Sports Writing 101

Close throughout, both teams made highlight reel plays, the best of which provided a dramatic, last-second win. Exuberantly the players ran off the court. Joyfully, the fans danced their way home. Heart racing, adrenaline coursing through your veins, you just witnessed the best game of your career.

Only you didn’t cheer – because you shouldn’t. You didn’t yell – because you couldn’t. And then you had to go to work. You had to find out what happened during the game, why it happened and of course, how the team felt about it. And you had to find it all out from the losing team.

They may not want to talk, which you’d have to expect given their hearts were just broken. Rest assured, however, that won’t fly with your editor, who needs your story. Nor will it fly with your reading audience, who is counting on you to be their eyes and ears, since you are the one with access. Oh by the way, your editor needs that story in an hour.

In truth, covering high school sports is not quite as pressurized as covering the NBA, NFL or major league baseball. Deadlines are a lot more flexible and unlike the pros – or even college – the players enjoy talking to you. Sometimes they’re even happy to see you. And chances are nobody will look upon you any differently for openly rooting during the game or within the contents of your story. But if covering sports is something you take seriously, and something you want to seriously pursue, you should adhere to the professional standards of sports journalism.

The first rule of which is no cheering in the press box. Meaning, when you are on site covering an event, no matter if the teams are strangers or your school squad featuring your best friend in the world, you must remain neutral. That’s just how it goes. Your media credential (press pass) is not a ticket. It’s part of your work identification. You are there to do a job. You are responsible for telling a story to your readers, who deserve and expect a fair, honest, objective account of the events you were privileged to witness.

It’s very easy to wear your emotions on the page. More often than not, high school sports articles are written from the perspective of a fan. The stories are littered with uses of “we” or “us”. You, the one writing the story, did not play in the game, nor were you part of the team. That kind of writing is not journalism. It is both amateurish and unprofessional. Hold yourself to a higher standard, do not allow yourself to take the lazy way out. And most importantly, do not allow yourself to be a fan.

Developing this habit early will help your skills develop and will earn you the respect of your audience, colleagues, athletes and coaches -- and potential future employers. Your clips from high school may be the beginnings of a “clip file” that will eventually get you a job. All of which, for your purposes, is worth a lot more than the satisfaction of pumping your fist when your team scores.

You should be more concerned with winning over your audience than your subjects. Staying fair will show the readers you respect them. It will show them you take your job seriously. It will give them real information and not just who won and who lost, but why? If you can master that, you will be on your way to winning the most important thing of all – you will be taken seriously.

Josh Sipkin, the journalism and English teacher at Information Technology High School will be writing our Sports Writing 101 column. For 15 years, Sipkin has written, edited and produced interactive content for ABC Sports, FOX Sports, CBS Sportsline, the NFL, NBA and major league baseball.