Here are some sports syllabi to review

I am posting two syllabi here -- one for a sports reporting class and another for a survey class called Sports and the Media. I am going to revise the reporting course to include several readings from books and award-winning articles. I am going to revamp the media course even more significantly, but will not have either of these updates until around late April. I will keep you updated.

You can download the sports reporting class syllabus as a PDF by clicking here.

And you can download the sports media course syllabus as a PDF by clicking here.

Please, send me copies of your syllabi and/or post comments below. I'm always looking for new readings, approaches and assignments. I hope these syllabi prove helpful.

You'll also want to check out a terrific syllabus from Steve Klein, who teaches at George Mason. Steve has many years experience both as a journalist and as a teacher, which is clear when you see his syllabus.

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Push for more than 'bats & balls' coverage

An adviser in Connecticut brings up a legitimate concern about sports reporting. More to the point, he wants to know how to teach sports reporting more critically.

James Simon, who directs the journalism sequence at Fairfield University, writes: �I run the journalism program and I dropped the sports reporting course because it was too bats and balls. No critical thinking, just a bunch of game stories and player profiles. Do you worry about this? It seems to be a bigger problem in this course than others, perhaps due to the more casual kind of student this course attracts (at least at my school).�

Simon is correct. Sports is perceived as soft and casual. At far too many college newspapers, sports reporting does sink into a routine of game precede, game story, (one-source) profile, feature folo.

We need to push our students to do a regular in-depth story, to dig for newsworthy notebook items, and to analyze the university�s athletic budget. Some sports reporters are digging in, covering college sports program better than the local dailies.

There are several issues related to this that we can discuss in the next few weeks.
� How do you deal with coaches, players and athletic directors who get irate when you start covering them more like an objective observer?
� How do get student-reporters to think less like a fan and more like a reporter?
� How do you get sports �writers� to think more like sports �reporters� � and not worry what the sports information director thinks. Too many sports reporters worry the SID will stop helping those who cover their program more critically. (In fact, SIDs would be spiting themselves by doing this. They need coverage of their teams � and few people cover the program better than the college newspaper�s sports department.)

The biggest issue, though, is defeating the perception that �sports reporter� is an oxymoron. Too often sports journalism is dismissed as unimportant, as big kids writing about little kids. Sports do not directly affect our lives like city council meetings, U.S. Senate hearings, medical news and environmental shifts, we hear. In the newsroom, editors and reporters dismiss the sports staff as the Toy Department. But this is all unfair and untrue. There�s not another place I�d rather work than in sports, where the reporting is more compelling, more imaginative, and more connected to the readers. And, on big-game nights (and to some newspapers, that could mean Friday night football, Tuesday night basketball, NFL Sunday, or the opening week of March Madness), sports departments are much busier than any other editorial department. News departments get excited about Election Night, but sports departments deal with this pressure every week.

Still, critics of sports coverage have some points. Too much time is spent on game coverage. Just like a city council reporter, a sports reporter should not just go out to a game and write a game story and be done with it. A city council reporter should investigate the points made in these meetings by interviewing those who have more expertise and by observing first-hand whether, say, a bridge needs repairs. An hour spent near this bridge might reveal wood so splintered that it is falling down onto the heads of kids fishing in the creek below. Reporters need to review proposals, speeches and budgets much more critically. That also holds true for sports reporters. Unfortunately, this is not always the case. We need to change that culture (and perception.)

Not that sports reporters aren�t doing some solid reporting already. But perceptions can be stronger than reality. To offset that, we need to offer young reporters examples of solid, in-depth, critical sports coverage. The Best American Sports Writing series is the best collected series of this kind. (You can find countless examples in any of these annual books.) But we also need more examples at the college level. I plan to look for in-depth sports reporting examples in college newspapers, but I would appreciate if you could also offer examples by adding them as comments below this entry or by sending me the stories or the URLs so I can compile a list for advisers, professors and students themselves. (My email is in my profile section.)

To go back to James� comment about critical thinking skills. Showing examples of good writing is one way to do this. The other is to push students to develop better critical skills through analysis papers in class. I plan to revise my own syllabus for next fall, when I next teach this course. In the past, I offered students tips for covering particular sports, brought in coaches, required a few readings, and asked for a brief analysis paper. In the fall, I plan to require students to read, assess and write critical papers about many more sports stories and books in addition to the regular reporting assignments and to investigate at least one issue related to sports.

In the next few weeks, I will post some reviews of books I plan to use for this course. In addition, I will post my and new syllabi � including one for a class called Sports & The Media. Please, send copies of your own syllabi so we can all share, borrow and steal ideas on how to better educate young sports journalists.

Download old Syllabus (PDF)

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Go long in sports feature leads

Writing a sports feature is like writing a short story � except we do not make up any of the facts. Story, not news, drives these features. That means you need to grab readers quickly in a lead that tells a compelling story or introduces an interesting character. Too often, reporters go short in leads.

Yes, lengthy, rambling leads can be a problem, but not if reported and written properly. From time to time, consider going long.

The writer of the following story focused on an interesting topic � how hairstyles affect athletes� performances on the field and in pools. This writer lead with a single person�s story. Again, a solid job.

Yet.

This writer could have developed the lead in more detail, allowing the reader to see and feel the worries this athlete had. Do not be afraid to go deeper in leads -- if the story or scene is compelling. Leads can certainly get out of control, wandering and wandering while the reader also wanders and wonders: What the heck is this story about? But you�ll never know if you do not try.

Here is the original lead.

Eastern sophomore running back Norris Smith has dreadlocks to worry about. Defenders could pull his hair in trying for a tackle and it is legal.

But, he said it has never happened.

To get the dreadlocks Smith said he threads them up and lets them grow out.

Smith said to get them to stay that way, he has to wash his hair and do the normal things when it comes to hair care.

Norris said his dreadlocks are all natural and sometimes it takes one to two years to grow out.

He said this process is called the �lock and twist.�

There is another way for dreads to grow.

Smith said he can put weave in his hair and it will only take four to five months to grow out, but it�s not natural.

Dreads are not the concern for rugby player and track athlete Samantha Manto.

�In one of the (rugby) games last year, a girl was trying to pull me back by my jersey; she got my hair,� Manto said.

Most of Eastern�s rugby players don�t have to worry about hair, since most of their hair is short. They have to pull their hair through helmets, though.

Here is a possible revision, one that remains focused on the athlete's concerns about dreadlocks. I have also added a nut graph.

Norris Smith worries about his dreadlocks.

They flow out from under his helmet, scraping against his neck and bouncing off his shoulder pads.

They are a great target.

Smith, a sophomore running back at Eastern, has already had his head yanked back a few times when defensive tackles and linebackers had grabbed his face mask. Smith knows defenders grab anything they can hold onto.

The face mask yanks cost teams fifteen yards in penalties. But pulling his dreads won�t cost a team a single yard.

It hasn�t happened yet, but he is still concerned. But not enough to cut them.

Hair is a concern in many sports. Swimmers shave their heads (and other body parts) before big meets. Wrestlers and rugby players keep their hair cropped so it does not get pulled. And baseball coaches believe sloppy hair and wild beards can lead to equally wild, erratic play on the field.

Smith, though, is willing to face his fears on the field in order to keep his dreadlocks.

Make sure you drop in a nut graph on sports feature stories like this. The nut graph serves as both a thesis statement and a reminder, telling readers the reasons a reporter is writing this particular story. Essentially, the nut graph says, �The point of this story is �� In the story above, the thesis begins: �Hair is a concern in many sports.�

On your next feature, do the extra reporting and go long. But don�t forget the nut graph.

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Where have you gone, Steve Kilkenny?

I'm always sad when I read headlines like this: "Honus Wagner card sold for record-setting $2.35 million." I can only think about all the cards I sold to pay the rent in college, all those cardboard Aarons, Mays, Clementes, Mantles and Roses sold off for another couple of months in a dingy apartment or for a few more credits at the community college. (As if education is as important as pictures of childhood heroes.)

Collecting those cards were some of the best times of my life. I learned to negotiate by trading with the neighborhood kids, gladly handing over the Mets' Rusty Staub and Cleon Jones for the likes of Steve Carlton, Harmon Killebrew or Bobby Murcer. I learned to organize by putting cards in order both by team and by numbers, depending on my mood. And I also learned to finish what I started by trading for even the most obscure players (like Cleveland Indians pitcher Steve Kilkenny) because I needed a complete set in 1972.

I also pored over statistics on the back of these cards. As a result, I understood more about baseball, football, hockey and basketball -- especially about baseball. I learned that a 3.00 earned-run average and a .300 batting average make for pretty impressive seasons. And a 4.0-yard per carry average and 1,000 total yards is equally impressive, especially back when the season lasted 14 games, not 16. (Nobody was better than Jim Brown, who regularly averaged 1,000 yards during a 12-game series.) I can still recite Ty Cobb's lifetime batting average (.367) and that Lou Gehrig has hit more grand slams (24) than anyone else. Of course, some other records have been erased along the way, like the amazing new strikeout mark by Nolan Ryan and the new record for hits by Pete Rose.

I still have thousands of cards, but I have very few of the years that mean most to me -- football and baseball cards from 1971-74. I might have to start putting a set together. I don't have many of those cards left, but I do have some great memories. (And a college degree, too, I guess.)

I can't wait until the new set comes out so my daughters and I can compare ERAs, batting averages and runs batted in as we sit and watch the Yankees on satellite TV.

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Dear Fans: Stop Storming The Courts

Storming the court is a fine way to celebrate a big victory. But fans need restraint when their school defeats a lower-ranked team, even if the game had been close, writes a columnist at Loyola Marymount. Unlike a columnist at Michigan State, Allison Hong writes that racing onto a field or court does not always create excitement.

Hong implores fans at Loyola Marymount to stop storming the basketball court after every victory. Running onto the court after a major upset is fine, but fans should not run out after a win over, say, Santa Clara University, she writes. In an open letter to fans, she writes: �Please stop storming the court. We've done it three times and now it's just getting old.�

Sometimes, columnists need to take on their readers in order to affect change, especially when it can cost the school money. Hong does a fine job doing that for a good read. Check it out.

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Sports columnists should force readers to think, act

A good sports columnist should offer meaningful insights, cover sports ignored by others, offer cultural criticism, and analyze games in considerably more depth than the average fan. A sports columnist should, at different times, afflict and comfort us. A sports columnist needs to write with style and grace, should have strong opinions (but be willing to sharpen them with facts), and should offer fresh perspectives. Most of all, a good sports columnist needs to be an excellent reporter.

As the great Red Smith once wrote: "The guy I admire most in the world is a good reporter. I respect a good reporter, and I'd like to be called that. I'd like to be considered good and honest and reasonably accurate."

That�s a tough job description to fill. But many student journalists are cutting their columnist teeth on campuses across the country. And many are doing a pretty decent job. A review of more than 50 online newspapers across the country yielded several strong sports columns, some of which I list below. College newspapers are the place where young sports journalists can learn to mix reporting and opinion writing � and where they, subsequently, can enjoy the wrath of readers, coaches and athletes (and that�s after writing a good column).

The learning curve for young sports columnists can be difficult, something I noticed this past week. More than a few young columnists offered considerable opinion but very little reporting. Other columnists focused more on national sporting events, forsaking campus sports for the alluring lights of the NBA, NFL and MLB. As a result, these columns typically yielded stale second- and third-hand perspectives.

There�s no need to write a column on the top baseball transactions during the past off-season or to cite the reasons the Bears or Colts should win the Super Bowl. Unless you regularly cover these beats, you really have nothing new to say. These columns might be fine if you go to football camps, interview baseball experts, and regularly speak with these athletes; however, that is not frequently the case. Write local. That�s what your readers expect and that�s what will impress potential employers. Prove that you can cover your local beats first.

(One piece of advice to online editors: label your sports columns to distinguish them from your regular sports news. Online readers do not get to see the column sigs and the page design. Clearly denote your opinion pieces for your online readers.)

There were several excellent columns during the past week, but none better than one written by Ethan Conley of Michigan State�s The State News. Conley has always enjoyed watching movies. But recently he noticed that some of his favorite flicks have been sterilized by the PC police. Conley has also noticed college sports are also getting sanitized to the point where students can no longer rush a basketball court when their team wins.

Here�s the lead:

�One of my first childhood memories is of watching "E.T." with my parents when we bought our first VCR. I have no idea why this sticks with me. There's something about that wide-eyed alien who says "Ouuuuch" that resonates in my brain.

So you can imagine my excitement when the film was re-released in 2002. I couldn't wait to see it on the big screen for the first time. Much to my dismay, it ended up being terribly disappointing � the FBI agents who line the street as Elliot rides past on his bike are now holding walkie-talkies instead of guns, Elliot's mom no longer tells Michael he looks like a "terrorist" on Halloween and Elliot's �penis breath� insult is conspicuously absent. Apparently, that kind of language could slip by in 1982, but it's too profane for the 21st century.�

Conley�s column rises well above most of those I�ve read over the past week, mostly because the writer has looked beyond the surface of sports. Too often, columnists address the obvious or the superficial. In this case, the sports columnist, like a poet, made a connection between two disparate things � movies and college sports. It�s an excellent read. Check it out, along with the other columnists listed down the right side of this blog.

Several other columnists also did a fine job this week.

I�m always a sucker for good baseball column. Matt Watson of the Arkansas Traveler starts out with a pastoral column on baseball, but he then brings everything back to his college team�s chances this season. College columnists need to remember to keep their focus on local sports, as Matt did.

�As temperatures rise, which the weatherman says isn't going to last much longer, the dead of winter slowly fades away and the sweet smell of spring gets closer and closer. This can mean only one thing:

Baseball.

Beautiful, American baseball.

You won't hear a "crack of the bat" officially until April 1, in a National League Championship rematch between the New York Mets and St. Louis Cardinals that kicks off both the major league season and the Cards' World Series title defense.

But the "pings" are in full swing in Fayetteville.�

Here�s a few other good columns:

� Shawn Garrison, of Missouri�s Maneater, reveals how his grandmother taught him some of life�s best sports lessons.

�When I was a kid, I bought baseball cards by the boxful. I still have hundreds of thousands of them lying around my closet and room. One time, my grandma alphabetized my entire collection for me. Every single card was sorted according to sport, team and player name. Of course, it took me about three days to have them strung back out all over the place, but maybe someday I�ll get those reorganized.�

� Ban Barkawi of Cal-State Chico�s Orion, offers a unique perspective on American sports, one that was cultivated in Jordan and Saudi Arabia, where he was raised.

�When someone asks where I'm from, it takes me a good 10 seconds before I can explain it in the most convenient way. I'm Palestinian with Jordanian citizenship, but I lived in Saudi Arabia until I somehow ended up in Chico.�

� Brady Henderson of Western Washington uses his column to profile a walk-on football player. Some good reporting is included in this piece.

�Western senior outside linebacker Taylor Wade didn't take the conventional route to becoming a college football player.

Despite a stellar career at Kamiak High School in Mukilteo, Wash., Wade garnered no attention from college scouts and doubted his ability to play at the next level."

� Matt Daniels, of Eastern Illinois, does a fine job analyzing the reason the men�s basketball team failed to qualify for the Ohio Valley Conference tournament. He offers specific examples to prove his point. He starts by citing a few of the plays that helped ended the team�s season prematurely.

�A missed wide-open layup at the buzzer at Eastern Kentucky.

A questionable charge call with the game tied in regulation against Austin Peay.

A missed 3-pointer at the buzzer to tie the game against Tennessee State.

All three of these endings happened in the month of January for Eastern men's basketball.

And when one looks back at the Panthers' 2006-07 season, this month stood out the most - for all the wrong reasons.�

You, too, can focus on specific games and plays but you need to have an over-riding theme. Here, Daniels revealed the problems the team faced through several key plays during a tough final month.

Writing a column is not easy, as anyone who has written one can attest. You can�t claim anonymity or objectivity. The words are your thoughts and beliefs. The words are you. So, before you head out to write your next column, consider some of the points addressed at the start of this piece. But also know: To find great columns, you�ll need to put in some time � on a beat, at practices, and at games. Coaches and athletes will then see that you are as dedicated as they are, not some reporter stopping in for a quick peek. You�ll get much better insider information this way. Watch intently. Speak (and listen) to not only the athletes, but to the trainers, groundskeepers and trainers hanging around the fields. And make sure you do the research.

Writing a sports column can be challenging and time-consuming. But your efforts can make a difference in the lives of your readers. That�s what drove many of today�s top sports columnists (like the Los Angeles Times� Bill Plaschke) to start writing.

"Like most of us, I became a journalist because I wanted to touch people,� writes Plaschke. �I wanted to make them laugh. I wanted to make them cry. I wanted to leave them angry. I wanted to make them think.

�In some professions, one might not elicit that range of human emotions from a customer in 20 years. In column writing, it can all happen in the same 20 inches. Such is the beauty of our craft. One can not just examine and report on a landscape but, however slightly, change it. One can not just touch readers, but embrace them and shake them.�

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Here's a chance to cover the Women's Final 4

Here is a great opportunity for college sports reporters to cover the NCAA Women's Final Four. I have posted the information below that was forwarded to me by Eleanor Dombrowski, the program's Internship Director & Special Events Coordinator. You can send her a note at e.dombrowski@csuohio.edu>

PRESS RELEASE
Cleveland State University is pleased to host the U. S. Basketball Writers Association's Sports Writing Seminar and Scholarship Program. This program has been held for the past five years in conjunction with the NCAA Men's Final Four. This is the first year it will be held at the NCAA Women's Final Four.

The program begins on Friday, March 30, 2007, with a panel of national sports writers. Journalism students will compete for media credentials to cover the following NCAA Women's Final Four events at Quicken Loans Arena in Cleveland, Ohio.

Four teams practices & press conferences - Saturday, March 31, 2007
Semi-Final Games - Sunday, April 1, 2007
Championship Game - Tuesday, April 3, 2007

All journalism students are invited to attend the panel presentation on March 30. To compete for a media credential, students must submit a published writing sample by March 15. For complete details and to download an application, visit Cleveland State University's School of Communication website

For more information on the NCAA Women's Final Four events, visit www.womenrockcleveland.com