Sports reporters have the life
By TED FOX
Sports Writer
Do you like to watch sports reports on TV?
Any type of sports reports, I mean. They can be local TV news, ESPN Sportscenter, or whatever else.
If you do, it's all about the highlights, the clever commentary, and the chance to view a day's worth of sports compressed into a manageable block of time.
But who are those people sitting behind the sports desk or standing next to some oversized team logo on a big screen monitor? How can they bounce from high school basketball to NFL football to college basketball and then switch to NASCAR while we sit at home feeling our sports IQs grow?
This semester, I've interned in the sports department at WNDU TV. Watching weekend sports anchor Drew Speier and others have to deal with late video feeds or cutting highlights right until they go on the air, I've sometimes started to wonder whether all that deadline stress would be worth it.
In an attempt to conduct some cost-benefit analysis, I asked Drew what sporting events, obvious benefits, his job has taken him to.
"It's taken me to two Super Bowls, New Orleans and in Miami. College World Series in Omaha, three times. [NCAA] basketball regionals in Richmond and Atlanta . . . obviously this year, the Final Four.
"[I've] been to the Cotton Bowl many times. I guess the only bowl I have not been to is the Rose Bowl. I've been to the Masters golf tournament twice.
"I've been to six man football in Christoval, Texas."
Throw in a grab bag of mid-major golf tournaments, pee-wee football, young gymnasts dreaming big, Olympic swimmers and countless others that he can't remember immediately, and you have the stops on this sports man's itinerary.
I don't know about you, but I'm jealous.
Growing up in Texas, Drew's involvement with sports was focused on the field, primarily as a football player. But without even knowing it, he started getting ready for what would one day become his passport to the attractions, and occasional freak shows, of the sports world.
"I'd kept a journal for years ... and I used to record sportscasters on my cassette ... before I even knew what I wanted to do. So I was sort of into it, didn't even really realize I was into it before I got into it.
"And things turned out the way they were supposed to because you have to know a little bit about sports to become a sportscaster, and having played sports certainly helps."
To put that sports knowledge on display in a neat and tidy four or five minute package takes a lot of preparation. Before you can show a Hornets highlight of Baron Davis refusing to fake the funk on a nasty dunk, you have to go to work.
"It's like anything else," Drew said. "It's like you see the game on Sunday, you don't see the week of preparation, all the time those coaches put in . . . coming up with a game plan. We have to come up with our own game plan.
"The easiest part of what we do is when you go out there, sit down, and flip on the microphone. Then you know your work is done. All you have to do is deliver it."
And when you talk to this sportscaster, you can see why sports were the only way for him to go.
It's not the novelty of being on TV or having people recognize you in line at Arby's that keeps him coming back to that sports desk.
Instead, it's the same thing that drove him as an athlete and still pushes those athletes he now covers.
The competition.
"I want to go one-on-one with you . . . and if you win, great, but you know what? Bring something with you, because I'm not going to go down easy.
"You take that competitive edge with you into this business. And you know when you win. And there's no better feeling than knowing when you break the story that nobody has ... that's what it's all about. That's what journalism is supposed to be."
He laughed when he told me: "That's the real thrill, is getting the stories out and beating the dog out of the competition."
So basically, you get to go to all these sporting events, watch your blood pressure climb a few points right before each time you go on the air, devise new ways to spice up a home run call and talk smack through your selection of Cubs highlights?
In Sportscenter speak, that's cooler than the other side of the pillow.
The views expressed in this column are those of the author and not necessarily those of The Observer.
All Sports Stories for Monday, April 9, 2001
