I wrote my first sports story Sept. 24, 1997 on the men's golf team at Tufts University.
It was then, as a wide-eyed 17-year-old at a Division III university where athletics were as inconsequential as diversity is here, that I wondered why sportswriters drew such disdain from "real journalists." I recall taking objection to the distinction between journalists and sportswriters, and feeling it was unfair to group sportswriters along with tabloid trash.
A few years of wisdom and a few hundred articles later, some of those views do not seem as offensive or shocking. During my year-long tenure as sports editor of The Chronicle, I have received two questions with the monotonous regularity of the same tired clichZ
I may never be able to explain the rationale that went into secretly requesting a transfer application and only telling my parents about it after the fact. I can tell you one thing for sure, though.
I did not base my decision on Duke athletics. The truth is, I miss those empty gymnasiums where the Jumbos' women's basketball team played against schools like Bowdoin and those frozen baseball fields where I learned to take notes with frost-bitten fingers.
Nothing about Duke athletics--not "hallowed" Cameron Indoor Stadium and certainly not Shane Battier's arrogant smiles or Mike Krzyzewski's aloofness--gave me more or less joy as a reporter.
In any case, I am not sure I can fully answer the second question either. On principle, I disagree entirely with people who say sports journalism would get old, that writing the "same stories" with the "same angles" would wear itself out after a few years.
At first glance, that sort of reaction is understandable because much of what you read in the world of sports is the same story you will read the next day, just with different names, different places and different outcomes. But the story never seems to change.
Some would say that such staleness in writing is the product of watching the same situations over and over again, seeing new faces filter in and out of the sport without any discernible difference to the grand scheme. To me, that is the part of the job that is great--the challenge, forcing yourself to find a new way to look at a not-so-new occurrence and asking the questions that are not always asked. There is no excuse for writing of any kind to get old, for writing is a timeless art that with each sitting lends itself to the magic of creation.
I, however, have another reason for wanting out of the group referred to as sportswriters.
It is a reason that became all too evident when I sat courtside at the national championship game earlier this month. There was nothing out of the ordinary in the frenzy with which the assembled sportswriters churned out paragraphs and sentences--many of which were written before the game even started and only needed names and stats to replace the XXXs on the computer screens. What was unusual took place in the overhangs above these men, where a group of bitter Maryland and Arizona fans gathered with a simple statement.
"Tell the truth," they screamed down at the media.
They referred to the fact that Battier finished the game with only one personal foul, despite appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated with his left arm mangling the face of Loren Woods in the very definition of the term clear-out. They also referred to the phantom fouls that were never called on Jason Williams, who straddled Jason Gardner without drawing a whistle.
I remember thinking about those plays in the aftermath of that game, and I recall feeling that, on the whole, the officiating went both ways. But I also knew that group of writers was not going to even hint at the truth. Not that night and probably not ever.
The reason is this: Sportswriters are not real journalists.
They are not expected to be real journalists. On the door to my editor's office hangs a sign with a quote that reads, "This is no place to be nice. This is a newsroom."
Sportswriters, however, are supposed to be nice. They are expected to be fans, to coddle the coaches and athletes, to overlook their flaws and to accentuate their accomplishments. It is because of this expectation that hard-hitters like Jim Gray are scorned, while brown-nosers like Dick Vitale and Ahmad Rashad are given the prime-time assignments.
The rare writers who strive for "news" are also not real journalists, which explains why the Al Featherstons and Seth Davises of the profession search for the sensational rather than the true. Real journalism would not encourage a couple of weak sources or "informed speculation" to report that a well-established coach and a 19-year-old kid were abandoning their respective college programs.
As sports editor of a student-run campus publication, I do not pretend to be the answer to all that is wrong with the profession of sportswriting. But I can tell you that my first experience on the job came this summer when my editor and I were called in for a meeting with the University's sports information director, who told us that the tone of a letter requesting a half-hour interview with Krzyzewski was "crap." It was a rude awakening, and some suggested that I was bitter about not getting to sit down with the venerable Coach K. On the contrary, I would like to think it says something about my objectivity that Krzyzewski's schedule was "too busy" to squeeze me in for a half-hour in the summer, but was plenty open to have brunch with a local jock-sniffing columnist before one of Duke's most crucial games.
Maybe it's the first sign I'm a real journalist.
Brody Greenwald is a Trinity senior who would like to think he did justice to journalism. Brody would also like to thank the three members of the Dude Committee who convinced a hard-working retard that he could be sports editor.
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