Sports Team

We haven't really addressed the planning and designing of sports sections in this blog. That's an oversight worth remedying. 'Plan' may be a four-letter word in many news rooms, but direct the other four-letter expletives at yourself if you can't produce a decent section. Each staff has unique challenges, but the biggest is a failure to plan. As the old adage goes: If you fail to plan, you plan to fail. At times, we can pull off a terrific page, section, or package at the last minute. But that's the exception, not the rule. Instead, sports editors need to plan well in advance. Plan, at the very least (and I do mean 'very least'), one week in advance. Enter meetings with a goal. Your goal could be making sure you have at least one feature story per day for the next month. Or, it could be having one in-depth story per week. After the planning meeting, immediately enter everything onto a budget -- deadlines, length, visuals, assigned reporter -- and distrib...

You've worked hard all season to get into the basketball lineup, enduring months of hard training. Running sprints in the gym. Planting your feet, holding your ground, taking the charge -- a slamming of bodies. You dive into piles of elbows, knees, and fists to get loose balls during practices. And practice is every afternoon -- but (sigh) sometimes at 6 a.m. You get into the game mostly for mop-up time, when the coach realizes the team has no chance to win (or lose). Two minutes here, three minutes there. In a rare circumstance, a full quarter. One game, you find yourself in an unusual situation -- holding the ball near the basket. A defender slams into you, deflecting the shot. But you hit one of your free-throw attempts. Your name will now be in the scoring summary, something you'll be able to brag about with friends and family. The next morning, you rush to get the newspaper before school, but there it is. Your name misshapen, butchered, destroyed. Disdoni. Instead of prai...

A few weeks ago, I decided to develop tips for using photos in sports sections. Quickly, I realized I was not qualified. I have designed many pages over the years. But who knows how many sports shooters cursed me under their breath for reducing large, sweeping shots to the size of a postage stamp or for cropping out something they worked hard to work into the frame. Sorry, guys. Instead, I asked a friend, Brian Poulter, who teaches photography here at Eastern Illinois University , to offer tips for sports folks who are more accustomed to thinking in words than pictures -- even though photos help tell the story and draw in readers. Brian is also an excellent photographer, something you can check out yourself at his itty bitty photo blog . His work is both journalism and art at the same time. I wish I could capture details as exquisitely as he does with a camera. You should also check out Mark Hoffman's splendid sports photography at the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel . That's his...

Greed. There’s no other word for it. More and more sports governing bodies want it all. They want free exposure on TV, print and online. They want to control the media. But, most of all, they want to control all revenue, wringing every penny for themselves -- even at the expense of losing essential publicity from news organizations. The NFL would not be where it is today were not for all the free PR it has received through stories in newspapers, magazines, television and radio. That has resulted in billions of dollars for the league. Apparently, that is not enough. So the NFL created its own network, scheduling key games on this channel in order to force cable companies to add it to their menu. (Unless you have a satellite package, you will not see Green Bay take on Dallas on Thanksgiving.) Plus, the NFL limits video coverage on newspaper websites , believing this would cut into profits or would lure readers away from the NFL’s website. The NCAA, concerned about profits from its TV c...

Like many smaller newspapers across the country, the Quincy Herald Whig focuses more on local sports. As it should be. More mid-sized and larger newspapers are also turning to local sports coverage. Gone are the days where readers turned to the local newspaper for national sports coverage. Now, readers can get live play by play online and can view highlights of national games on ESPN . Even larger newspapers, like the Chicago Tribune and Washington Post , are turning to more prep coverage. High school sports are more attractive to editors for several reasons. A senior editor at the Washington Post told me the NFL had blocked the paper’s attempt to create an online site for the Redskins. The NFL, which wants to control as much as it can, has draconian rules that limit video posting to 45 seconds per day. That’s not enough time to tell a substantial story. So the Post turned to high schools , whose coaches, players and fans are excited to get the star treatment. The Washington Post s...

Not to name drop, but I spent some time today with Robert Moresco , the screenwriter who won an Oscar for “Crash” – and who co-produced “Million Dollar Baby.” We were hanging out at the Brown Hotel , overlooking Louisville from the top floor. Bobby had some great advice on ways to improve writing, something that captivated many of those attending this session sponsored by Spalding University's MFA program . No matter what you write, you’ll probably want to consider some of his suggestions – many of which are also applicable to those interesting in covering sports. Commit to your idea. “Don’t capitulate to others’ ideas,” Moresco said. That means thinking about new angles and story ideas for writing profile stories, for packaging sports sections, and for even using agate. Look at as many other sports sections and writing examples as possible – not to emulate these fine works but, rather, to find ways to develop them further. Be an innovator. As Bobby said: “Don’t write what the...