Sports Writing

I've written nearly a dozen game coverages, but no game was as compelling -- or as well covered -- as this. The event had it all -- city rivalry, emotional context, a poster dunk, and a dramatic victory that made for a juicy story. My only challenge was trying to include everything relevant, but I was very pleased with the outcome.  

This was published as a website package, but the heart of it was a 300-word story on girls varsity basketball player Ayanna Lonon, a senior with dreams off the court. I really discovered a passion for 300-word stories with this one, where I had to really think about the heart of the story. The easy story would have been an "I love basketball" one, but when I started writing, I knew that wasn't the right one. One of my favorites to this day.

Borne from a press conference with Athens-area schools, "Season's greetings" was a big learning curve for me. It was the first article I'd written as Sports Editor, and looking back, I now see that I did too much with the piece -- preview the holistic season, the upcoming rivalry game, and discuss the new region alignment. However, the story was fundamentally solid and provided a baseline for my future sports news.

A short sports news brief about a grant given to the physical education department, this story isn't the sexiest I've ever written. What makes me proud of it is the speed at which I wrote it -- only two hours from the press release's publication, the story was up with interviews, giving me confidence in my writing ability on tight time frames.