fshorr's blog

Of all the four major sports, basketball brings players into its league at the youngest age…Say what you want about the “one and done” phenomenon, players are coming in as teenagers at a higher rate…Boston Celtics swingman Jaylen Brown visited the Boston University Sports Seminar series last year and was younger than everybody in the class…He was 19 at the time…This time around it was Jayson Tatum, the number three pick in the N-B-A draft, who has yet to turn 20…But besides being high first round picks, they bring a poise and maturity to the game that has not always been the case in first year players…

Tatum has been a star at every level he’s played at…A-A-U, high school, at Duke and now as a member of the Celtics…In fact, both Tatum and Brown have been chosen to play in this years “Rising Stars” game at All Star Weekend… As a member of a very high profile college team, one would have expected Tatum to be used to the media spotlight but I never imagined his interview days went back to elementary school, as he told the students…A-A-U starts players out as early as age seven with travel teams and tournaments…It’s no wonder he’s comfortable dealing with reporters…

Perhaps that comfort translates to an ease on the court because he knows how to handle the scrutiny…There are simply going to come times when you fail, miss a shot or a defensive assignment for example…How you handle those questions speaks volumes…Tatum’s advice to “rookie” reporters, themselves learning how to find their way was telling; “put yourselves in their (the players) shoes and just understand we’re human just like everybody else”…Translation, “we make mistakes too”…As a journalist, your job is to figure out a way to say that without losing the players respect for you doing your job…

Sitting across from Tatum on this night was Adam Himmelsbach of the Boston Globe…Himmelsbach has covered basketball at Syracuse, Louisville, Kentucky and Duke before working the beat of the Washington Wizards…He remembers what it was like to go into a locker room for the first time and remembers when he started it wasn’t reporting about the pros…”Don’t worry about the level of the team you’re covering, said Himmelsbach, everyone should start by covering high school sports, it’s the hardest thing you’ll ever do.  Also, read and write as much as you can”

Having spent an enormous amount of time covering all four major sports teams in this town as well as Boston University and Boston College (sorry, Doug Flutie was must coverage during his days at the Heights), I’m constantly bothered by the laziness of reporters and their sloppiness… It was encouraging  to hear Himmelsbach tell the class “tell em something they don’t already know”, one of my cardinal rules….And I couldn’t help but smile when Adam responded to my question “What’s worse, talk about that play, what were you feeling or what were you thinking on that play?” with a resounding confirmation of something I have been telling students for years now – don’t be lazy, ask a question, forget stating a long winded premise and expect the athlete to respond so you can fill column inches….it doesn’t work that way…His answer – “Talk about” without question…Hallelujah!…..I actually applaud OKC’s Russell Westbrook for cutting off a reporter who takes the easy (lazy) way out at :47 seconds on this clip…

In these days of “shotgun” journalism, reporters who don’t actually cover the games in person feel they have license to take pot shots at any and all…Dan Shaughnessey of the Boston Globe is without question the most opinionated columnist in Town…But Dan is also fanatical about showing up the day after he writes something scathing…He knows the athlete needs that right to vent….

“I was taught to show up in the clubhouse/lockerroom the day after you’ve knocked somebody. Have tried to honor that.I remember Ortiz calling me out after Game 5 of World Series in St. Louis “Where’s Dan Shaughnessy?”…Pissed me off. I was upstairs on deadline. He tried to make me look like I was hiding….Next night — my night off, I drove to frosty Fenway to be there in the dugout when he emerged to hit…

Me: “David, you need anything?”

Ortiz: “No”

Me: “OK, just wanted you to know I’m here, like always.”

Dan’s way of showing respect for the people he covers…

You have a job to do, the players have a job to do, learning how to respect each other holds the key…Tatum was accompanied to the seminar by Celtics Media Relations Vice President Jeff Twiss who, at one point, asked the students, “If you were studying for a test and twelve people asked you to answer a bunch of questions, how do you think you’d feel (about your preparation being interrupted)”…I think they got the point….It works both ways…

Covering high school and local sports isn't quite the same as going to the Super Bowl four times, the World Series three times, the Stanley Cup Finals twice, the N-B-A finals four times or the Olympics...But on your road up the sports journalism ladder you'd be wise to treat it that way...Because to the people who are involved, it's just as important...

For aspiring journalists working on the student paper, radio or television station, a Beanpot final or an occasional League tournament might just be as big as it gets....Those rare N-C-A-A appearances are to be savored...Just ask the pair of  announcers from W-T-B-U who got to go to Fargo, North Dakota this year...

You rise to the occasion...

"If you treat an assignment like its just run of the mill, another thing and you mail it in, the readers will know almost immediately and they'll tune out and they're not gonna read you"...So said Greg Bedard this week at the final edition of the 2017 Boston University Sports Journalism Seminar Series...That just happened to be the answer to my very first question and when I heard his answer I felt like I had gotten my point across and the seminar could have ended there...

It's not as if you have to make every story big, but it's important to find those nuggets, go behind the x's and o's and most importantly, inform your readers...

As the season goes along, the games get bigger (usually)....they determine what is often termed a successful season...and as such, they draw attention...Like athletes, journalists need to learn how to pace themselves, how to sometimes NOT make every game, every play seem like it was an "instant classic"...That's not always easy, taking individual events into play but it's almost as if you have to detach yourself from the game..."They (veteran reporters) have a poker face", Bedard told the audience, "nothing phases them...especially on deadline, you have to keep your cool, you have a job to do."

While I know students love war stories and want to be connected to the events they hope to some day cover, I sometimes struggle with "bringing them into the tent" fully...Thus i didn't press Bedard when he talked about not really caring about the outcome of the game he might be covering....It sounds jaded perhaps, but the harsh reality is, it becomes a job...More times than not, better than any other you'll ever have...In the television news business there's a saying, "we don't care who wins, just get it over by air time" ...(editors note-stations can't use highlights of a game until it's over and there's nothing worse than doing a sportscast and having to tell the audience what happened instead of showing them.)...Everyone says to themselves that will never happen to me...Work the beat for thirty, forty years in my case, and watch...It just happens...But I digress...

The other issue that jumped out at me as a result of our discussion was offered by Ben Watanabe, one of the Senior Editors at NESN.Com who also joined us...Watanabe hires many young journalists and he's found that there's a correlation between deadlines and the internet, and not always a positive one..."Writers that I see coming out now that have only written for the web are not as comfortable with it (deadlines), game ends you get twelve minutes to get it (your story) in. I don't know that they get it drilled into them that there is a deadline"

So don't get too high, don't get too low...Every story is a big one to somebody...Tell 'em something they don't already know and you'll do just fine...

It's no wonder that the National Football League doesn't want you to watch "The United States of Football"...What is amazing is the number of interviews, hours and footage Sean Pamphilon spent putting this together...It is simply brilliant...

Intended to explore the violence and physical contact in the N-F-L and football in general, the film underscores two problems facing the game...Numbers are dwindling and just as importantly, should we let our kids even play the game...

These are not issues the National Football League wants to tackle, if you'll excuse the pun...

Google " dwindling football numbers" and the articles jump off the page....Granted, not many of those playing youth football will ever see the National Football League but if fewer and fewer kids are even entering the pipeline, eventually the product will suffer...Conversely, if you search "increasing numbers" of sports like soccer and lacrosse, the results are equally startling, but in reverse...

The images Pamphilon presents are gripping...Intriguingly, Pamphilon struggles with his own son's desire to play football and credit him for including it in the film...What parent would encourage their son or daughter to take part in a game that might leave them crippled, physically or mentally,  at some point in their life?...Now, this isn't to say that other sports aren't dangerous also...Concussions in soccer from heading the ball are on the rise...Heading the ball is a fundamental, natural part of the game and as participation increases, so will (head) injuries...

Developmentally, players are not ready to take shots to the head at the ages that they start playing sports...A recent article in The Guardian, for example, talks about eleven being the starting point for allowing players to head the ball, and only then in a game, not (extensive) practice...Pop Warner starts at age 5!....How can this be?....The lower limit for weight is 35 pounds!...How is a kid at that weight possibly ready to have his/her body subjected to the contact of football...Sometimes he/she's playing with kids twice his/her weight!...Look at the age/weight classes, it's staggering...Even at the "varsity" level you could be playing with someone seventy five (75) pounds heavier...That's an astonishing disparity...

Sean's first project, "Run Ricky Run"  was part of ESPN's 30 for 30 series...it drew critical acclaim....then came "Bountygate" ...Ask the people of New Orleans how they feel about Pamphilon...Now "The United States of Football"...Never let it be said that Sean isn't afraid to face an issue head on...I'm waiting for his next endeavor...

Everyone has a story...

How they got started, how they got someone to take a chance on them...

Freelancing, working for the student radio or tv station in college is a great beginning but it doesn't usually pay the bills...That's where the challenge comes...

My story is written in hieroglyphics in the building at 640 Comm, formerly known as the School of Public Communication...Too many decades ago that i care to remember while researching a story on this revolutionary thing called cable television, i stumbled upon a small local station in beautiful downtown Malden that was producing more than sixty hours a week of local programming...I sat through a local news show they did with one anchor simply reading stories he had re-written from the Malden Evening News ....When it was over, the Program Director, who had to direct that news show, granted me an interview for my project...After asking all my questions i said to him,  "I notice that Howard (Kaye) doesn't do any sports in his show". The P-D said, "Oh Howard doesn't know anything about sports".  To which I summoned up enough courage and said "Well, how about me?"...He sat there, and sat there and sat there some more and finally said "OK"....That was a Friday and I was on the air Monday never having done ANY television before, my work in SPC excluded...Monday rolled around and I had no clue...Howard, of coure,  was more than happy to give me four minutes out of his fifteen (so he didn't have to fill it)...And off I went...Truth be told, at the beginning, I too re-wrote stories out of the Malden Evening News...But it didn't take long for me to realize I had to do more...Within a week I started going to the track meets in the afternoon, the basketball and hockey games at night, Porta Pak in hand...Rushing back to the station I'd edit what i could (usually the long jump because it was the first event)...I made sure I told everyone at the meet "this is gonna be on the Channel 13 News tonight"....And you know what?...The next time I showed up the kids (and the parents) would come up to me and say "Thank you, no one's ever done this before, are you filming today?"....And so it built...We started doing football games on Saturdays, tape delaying them, basketball and hockey, even baseball, some with ONE camera but the people in Malden didn't care that it was shaky or grainy, they were on TV!...And this newcomer was on his way...

Tom Leyden of WFXT and NESN's Michaela Vernava joined us at the Boston University Sports Journalism Seminar Series recently and both told similar stories...Starting in small markets isn't the most glamorous, Leyden in Allentown, Pennsylvania, Vernava at a cable station in Marlborough, Massachusetts, but it had its benefits..."You're gonna get paid very little money but don't think about that, said Leyden, the way your should view your first experience is like going to grad school but getting paid. And don't ever think you're better than where you are because the reality is you're probably not"...

I certainly had no allusions...Vernava told the group, "I felt like draft pick number 199. Why should I be the one that makes it, that gets a job, that winds up being good at this?  And then I would remind myself that I just believed that I could"

Starting that first job is very much like starting college again...You learned no one was going to make you dinner (but at least you had the dorm)...You learned no one was going to do your laundry (but the dorms had washers and dryers)...You learned to budget your time (there always an all nighter)...The first job is the same...You have to re-learn everything...It's genuinely scary but amazingly exciting at the same time...

Leyden had a great piece of advice for "newbies"..."Wherever you go, determine what those people really care about and cover it.  Because guess what?  If you cover it and cover it well, the people you're serving are gonna like you"

Isn't that what it's all about?

"I wrote maybe 14, 15 stories throughout the game"...What, how many?..."Some of them were 5, 600 hundred words, others after the game were in the thousands"...

Such is the life of a modern day beat writer, in this case Zack Cox of NESN, who covers the New England Patriots (and was referring to February 5th at Super Bowl LI)...

If I were to relate that story to legendary beat reporters Bob Ryan of the Globe (Red Sox, Celtics), The Patriot Ledger's Ron Hobson (Patriots) or Joe Fitzgerald, former beat writer for the Boston Herald, they would cringe...

Now maybe it was the enormity of the game/day but still, the days of watching the game and writing a game story, even editing a (video) package for the news or gathering soundbites for post game radio are long gone...It's constant now and even though viewers are watching the game or listening to the game, they want more...They want the person covering the game to fill them in with the little details that are going on right now, details the viewers can't see or hear...

Cox joined Phil Perry of Comcast SportsNet recently at the Boston University Sports Journalism Seminar Series and while I expected to hear about long(er) hours , tweeting and learning to deal with Bill Belichick, I was floored by the amount of work that comes out of these guys on a daily basis, in season or out...

Beat reporting season don't end anymore and the competition is rough...Baseball plays a hundred and sixty two regular season games, football, but 16...That's a big difference and the physical grind isn't close...But the requirements are pretty much the same no matter what the day...

And an added duty now, almost an obligation for any beat writer is to be an "opinion maker"...Fans know the facts, they've seen the game...They want to know what you think about it...They also want you to agree with them..."It's difficult to write opinion well, mentioned Perry,  but in a lot of ways it's harder to go out and find a story and make that work for you.  You have to go, you have to talk to people, you have to make phone calls, you have to develop relationships.  There's something to be said for that."...

Another issue that has changed with the landscape is breaking stories...once upon a time, sports editors (and news directors) expected their beat reporters to be first with any kind of news...Not so much the case anymore..."Whether you're a team or an agent of a coach, said Perry, it's so much easier to call a national guy and get your message out to the rest of the world"... Cox added, "It's almost a bit of a surprise when you see someone locally breaks it before the big time reporters.  They're so plugged in"...Needless to say the local reporters hate getting beat but it happens more often than not...

It may not be the plumb job, the higher rung on the ladder, but beat reporting is still the best way for fans to be connected...

Leave it to Bill Belichick to sum things up..."No Days Off", "No Days Off", "No Days Off"....