fshorr's blog

To say that to be a good at a job in sports media is like saying, “ because this guy was a great player, he’ll be a great coach.” Which is just false.

I think it helps to have played the sport in at a competitive level because like Dalen Cuff said, he’s telling us what we aren’t hearing from an insider’s perspective. One thing Dalen said that really resonated with me is that he can’t even play basketball he had quite. I felt the same way; I don’t play soccer anymore, because if I’m playing at the highest level it isn’t fun. Now he has flipped to the other side of the camera and seems to seem it’s a whole other ball game within it’s self. As I see if playing a sport is playing doing sports media is doing sports media: they are two different jobs in a category, sort of like a banana and a apple are both fruits, but not the same thing.

Often times as a player you can be sensitive to reporters questions because you put so much work and care in perfecting your skills for a sport that you feel very connected to it. As a player I do remember times thinking to myself, “ who is this guys and what does he know about what I just went through on field?” However, I don’t think is the fact that that reporter didn’t play soccer that bothered, it was that he did know what he was saying or even asking.

I think that’s the overall lesson, it’s not if you played or didn’t play that sport. It weather or not you have done your research, you know your fact, you can deliver a smart question, and you are entertaining. Listing to Dalen and Cuff and Ryan Whitney speak they were wildly entreating, I was laughing to myself every other time Ryan would speak. At the end of the is doesn’t matter if you played or didn’t play, it matters if you a well informed and can give viewers something they cant get from just watching the game with no sound.

“I’m not a writer. My grammar was poor. I didn’t have all of the right commas.”

As I heard these words fall from Ryan Whitney’s lips, I felt my pen give way.

There I was, sleep-deprived and stressed out, chasing a dream which many I had met deemed impossible – writing sports. And there he was, discussing the process by which his opinion, one he “enjoyed expressing,” was ghost written for The Player’s Tribune.

I won’t waste time waxing on about the lack of justice served when athletes proceed to the front of the line simply because of their status or previous on-field (on-court, on-ice, etc.) experience. Nothing can or will change that. But I will briefly state my peace.

Being an athlete has always been, in my opinion, one part genetic predisposition and one part work ethic. I believe writing to be no different.

Call me vain, but it has always been my firmest contention that I was meant to be a writer. Should there be such a thing as destiny, then mine was to be a wordsmith. Regardless of the topic, time or place, I write. Of course practice and instruction have gone long ways to honing my skills, but the fact remains, this is what I was meant to do.

Anyone who chooses to commit themselves to this field has to work at becoming the best. Just as Whitney and fellow guest Dalen Cuff rose to the top amongst other hard-working athletes, however, some of us, by innate capability, inevitably will as well.

Losing the job to a fellow reporter is something that, although I won’t love, I can bear. Losing it to someone who has not undergone the formal training or acquired the necessary and relevant journalism experience, I cannot.

Certainly, I will never pretend that I possess equal or more knowledge about the inner workings of hockey or basketball than Whitney or Cuff. I likely never will. But is reporting, journalism and being a media member in sports solely about wielding the Xs and Os?

“As an analyst, you’re supposed to be an expert,” Cuff explained, reinforcing the importance of being present whenever possible for practices and games.

These men will undoubtedly be classified as experts in their respective sports. They may even be experts in others. As Cuff mentioned, he has great interests in soccer, and although I have a limited scope of knowledge on the sport, it seemed to me that he knew a great deal. He never played professionally or even collegiately, but I won’t disqualify him from reaching the “expert” status should he put the time and effort in.

In fact, I won’t disqualify myself or any of my classmates from reaching that status – athlete or otherwise.

My peer Ashley Boitz makes a tremendous comparison between athletes as media and athletes as coaches. Although knowledge and experience with the game will lend so much to the coaching process, as it does to work in media, there remains so much more, including, but not limited to, technical aspects such as lede writing or reading off of a teleprompter – both nuances of the field that Cuff admitted he was initially lacking.

And while those can be taught on-the-job, facets such as articulate phrasing won’t be.

Much like the Language Acquisition Device which predisposes us all to learn a variety of tongues at a young age, I believe that learning certain portions of the media field in a formal setting, working with professors and fellow students, is a crucial state of skill development.

One simply can’t go back and tweak their strange shooting mechanics (otherwise Shawn Marion likely would have), and one simply can’t rewind and acquire those aforementioned intangibles.

Which is not to say that an athlete (or anyone who doesn’t dedicate themselves to the field early on) won’t be successful or talented (notably separate things). The outcome, the product, the polished, final result of a reporter, however, will be substantially different.

My point: although it seemed to me that Cuff in particular viewed his on-court experience as a differentiating advantage to his work, I believe that my time spent building on my craft at an institution such as Boston University too provides a leg up.

Bottom line: rightly or wrongly, they balance each other out. Cuff seemed, in a roundabout way, to agree.

When I asked both men about the value of journalism, he replied that he could have benefited from some. But upon entering work in media, he didn’t feel unqualified. He simply presumed his minutes on the hardwood would sufficiently fill the gaps.

The state of sports media has proven his assumption to be true. I, myself, tune in to watch former athletes commentate and analyze the sports I love. It doesn’t mean that they’re the only ones capable of filling that role.

As a woman who spends a great deal of time writing about football, I already know that my credibility in the way of on-field experience will be none. At some point or another, most men have lined up for at least one snap of the pigskin. Obviously, I have not.

Because I staunchly contend that I bring a variety of other tools to what I do, however, I won’t accept being considered the second or even third option.

I’ve dressed for the job I want (in a blazer, not shoulder pads). I’ve spent countless hours honing my craft (with a tablet, not tackles). I’ve dedicated my education to telling a story the best way possible, and that’s precisely what I plan to do.

So to athletes untrained in media, I say this: quitting your day job does not grant you automatic entry into mine.

While it’s not necessary by any means to be a high level athlete before commenting on other high level athletes, it’s certainly a plus. As journalists, we are taught to tell a story from every possible angle and being an athlete who talks or writes about other athletes is certainly a credible and interesting angle.

I know I have an extremely biased opinion being a college athlete, but I’ve also experienced life as just a college student. The benefits definitely outweigh the negatives when it comes to college athletics. Before I walked on to the diving team, I didn’t have a reason to do homework at a reasonable hour or in a timely fashion. I didn’t have the drive to accomplish many tasks throughout a day because there was always “tomorrow” to get something done. I had only lived the structured life that an athlete lives and I didn’t know what to do with all of the extra time college life gave me. I hated it.

So, Cuff is right when he says that the work ethic of an athlete stands out because I noticed it in myself. After walking on to the dive team, I had more work to do and less time to get it done, but my grades were higher and I was more determined to succeed than I had been before. I was passionate about both my athletics and my studies. Since this experience was extremely positive for me overall, it’s difficult for me to find a negative side to being an athlete who enters the journalism world.

As Timmy said, playing a sport means that you know the language inside and out, which means that you need to be able to explain those terms to people that don’t understand. But wouldn’t it be better to sound more experienced and use those terms, especially when talking with athletes, instead of having to research certain facts and making sure you know enough about the game.

It’s important for all fans to understand what you’re talking about, but it speaks highly of your credibility if you are able to use the jargon and explain to people who don’t know as much.

However, I don’t think any of us in this class needs to worry about succeeding in whatever we decide to do, whether we are athletes or not. Every single one of us has had a passion in our life that has driven us to want to be the best. Maybe like Professor Shorr says, we haven’t all found the one thing we are better than everyone else at, but we are all destined to find it some day. Graduating from BU is already our leg up into the sports journalism world, athletics is just a plus.

In exactly one month from today I’ll be working inside the ropes—except this time around I won’t be the one teeing it up. As an incoming marketing associate in the communications department for the PGA TOUR, I’ll be working in the media centers at tournaments, interviewing players as well as handling their various interactions with journalists and reporters, among my other responsibilities.

As a player of the game at the Division-I level, I am confident that my knowledge of the inner workings of golf is going to be a huge advantage in my new role. After all, as we’ve heard in previous seminars, one of the biggest skills a reporter must have is the ability to develop relationships with players—in our very first seminar Providence Bruins’ Austin Czarnik admitted, “If you can build relationships it will only help you later.”

We’ve discussed throughout the semester how it’s becoming more difficult to even step foot in a locker room or clubhouse, but I believe being a former player automatically helps ease the tension between a player and a reporter. Like Jake, I believe former players automatically have a leg up. But, as I’ll get to later on in this post—as Professor Shorr alluded to—getting your foot in the door is only half the battle.

Take, for instance, golf reporter David Feherty. Most of you, unless you watch golf, will not recognize this man’s name. But, I can guarantee you that once turn on a PGA TOUR broadcast and hear his color commentary, you’ll never forget him. Feherty was a former professional golfer on the European and PGA Tours, so he knows what it’s like to have a putt on the line that’s worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. His on-camera chemistry with players during post-round interviews is also undeniably spectacular.

Feherty, in my opinion, is one of the most skilled interviewers because of his wit and sense of humor. Players naturally open up to him. It’s incredible to watch. But he’s also not afraid to tell it like he sees it. “It looks like a one-armed man trying to wrestle a snake in a phone booth,” he once said in regards to Jim Furyk’s swing. Or, here’s another one for you, this time about Gary Player: “Gary thinks he invented fitness because he used to do push-ups on the airplane. He’s just upset because you can’t win a major any more with a low, flat hook and a Napoleon complex.”

Now—I’m going to be totally honest here—if someone were in Feherty’s exact position that was not a former player but had the same wit and sense of humor, I would not view this person as being as credible as Feherty. I’m openly admitting my bias here, okay.

But I urge you to think about this example more closely for a second. Do you honestly think that a journalist who wasn’t a former player could get away with saying some of the things that Feherty says? Probably not. Viewers would most likely wonder, “What gives this reporter the right to crack these jokes?”

I think the bigger issue this small example hints at is the fact that, as a society, we need to recognize our biases and remember, as Vanessa put it, former athletes are not “the only ones capable of filling that role.”

However, I’d like to add one element to Vanessa’s argument, and that is the following: there is no substitute for hard work.

David Feherty may have gotten his initial job thanks to his professional golfing status, but it’s not like he was guaranteed that job for eternity. He had to work hard to gain credibility as a reporter. The door may have been opened for him, but he needed to put in the time and effort to keep that door open. And that’s exactly what he did.

Getting your foot in the door is one thing, but in the cutthroat world of sports journalism, it’s anyone’s game once the studio lights turn on. “You have to do your work harder. When you grind it out and do your work people being to realize that,” ComcastSportsnet’s Dalen Cuff said.

Last Friday, I attended the “Play it Forward” sports summit, hosted by Andrea Kremer, and one quote that stood out to me came from ESPN senior writer Don Van Natta:

“Journalism is a test of will. How badly do you want it?”

Everyone may say they want it, but will they actually do what it takes to get it? True journalists—regardless of whether they were former athletes or not—are those who are willing to put in the work because they know their job is never guaranteed. Hard work is the only thing that truly speaks for itself.

Athletes turned on-air personalities can be a hit or miss. I think it’s largely dependent on an individual’s comfortably factor in front of the camera, but also their technique of explaining to the viewers what is going on. These journalists were once athletes before, so I think sometimes it becomes harder to explain things that happen so naturally when they used to play to viewers watching at home.

I’ve seen my share of athletes attempt to change their careers and try out being a journalist. Some fail and some do succeed. I don’t think their experience having played a sport gives them any upper-hand in the sports journalism industry because they still need to prove that they can be on camera and know what they are talking about.

This semester I’ve logged my share of Celtics games and been able to critique how well Brian Scalabrine has adjusted to becoming an on-air television analyst. For the most part he brings the energy and offers helpful knowledge, but he could work on how he conducts his interviews. I cringe at the sounds of “Tell me about…” or “Talk about that play…” I know Scalabrine probably never got any training, but there are far better ways to ask an actual question.

I’ve never been a fan of athletes who become on-air journalists. Maybe I’m just bitter that some athletes never earned a degree in college because they chose to focus on their athletic career rather than focusing on school. I guess that puts into question of why I’m in school if people who are successful never graduated college. Am I just wasting my time? I don’t feel like I am based on the fundamentals of journalism I’ve learned in the classroom. I’ve always felt that an education was more important than stuff like athletics. Don’t get me wrong I do like watching sports, but I never want to be in a situation where an athlete retires with no degree and has no idea what to do next.

This isn’t the case for Dalen Cuff who graduated from Columbia University as a D1 athlete. Ryan Whitney never got a chance to finish college before he got drafted into the NHL, but he did mention that he hopes to complete his degree. I give props to these guys because they’ve done their share of work to get where they are right now. These two guys were passionate about being on-air sports analysts and they did their homework on how to be successful.

One thing I’ve noticed in many of our guest speakers is the fact that a lot of them never studied journalism as undergraduates. I think this is telling only because we truly never know where our lives are going to end up. As an athlete you imagine yourself playing the game for the rest of your life, but that’s never the case. At some point in life a new passion grows and you chase after it. Like Cuff put it, “If you’re passionate about something, you got to go follow your passion. You can suppress it as long as you want, but in the end it’s going to win out. If it doesn’t win out you’re going to be a miserable person.”

Sometimes it’s not that simple, but it’s worth the risk.

Does being an athlete give someone a different perspective in reporting on a game? Yes. Does it give someone a better perspective? Not necessarily.

I’ll admit, it was pretty frustrating as a non-athlete to have two former athletes come to our class to talk to us about their careers in sports reporting. Neither Dalen Cuff nor Ryan Whitney went to school for journalism, yet Cuff has a great gig covering the Celtics with ComcastSports and Whitney’s career is just starting off, but it seems he has big plans for the future. But like I said, it’s frustrating for someone like me, who pays $60K a year for my journalism degree, to compete and even lose out on jobs to former athletes who are not trained journalists.

After the seminar, I can look back now and see how having both former athletes and trained journalists doing reporting is beneficial. You can’t really do analysis of a game with just reporters because they may not see things a former athlete might. You can’t do analysis with just former athletes because they may not have the training to keep a broadcast running smoothly. But, the marriage of both takes the analysis to the next level. I like watching Tom Caron and Tim Wakefield do analysis of Red Sox games for that reason- you get the best of both worlds.

However, I think it’s important to point out that just because someone is a former athlete does not mean he or she is better suited to report on a sport than a non-athlete. If you asked Whitney to analyze hockey or even soccer, I’m sure he’d do a better job than a non-athlete. His being part of a team and in-game experience gives him a unique perspective. But, if you asked Whitney to analyze a track meet over a non-athlete, I’m not so sure Whitney would be better suited, especially if the reporter has been covering track for a while.

Sometimes, being a former athlete and covering the sport you actually played doesn’t even give you an advantage. It makes me wonder if some of these guys would even have their job as analysts had they not played a sport. Just the other day, Kathryn Tappen of NBC Sports called out Mike Millbury for his shoddy analysis of a Florida Panthers game. Although Tappen played sports in college, Millbury undoubtably has an advantage in analyzing hockey, having played for and coached the Bruins. After Millbury gave a completely obvious answer to Tappen’s question, she asked him, “they actually pay you money to make a comment like that?” Go Kathryn and thanks for saying what we were all thinking. Here’s the link: http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/kathryn-tappen-roasts-mike-milbury—they-actually-pay-you-money—-video-023140791.html

I definitely feel Tappen’s frustration. If you’re not going to add anything valuable to a broadcast, don’t be in it, regardless of your athletic past. I do think there’s a fine line between putting someone on the air because they’re a good reporter that also happens to be a former athlete and putting someone on the air just because they’re a former athlete. I think Cuff is a good embodiment of the former.

As Cuff said, “Analysts are experts and they need expert knowledge.” Whether one attains that expert knowledge through school or through playing the game doesn’t matter. I think both offer unique perspectives. But I do think a line should be drawn and we should not assume someone who played or coached the game has expert knowledge. I think that’s where journalists, like myself, get frustrated.

Although I was out from this weeks class—I had a job interview for the summer, like we joke about ya gotta pay the bills. I think that I can speak to the draw of being an athlete and yearning for athletic involvement.

I think it is fair to say one of the most challenging points of my life was coming to the crossroads of life after tennis. For the majority of my life I was identified as the tennis player—I started at six and played nationally until last year. This has always been my identifier—I have been natbirdtennis on social media since the dawn of myspace. So where was I to go when my senior season at UConn came to a close? What was I going to do to quite frankly stay relevant.

I think it’s almost a naturally progression to want to move into sports after you have dedicated so much of your life to it. I think there is a level of understanding that athletes have with other athletes—it is a normal progression to stay involved. That being said, why does it matter who is covering sports? Do I have to be a criminal to cover crime? Or a politician to cover politics? If you are qualified and able to get information to the audience, it shouldn’t matter. It might be easier to commentate on a game or a match if you were an athlete—you might have better insight as to why that player did what they did, but at the end of the day that’s icing on the cake.

Like I said earlier, sports journalism feels natural to me, you are still involved with likeminded people [in the sense that they are passionate about sports] and at some level I think that you still follow the same regimented path that you were always accustomed to. Let me explain. There is no stranger feeling than having your entire day planed out from morning workouts, to class, to team stretch and practice to going to a life where you are not held to time constraints. Days seem to just go on and on if my days aren’t packed to capacity. I feel like as a sports journalist you are also forced to conform to those same rules as an athlete. You attend practices, games and post match or game duties—some days it probably feels like you are back in the saddle.

While I don’t think it’s necessary—by any means—to be a former athlete to comment on TV, radio—or anywhere else in the media for that matter—I would say it’s certainly easier to land a job as a commentator if you are a former sports star.

It seems to be the go-to career for retired athletes, which is understandable considering most of these former pros dedicated their entire lives to their respective sports, so it makes sense that they would continue with a second career in the same space. And I think for commentators that weren’t former athletes they need to work harder to prove themselves and earn a level of respect and clout that former athletes start with.
While some former players can be good additions to the broadcast, you also have some Joe Morgan’s in the media landscape. What’s nice about having former athletes be part of the media team, is a lot of them understand what it’s like on the other side of the mic or broadcast. But I agree that it certainly depends on who you’re talking about. In the same way that not every player will make a great coach, not every player will make a good analyst. Not only do they need an in-depth understanding to add to the broadcast—they need to possess an on-air personality that is captivating, intriguing, concise and intelligent. They can’t just understand what they’re trying to say—they need to be able to convey it with gusto. That’s my biggest problem with a lot of former athletes once they get into radio or TV commentary. A handful of them were once good players—Curt Schilling immediately comes to mind—but are painful to listen to and don’t necessarily add any insight.
On the other end of the spectrum, you have a guy like Dalen Cuff who only made it to division 1 basketball at Columbia but who speaks with such authority and precision and, putting it nicely, blew Ryan Whitney—a former NFL player of 11 years—out of the water in terms of rhetoric and delivery (yeah, yeah he went to Columbia, I know).
As far as critiquing former teammates goes—I would actually argue its easier to critique your friends that you used to play alongside because you know them well, and they’ll understand that you’re just doing your job. Which I think Cuff would agree with based on the answer he gave last week.
To address the question about whether you need to be in the locker room to have a valid voice or not, I would say not necessarily. But I definitely think you need to be able to add to the conversation somehow. For example, Cuff said that during his first broadcasting gig for Columbia, he played the role of the color guy, feeding the audience anecdotes of guys he had played alongside a year prior. Honestly, fans eat that shit up. We talked about this a bit during beat writing, fans care about David Ortiz getting a funky hair cut or what Xander’s morning routine is. Having guys that have that inside info definitely fuels the color commentary they can add to a broadcast—but they need to have a deep understanding of the game at the same time. So no, you don’t necessarily need to be inside the locker room, but you need to be able to tell stories and anecdotes that the average Joe doesn’t already know.

There are two sides to this coin.

First, I hate this idea that if you’re not an athlete, then you don’t have the authority to speak on sports or athletics.

Do you have to have worked in the government to cover politics?
Do you have to have been a cop to be on the crime beat?
Do you have to have founded your own business to write for the business section?

There’s a reason people get into journalism instead of becoming professional in the fields that they cover. There’s an interest and fascination with that particular profession, and the journalist (hopefully) wants to learn as much as they can about that profession, and educate their audience in an informative and entertaining fashion.

Sure, there are plenty of examples of ex athletes that enter either print or broadcast journalism that do a great job. Many times they provide another layer of depth to the conversation that is difficult to obtain for outsiders. But there are also journalists who didn’t play the sport professionally that can do the same. Tom Verducci is a great example of this, though there are many others.

One interesting point the two guests brought up, and Timmy mentioned this in his post, is that ex athletes have a number of hurdles to overcome if they want to get in the field. One of those is the use of jargon. Dennis Eckersly is a classic example of this. I love his jargon and think he’s a riot to listen to, but the casual fan probably doesn’t know what “high cheese with some hair on it” means….

Now, while I think there is no problem with being a journalist that wasn’t a professional athlete, the reality is (especially in broadcast) that many ex athletes have a faster track towards getting the jobs that we dream about. It used to be primarily on the national scale, but now we’re seeing smaller, local outlets being flooded with ex members of the Patriots, Red Sox, etc.

This is pretty discouraging. And while you should never let that deter you from your dreams, and great things really can come to those that work hard for it, it honestly feels that having your end-game be a career as a professional broadcast analyst, especially on the national level, may be a little misguided. I’m having a very hard time coming up with many examples of professional analysts on any legitimate show that didn’t at please play at a high level collegiately. The ones that didn’t, are usually old-guard that have been there forever, like Peter Gammons, Berman, etc.

Perhaps the biggest thing I took out of this seminar was when Dalen stressed to really inform yourself before doing interviews. Your relationships with coaches / athletes will really determine your fate, and constantly acting like you know everything can really be off-putting.

As long as you approach these interviews and relationships with the mindset and impression that you are well-informed, educated, and, most of all, eager to learn… you should be able to eliminate most of the issues that come with having not been a professional athlete.