Sports Team

Don’t tell me you can’t find stories on “minor” college sports like cross country , swimming , and field hockey. Often, the best stories come from these beats. Most sports writers will clamor to cover football this fall, but that’s not where all the best stories reside. Be thankful if you cover a “minor” beat because nobody else will have this information. Cover cross country or field hockey or rugby like any other beat by going to practices, talking with coaches and athletes, and reading stories on other conference teams. In the end, you’ll be an expert on this beat – and, therefore, invaluable. Editors and readers alike will appreciate your efforts. Too often, these sports unfairly receive little coverage even in high school and college newspapers. Covering a "minor" beat will also help you land a job. Sports editors are sometimes more impressed when writers submit clips from “minor” sports,” believing it takes more time and effort to find these stories (After all, sports ...

USA Today recently posted a great article on the Wing-T offense in football, a formation that relies on misdirection and deception. This formation is especially helpful for smaller programs that do not have the size or strength on the front lines, although this formation is effective for programs of all sizes. More than 16 percent of all state champs in 2006 implemented the Wing-T, so named because the formation loosely resembles a T. To learn more about the strategies and intricacies of the Wing T, click here . Readers love stories that help explain strategies, formations, and techniques. For example, you could write a story on how teams effectively implement the suicide squeeze in baseball, the triangle offense in soccer, or the pick-and-roll in basketball. That means you need to talk with as many coaches as possible to fully understand the nuances of these plays – and so you can get many perspectives. Not every coach runs the same play or offense the same way. In addition, make su...

Here's the press release we just received from MLB on internships. This is a great opportunity to get valuable experience reporting, writing, interviewing -- and working with professional sports journalists. Check it out. PRESS RELEASE Want an exciting summer of covering Major League or Minor League Baseball? MLB.com offers 33 reporting internships to aspiring sportswriters. These internships are designed to give associates the full range of experiences that comes with covering a professional team. Each associate will work closely with a site reporter to give visitors to a team’s Web site all the information they need to follow the team from Opening Day to season’s end. Each Major League city will have one associate, and MLB.com, which manages the Web site for MiLB , will offer three internships for the Minor Leagues. Starting Sept. 10, we will be looking for talented college juniors and seniors, as well as graduate students, for our 2008 Summer Internship Program. The application...

Sometimes, I can't sleep so I sit, bleary-eyed, and retrace the day's events while my body struggles to stay awake. At times, I drive around town with the other night owls and insomniacs. A few years ago, this led me to a Wal -Mart at 1 in the morning where I bought party favors for my daughter's fourth birthday. As I checked out, I started to grow exceptionally weary (and grouchy) as the older woman at the register worked slowly, taking more time than necessary to handle and scan the pointed party hats, the sound blowers, and the napkins. I could barely stand. I was impatient and about to blow -- until she started telling me her story. "Having a party," she said softly. "Those are always fun. You know, I haven't seen my grand-daughter for a few years. I really miss her." Nobody else was in line behind me, so she proceeded to tell a story about a young mother who believed her mother-in-law was getting too pushy and about a son who would not defend hi...

You would assume that most students who sign up for a sports reporting class would like sports. That's not always the case. Sometimes, students sign up for this class in order to fit in another writing course, because they always wanted to learn about sports or because they cannot get into another class. Students who think this will be a blow-off class quickly drop it, mostly because they find the class requires a considerable amount of writing. After all, that is how one learns about reporting and writing -- by doing it. (Something that is complemented by assessment and analysis). That is how I set up my syllabus. I do not give tests or quizzes. Each writing assignment is essentially a test on how much students have learned in class. I also do not assume that even my most senior and experienced students understand all about sports. As a sports editor, I used to read copy from some reporters who did not know enough about the sports they were paid to cover, so I know college student...