A sportswriter on sportswriting

I know several of you in the class are interested in going into sportswriting, and even those who aren't might find this article that ran on June 10 in the Wall Street Journal interesting. I was struck by the number of parallels to political reporting -- especially the part about standing around in a pack of reporters waiting for a canned quote that you probably won't use anyway. It does make me wonder if there isn't better way to do all of this.

It's Time for the Sportswriters to Go

U.S. Media Sees Locker-Room Access as a Birthright, but It's Getting Harder to See the Point

By CRAIG WOLFF

The wait before a Knicks game earlier this season at Madison Square Garden began with me and five other reporters standing in a rough circle in the middle of the visitors' locker room (on a night where the Lakers dressed), keeping vigil for something to happen.

Our cluster multiplied in bursts, like cells morphing and crowding one another under a microscope, doubling and redoubling until it seemed the cement room could barely hold us. Trying to count the reporters was useless, but it was easy to count the number of players as the minutes went by: none. Then one. Oh wait, I see a second. But soon, none again.

Finally, Ron Artest sidled through to get to his locker stall. A small tidal force pushed me toward him where I could make out, "It's good to be back in New York… Always fun…" And, "The Knicks have themselves a good team." A bit of a disclaimer: I could only reasonably assume these were Mr. Artest's words. My head was pressed against the back of a cameraman and pitched forward by someone trying to reach a tape recorder above the fray.

Consider this my moment of clarity when I was struck by a simple question: "Is there a point to this?"

Truth be known, the same notion skitters across the minds of sportswriters and athletes, too, who wonder if this ritualized behavior is worth the trouble. Before and after games at virtually every stadium and arena, reporters dutifully trek to the locker rooms for a quote or two, a postmortem, an injury update or a sliver of insight. Later comes the dash back to the computers for the deadline assault.

It's hard to assess the dividends from all this effort. In the last few days, it was reported that Kevin Bieksa of the Vancouver Canucks called his team's place in the Stanley Cup finals "a huge opportunity" while Dirk Nowitzki, the Dallas Mavericks star, told us, "Ultimately, we have one goal and we came together and fought through some stuff."

Linda Robertson, a columnist for the Miami Herald, says sometimes, after going through the whole tedious process, all reporters have to show for it are "predictable, utterly bland comments you don't end up using."

Let's be clear: This is not a Woe Is Us story. Access is hardly a reporter's entitlement, unless the assignment is the White House or City Hall. Even then, the willingness to wait out a story is a compulsory part of the job. Imagine, too, the view of an athlete, not yet showered and still absorbing a blown save or a missed shot, confronted by a swarm of notepads and microphones and pressed to answer the brain-numbing question: How do you feel?

"What do they expect you to say to that?" asks LaTroy Hawkins, a veteran relief pitcher. "And could they let you get your pants on?"

The relationship between athletes and the press, over generations, has been knotted by distrust. Michael Jordan tangled with reporters. So did Ted Williams. Steve Carlton boycotted them altogether. But beneath the antagonism there was an unwritten code that allowed for small accommodations. We didn't hear much about Mickey Mantle's boozing, but Leo Durocher played cards with reporters during train travel. I saw Billy Martin after road games joined by a cadre of drinking buddies among the press.

For many athletes, the terms of the code were breached in a single moment in 1998 when a reporter spied a bottle of androstenedione in Mark McGwire's locker. "Players remember this," says Hawkins, now with the Brewers. Today, athletes can't even finish a thought before someone camped by their locker posts it to Twitter.

Athletes are bound by league rules to be available to reporters, but not all comply. When they do talk, they slide easily into the abridged remark—or save their breath for Twitter. By the time he announced his retirement, Shaquille O'Neal had nearly four million followers.

There is no serious talk of booting reporters from locker rooms, but leagues are finding ways to reach the fans directly. Major League Baseball's 30 teams, for instance, have a combined 18 million followers on their Facebook pages. The Washington Redskins, like many teams, employs reporters who work for the team's website. "There's been a tremendous transformation," says Sam Smith, who has covered the Chicago Bulls for 25 years, first for the Chicago Tribune and now for Bulls.com. Whereas teams once needed traditional media, he says, "now newspapers need the teams for their circulation."

In the new sportswriting landscape, what's often missing is the sort of detail and perspective that led reporters to locker-room doors in the first place: the connective tissue that links the bones of a story. "The entire system encourages cliché," says Malcolm Moran, a professor at Penn State's College of Communications and a former sportswriter.

As a cub reporter for the New York Times in the late 1980's, covering the Mets, Yankees and Rangers, I was aware of an imbalance between athlete and reporter, not so much because of the gulf in pay (sizeable even then), but because we were doing our jobs in their workplace.

What the locker room does for a sportswriter is offer up small truths in quiet images, not necessarily in quotes: Jordan weeping on the locker-room floor after winning his first title after his father's death; Amar'e Stoudemire hobbling from the trainer's room with ice wrapped to his knees; Barry Bonds, deep in a leather recliner in the San Francisco Giants' clubhouse, blanketed to the chin and watching his own personal TV.

These scenes are increasingly harder for the press to see. Reporters don't fly on team planes anymore. Many don't stay at team hotels. Baseball writers are no longer allowed next to the batting cage during batting practice. It's not hard to imagine the day when U.S. teams mimic European soccer and cut locker-room access entirely.

Not long ago, I found myself at Yankee Stadium standing in the middle of the Yankees logo woven into the dark blue carpeting of the clubhouse. With the exception of the stray player, 30 or so reporters had no one to talk to besides themselves. The Yankee players are able to dress in an area that is off limits to the media. Turns out I was waiting in what amounts to a mannequin clubhouse.

Nevertheless, a few reporters held on, talking in hushed voices to editors on cell phones. Mark Feinsand of the (N.Y.) Daily News, who has covered the team for 11 years, says most reporters still feel compelled to "maintain a presence" in the clubhouse, not just to cement ties but to be ready in case something newsworthy happens.

In the end, no matter what becomes of this American tradition, it's probably time to start asking if all this standing around amounts to loitering and is worth the strain it puts on the relationship between press and players. It's not clear that either side derives much from the transaction.

"There's something we ought to remember," says Robertson of the Herald. "These guys are not notable for their oratory. They're notable for how beautifully they perform as athletes."