I was sitting in a friend's dorm room. We were playing some video game, I'm not sure what it was, but I know I was losing. Our conversation drifted towards sports, because with two red-blooded American guys, it's gonna make it there eventually. We had ESPN on earlier, and he had made a comment about the female commentator. "Unless you actually played sports, you have no right to be talking about them," he said. And this wasn't just a sexist comment. He went on to say that writers and TV anchors who haven't at least played in college had no business in the sports journalism business.
What about me?
I've never played a real organized game of football in my life, but I think I could debate the 2005 NFL draft class as well as anyone. I've never stepped on a pitcher's mound for anything other than to do an interview, but I could talk about Kerry Wood's arm for quite a while. And I've never stepped to the free throw line with a game on the line, but I have pretty strong opinions about LeBron James and the Miami Heat's trio.
I was homeschooled; I never got the chance to play sports at a young age. By the time I spent my first day in a real classroom, I was sixteen years old. It was too late for me.
So is my career as a sports writer doomed? I think not.
Once, during my days as a 15 year-old sports reporter for a town newspaper, I was nearly refused admittance to a basketball game because I claimed I was with the paper. The ticket-taker didn't believe that someone younger than some of the players on the high school team could be writing about them. But I was. And I intend to keep surprising people just like that.
Saturday, May 14, 2011
Sunday, May 1, 2011
My Own Story
I'm watching The Rookie right now. How does one of the greatest sports movies of all time translate into a revelation about my own personal career as a sports journalist?
Glad you asked.
As I watch Dennis Quaid play a middle-aged man with not much more than a dream, a 98 mile-an-hour fastball and a bad haircut try to make it as a pro baseball player, I think about how that could be me. Of course, you could come up with one or two differences between our stories, but I'd prefer to focus on the similarities.
In case you've never seen it (first of all, see it), The Rookie is a movie about a high school science teacher who was once a pro baseball pitcher, but had to leave the game due to injuries. But he never lost his love for the game. Years after he had supposedly past his prime, he was throwing faster than ever. Long story short, he tried out for a minor league club and made the team.
It wasn't easy from there though. Minor leaguers don't make much money, and this teacher had a family back home with bills to pay. Not to mention that he had been out of the game for such a long time and the strikeouts didn't always come easy. But he was chasing a dream, no matter what the risk, it was hard, and there was no guarantee that things would work out, but he did it anyway. Why? Because he would never have been able to sleep at night if he didn't see if he could actually do it.
And he did.
Now, I'm not saying I'm anything special. But as soon as I flipped this movie on the TV, I couldn't help but think that's what my career might be like. Sure, I don't know if I will ever amount to anything as a writer; I don't know if I'll ever make it Sports Illustrated, the major leagues of sports writing. But I know that I have to try, or else I won't be able to sleep at night.
I know it won't be easy, and I know there will be no guarantees. Also, just like in the movie, there could be personal battles to face along the way. Writing about sports, just like playing them, can take you away from home and your loved ones for days at a time. And journalism is far from a lucrative career. As Ray Romano (who played a sports journalist on Everybody Loves Raymond) once said, "I'm a sports writer. I don't make a lot of money, I write about people who make a lot of money."
But, just like the movie, there could be great rewards. Someday, I want to tell my kid that their dad writes for the biggest sports magazine there is. I want to be somebody, I want to be the best, so I'll keep trying; keep writing, until I know I can't anymore.
You never know, thirty years from now, I could look back on this blog post and shake my head. "That was a nice dream," I'll say. But I'll be okay with it, because I went for my dream, so I'll be able to sleep at night.
Glad you asked.
As I watch Dennis Quaid play a middle-aged man with not much more than a dream, a 98 mile-an-hour fastball and a bad haircut try to make it as a pro baseball player, I think about how that could be me. Of course, you could come up with one or two differences between our stories, but I'd prefer to focus on the similarities.
In case you've never seen it (first of all, see it), The Rookie is a movie about a high school science teacher who was once a pro baseball pitcher, but had to leave the game due to injuries. But he never lost his love for the game. Years after he had supposedly past his prime, he was throwing faster than ever. Long story short, he tried out for a minor league club and made the team.
It wasn't easy from there though. Minor leaguers don't make much money, and this teacher had a family back home with bills to pay. Not to mention that he had been out of the game for such a long time and the strikeouts didn't always come easy. But he was chasing a dream, no matter what the risk, it was hard, and there was no guarantee that things would work out, but he did it anyway. Why? Because he would never have been able to sleep at night if he didn't see if he could actually do it.
And he did.
Now, I'm not saying I'm anything special. But as soon as I flipped this movie on the TV, I couldn't help but think that's what my career might be like. Sure, I don't know if I will ever amount to anything as a writer; I don't know if I'll ever make it Sports Illustrated, the major leagues of sports writing. But I know that I have to try, or else I won't be able to sleep at night.
I know it won't be easy, and I know there will be no guarantees. Also, just like in the movie, there could be personal battles to face along the way. Writing about sports, just like playing them, can take you away from home and your loved ones for days at a time. And journalism is far from a lucrative career. As Ray Romano (who played a sports journalist on Everybody Loves Raymond) once said, "I'm a sports writer. I don't make a lot of money, I write about people who make a lot of money."
But, just like the movie, there could be great rewards. Someday, I want to tell my kid that their dad writes for the biggest sports magazine there is. I want to be somebody, I want to be the best, so I'll keep trying; keep writing, until I know I can't anymore.
You never know, thirty years from now, I could look back on this blog post and shake my head. "That was a nice dream," I'll say. But I'll be okay with it, because I went for my dream, so I'll be able to sleep at night.
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