The world of sports reporting: full of cliches, bad metaphors and meaningless statistics. Right?
Well, not necessarily. Sports journalism can be dynamic, interesting, informative and original.
For student journalists who aspire to become professional sports reporters, university and collegiate athletics provide an excellent opportunity to develop reporting skills by covering organized, high-level sports. Moreover, good sports reporters at student newspapers can become authorities in the sports they cover, which can be a distinct advantage when they want to sell their work on a freelance basis.
Writing Sports Stories
The main elements of a good sports story are a catchy lead, clear focus and lots of quotes. Often you'll find that good sports stories combine background and statistical information, the writer's paraphrasing of a source's quotes, and quotes themselves in a seamless fashion. If an article flows nicely and tells the story, the reader may not even notice the writer. This is good: the story should always be more prominent than the person who wrote it. Photo by Tyler Cleveland, The Ranger
Keep your paragraphs short, since newspaper columns are thin and long paragraphs can be hard on the eyes. Sports writing is full of devices that can be tough to master, but are very effective when they are used correctly. (consult the news writing, lede writing and the other writing chapters in this section for more information. Most of these other tips apply to sports as well).
Sports coverage can be divided into four kinds of stories: sports news, game results, profiles and opinion pieces. A quick scan of the sports section in the nearest daily newspaper will tell you that sports stories rarely fall into any other classification. If you end up covering a particular team or writing a lot of sports stories, you will probably get to try each kind of article.
Sports News Articles
About 500 words is usually an adequate length for a sports news story. But, like in news stories, size can be adjusted depending on how much treatment you want to give to an issue. Some examples of sports news stories are: hiring of a new coach, changes in the athletic budget, stories on facilities and drug use among campus athletes.
Here is a blueprint for a sports news story:
Step No. 1
Use a lead which gets the readers' attention. Try to make it answer as many of the five "W"s (who, what, when, where, and why) and an "H" (how) as possible. Here is an example: Simon Fraser University's Terry Fox running track is a lurking menace, says an SFU coach, and it doesn't look like a replacement is coming anytime soon. When writing ledes try to use the active voice. This way you can emphasize the current situation.
Step No. 2
Here is the where the meat of the story is found. Make sure you put the most important information on top, and the least important at the bottom. As well, have no more than one thought per sentence. Aim for clarity rather than flowery language.
Step No. 3
Conclusion. Do not editorialize in the conclusion or sum up your article. End your story with the least important fact you have or with an interesting quote. Sometimes, your conclusion may be cut out, if an editor has to fit your story in a tight space.
Game Results Articles
Sports reporting is unique from other areas in a student newspaper. Unlike sections like news, you will end up meeting with the same people on a regular basis a lot of the time. This includes the coaches and players of the teams you are covering. This applies especially to game results stories.
News
This type of article summarizes a game and gives a few post-game quotes from the players and/or coaches. They are very time-sensitive. If the article is not run immediately after the game, it is old news. Because most student papers are published weekly or even monthly, game results articles are old hat when we get around to printing them. For that reason try to avoid them, reserving them only for especially important games.
Profiles
Profiles are feature-style articles that highlight the story or achievements of a particular athlete, coach or team. They tend to be longer than regular sports stories °© somewhere between 700 and 900 words °© and require more research than in sports news tories. While sports news stories are written in the past tense (e.g. "The field was horrible," Smith said ), profiles often are written in the present tense (e.g. "I always trained on that field," Smith says ).
Opinion Pieces
Some student newspapers have sports columnists, while others accept opinion submissions from writers-at-large. Either way, opinion pieces are a good way to inject color and life into a sports section. If you get called upon to write an opinion piece, it should be between 400 and 600 words and focused on a specific issue relevant to the athletics your paper covers.
Final Thoughts On Sports Stories Using Quotes:
Make sure your quotes add to the story. Do not use a quote that can be turned into text, like a coach saying what their team's record is. And avoid anything that remotely smells of, "We gave 110 per cent," or "We will fight to the end." If it is a cliché discard it. Instead, aim for quotes like this one."This was a game you regret the money you spent on the officials," Hillis said.The person being quoted is James Hillis, a University of Regina basketball coach who is speaking after his team suffered a terrible loss.
Interviews
You can sometimes get more background information about a subject in the interview, but by then you should know a good deal about your subject anyway. The main purpose of the interview is to obtain quotes that legitimize and back up the story you are telling in the article. Remember, unless it's an opinion piece the reader is more interested in what the athletes and coaches have to say than what some student journalist thinks. Talk to at least two but no more than five people for a sports article, including players and their family members, coaches, athletic directors or other executives.
If you are covering a team or a sport, stay in contact with the coach or a few of the athletes, just to keep up on new developments.
The best interviews are casual, like conversations with acquaintances. Go into an interview with a short list of five or six open-ended questions to get your subjects talking °© if you ask the right questions, people will usually provide lots of quotes without much provocation. Remember to stay on your toes and take notes so you can ask follow-up questions based on their answers. Check your tape recorder often and take notes in case it fails. Save your tougher interviews for last, when you are best informed. A good trick is to ask the person you are interviewing who they would talk to if they were researching the same topic, and call that person right away.
Final note:
Most sports interviews are easy to do. Athletes and coaches are usually very approachable. Make sure your interview flows logically. Listen carefully as an interview may take you in a different direction you may not have expected.
Thanks to Darren Steinke and Mason Wright