SPORTSWRITING

By Jimbo Gulle
Sports Editor, The Manila Times
The world of sports reporting
Full of “clichés, bad metaphors and
meaningless statistics,” but not necessarily.
Can be dynamic, interesting, informative and
original.
For student journalists, high school and
collegiate athletics provide an excellent
opportunity to develop reporting skills by
covering organized, high-level sports.
The world of sports reporting
“Nowhere do clichés flourish more
luxuriantly than on sports pages. It
doesn’t have to be this way, as good
sportswriters prove every day. But the
weaklings succumb in droves to the
handy platitude.” – Rene J. Cappon,
The AP Guide to News Writing
Writing Sports Stories

Main elements:
 catchy lead
 clear focus

 lots of quotes
Writing Sports Stories
Good sports stories:
 combine background and statistical
information
 the writer's paraphrasing of a source's
quotes
 quotes themselves in a seamless fashion.
If an article flows nicely and tells the
story, the reader may not even notice
the writer.
Writing Sports Stories

Keep your paragraphs short

 newspaper columns are thin
 long paragraphs can be hard on
the eyes.
Writing Sports Stories

Four types of sports coverage:

 sports news
 game stories

 profiles/features

 opinion pieces
Sports News Articles
News articles about sports
Should be balanced and be written
in an "inverted pyramid" style.
Sports News Articles
About 500 words is usually an adequate
length for a sports news story.
Examples:
 the hiring of a new coach
 changes in the school’s athletic budget
 stories on school sports facilities
 drug use among campus athletes.
Blueprint for a sports news
story
Step No. 1 - Use a lead that gets the
readers' attention.
Try to make it answer as many of the five
"W"s and an "H" as possible.
 “The new model of the Big Red Machine won with
spare parts. The Cincinnati Reds were so good in
this World Series that they lost two-thirds of their
starting outfield Saturday night and still swept the
Oakland Athletics.” (12 and 26 words)
Blueprint for a sports news
story
Try to use the active voice.
 Which sounds better: “Liu Xiang
broke the 110-meter hurdles
world record” or “The world
record in the 110-meter hurdles
was broken by Liu Xiang”?
Blueprint for a sports news
story
Step No. 2 - Lead support.
Put the most important information on
top, and the least important at the
bottom.
Have no more than one thought per
sentence.
Aim for clarity rather than flowery
language.
Blueprint for a sports news
story
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.
Game Stories
Sports reporting is unique from
other areas in a student
newspaper.
 Sportswriters end up meeting with
the same people on a regular basis a
lot of the time, especially when
covering games.
Game Stories
Summarizes a game and gives a few
post-game quotes from the players
and/or coaches.
Very time sensitive.
 Because most student papers are
published weekly or even monthly,
sportswriters must try to rework them.
Profiles
Feature-style articles that highlight
the story or achievements of a
particular athlete, coach or team.
Tend to be longer than regular sports
stories — somewhere between 700 and
900 words — and require more
research than in sports news stories.
Profiles
Profiles are written in the present tense
(e.g. "I always trained on that field,"
says Smith).
 In contrast, sports news stories are written
in the past tense (e.g. "The field was
horrible," said Smith).
Opinion Pieces
Good way to inject color and life into a
sports section
Should be between 400 and 600 words
long and focused on a specific issue
relevant to the athletics your paper
covers.
About sportswriting
All sports stories are not game stories,
obviously. More and more, sports
stories also involve legal, medical,
social, and business issues. You
won’t always be writing about people
playing children’s games.
About sportswriting
The sports page is a microcosm of the
real world with all the problems.
Sportswriters need to be able to weave
a story, play with words, hold the
reader’s interest from top to
bottom.
About sportswriting
Sportswriting breaks the mold and
allows the writer to try new approaches.
But first, master the old
approaches.
Another problem is you are writing
for the occasional sports page
reader and the diehard fan. Their
needs are different.
Tips on writing the sports
story
Search for the “wow” factor.
Put the final score high in the story.
 Never wait to reveal the final score in the
middle or the final paragraph. Leave that
to the television sportscasters.
Tips on writing the sports
story
Look for:
 great moments in the game
 ironies (e.g. tall vs. short)
 outstanding players
 crowd reaction
 crowd numbers
 venue condition
 breaks in the norm.
Tips on writing the sports
story
Make the reader interested in your story
by
 using short sentences
 lean writing (cut out all unnecessary
words)
 using the active voice rather than the
passive voice
Tips on writing the sports
story
Consider using additional identifiers in
lieu of the last name:
 The 6-foot-10 freshman, the former UST
Tiger, the three-time all-district performer,
the four-sport athlete.
Develop points brought up; don’t just…
quit.
Tips on writing the sports
story
Get specific, meaningful quotes.
 Avoid quotes like “We did good” or “I was
happy with my play.”
 Use the summary-quote approach
(paraphrase-quote) to get more into the
story.
 Quotes are best that answer the questions
“why,” “how” or “so what?”
Tips on writing the sports
story
Depending on the sport, play-by-play
works OK for part of the story, but keep
it short.
Keep your observation powers
churning. Rely on your eyes, ears and
insight to get facts that stand out.
Tips on writing the sports
story
Writing style is something developed
over time.
 When you read a game story, look at how
it is written as well as its contents.
Advice for sportswriters
Sportswriters must be neutral, objective
and fair.
 Keep opinions out of news stories, but if
you’re a columnist, be prepared to praise
or blast teams and athletes, depending on
the circumstances.
Advice for sportswriters
To break into sportswriting, there are
only three issues: write, write some
more, and keep writing.
 Take as many writing courses as possible
 The ability to write your thoughts via clear
and concise sentence structure is the most
important element of reporting.
Advice for sportswriters
Learn about sports:
 Examples: What constitutes a 300 game in
bowling, how to do a box score in baseball,
what events make up the Triple Crown in
horse racing.
 Watch and read about as many contests as
possible.
Advice for sportswriters
Read everything you can get your
hands on.
 Keep in mind that, as in other branches of
journalism, every subject will come in
handy: history, political science, biology,
etc.
Advice for sportswriters
Stretch your writing muscles by trying
to create similes and metaphors.
 Example: Instead of “He couldn’t hit the
broad side of a barn,” one Sports
Illustrated writer wrote: “He couldn’t throw
a ball into the Grand Canyon while
standing on the edge.”
Advice for sportswriters
Become a better sportswriter by reading
good writers — and not just in the
newspaper sports sections and sports
magazines.
Advice for sportswriters
Master the ability to articulate your
thoughts verbally.
 It’s just as important for print journalists to
feel comfortable speaking to others.
Advice for sportswriters
Learn to listen.
 Many people embrace the erroneous
stereotype of the overbearing reporter
shouting questions at people and hustling
off to file a story.
Advice for sportswriters
 The best reporters are those who take
the time to listen to their subjects.
 One of the best interviewing techniques is
to remain silent after the interviewee
has answered the question.
Advice for sportswriters
Become a Web-head.
 Many people believe the Internet has
revolutionized journalism.
 Students should get as much Internet
research experience as possible.
Advice for sportswriters
Read editorials.
 It will help you be familiar with important
national and international issues and
provide a model for complex yet
concise writing styles.
Advice for sportswriters
Sports writing can be more flexible than
news or feature writing, but remember
that even in sports writing a clear
distinction exists between
reporting and commenting.
SPORTSWRITING RULE
NEVER NEVER be a cheerleader for
your teams on the sports pages.
 Never end a story like this: "The Fighting
Boars will undoubtedly be the class of
conference and will achieve anything they
set out to do. So let's all go out and
support the Boars!!"
One final note
Fifty years ago, Stanley Walker, the noted
American sportswriter, said this:
 “The sports reading public today is remarkably
well informed. It cannot be tickled by mere
extravagance of writing. A lazy and incompetent
writer finds it increasingly difficult to get by with a
sloppy story, spun on a thread of artificial conceits.
The demand is that he give his readers the
facts, and give them straight. When crowds of
75,000 and more attend baseball and football
games, and boxing matches, while millions more are
listening on the radio, the sports writer should
realize that he has an immense, well-informed
audience that does not like to be fooled or
short-changed.”