the man dubbed “Charley Hustle.” Some fans wept during this celebration. Not Gray. He wanted to know whether Rose was willing to admit to gambling on major-league baseball (something Rose finally did in a book a few years ago.) But in 1999, Rose was adamant. He had not gambled. As fans were wiping their eyes, Gray tossed a hardball question that would have made Warren Spahn proud. "Are you willing to show contrition, admit that you bet on baseball and make some sort of an apology to that effect," Gray said. "Not at all Jim. Not at all," Rose replied. "I'm not gonna admit to something that didn't happen....

Students are livid. Alumni are furious. Fans are so angry they are peppering websites with angry messages. The University should be ashamed for bowing to pressure from the NCAA, they write. Now, people all over Illinois are stunned and deflated as they prepare to say good-bye to the Chief, the school’s American Indian mascot for the past 81 years. No longer will fans get to see a University of Illini student make a mockery of Native American culture. No longer will students get to see a 20-something white male jump around as if he had ants in his pants. No longer will people in the arena get to see the most ridiculous and insensitive portrayal of an ethnic group anywhere. Thank God. The Chief is relatively new to me. I grew up in Florida where we have our own version of the Chief. But that’s where the comparison ends. Before football games, Chief Osceola and his horse, Renegade, ride out to the center of the field and throw a spear into the middle of the field. Afterward, this chief pr...

This blog was just mentioned on a site dedicated to innovation in college media. Check out what they said about several journalism professors who have started blogging.

You no longer need a Google account to post comments online. I changed the settings (actually, I just realized I could change the settings.) I guess I'm still a blogateur not a blogxpert. Please, submit your responses to the posts to keep the conversations going.

Covering sports can be daunting at first -- watching the action, keeping score, writing effective notes and then talking with coaches and players. Then, you must organize and understand these notes before writing a story under deadline pressure. This entry is the second in a series created to help reporters focus on key information and statistics, both before and during the game. Add color and give insights to the reader when you cover any athletic event. In basketball that means watching the game closely to find themes and trends so you can reveal them to readers. Below are some ways to find these themes and some tips to invigorate your reporting and writing of basketball games. [Thanks to photo-journalist Jay Grabiec for the picture shown above.] LEAD ELEMENTS ■ Team names/nicknames ■ Score ■ Game’s significance. Does the game clinch playoff berth or eliminate the team from the postseason? Is this a conference or district victory? Does this advance the team in a tournament? ■ Can fo...

Covering sports can be daunting at first -- watching the action, keeping score, writing effective notes and then talking with coaches and players. Then, you must organize and understand these notes before writing a story under deadline pressure. This entry is the first in a series created to help reporters focus on key information and statistics, both before and during the game. At the end of this post, I have suggsted some general questions to ask players and coaches. (I plan to keep adding to this entry, so, if you have suggestions, please send them along.) I plan to create a web site where you can download these tips in printable cheat sheets. I'll post that site on this blog. I hope this helps in your sports reporting. LEAD ELEMENTS ■ Score ■ Key play or player ■ Significant trend ■ Impact of game on conference or district standings or on postseason possibilities. Does this game put the team in position to reach the postseason, eliminate them from a tournament? Men...

Sports need a gay role model, if only so we can stop debating something so silly as one's sexuality. And so we can stop hearing idiots like Tim Hardaway spew hateful messages. I wish someone like Peyton Manning were gay. He could pull out the cheesy mustache he wore in those Sprint commercials, offer some support as he does in the MasterCard commercials, and speak out against inequality. Peyton’s a great role model for everybody -- house movers, latte servers, waitresses, paperboys. (“That’s all right, Bobby, you still have the best arm in the neighborhood!”) Peyton is also one of the most popular and well-liked players in the NFL, according to a league referee I know. It will take someone of the caliber and prestige of Manning for anything to change. For now, all we have are a few mediocre players who have already retired, not the reigning Super Bowl MVP. Tennis legends Martina Navratilova and Billie Jean King are gay, as is Olympic diving champion Greg Louganis. But team sports i...

Some students and faculty on campus were angry our college newspaper published a letter to the editor that promoted a white supremacist stance, so I spoke at a public forum explaining the importance of free speech. You can read the letter at our website . More than 300 people showed up for a forum intended to address challenges of racism on campus. You can read the story published in the Daily Eastern News . What’s the role of a newspaper and why do newspapers publish objectionable ideas? That’s rooted in the First Amendment, but I will not give you a lesson tonight on the 45-sacred words that give us so many of the freedoms we hold dear today. Instead, I would like to focus on another role newspapers serve, the one playwright Arthur Miller wrote about: "A good newspaper is a nation talking to itself." We as a society must have a dialogue on who we are, what we want to be, and where we want to go. We must discuss the important issues of the day publicly. These conversations a...