BWB4 appropriately featured panelists from Grantland and an entire panel about Deadspin. I qualified that with “appropriately” because deep down inside, writers at both publications have all have achieved the pinnacle of every insomniac sports blogger – they make a living writing both ridiculous and serious sports nuggets. (Also, they can wear jeans and faux faded vintage sports tees to work.)

In the Deadspin panel, amongst the discussion of Brett Favre and his privates, there was a discussion of Deadspin‘s long form, non-sports specific work. And within that (all too brief) discussion, Deadspin editor AJ Daulerio mentioned that they want to find a place for that “men’s magazine” style of writing. He specifically called out “men’s magazines,” and didn’t just say “long-form.”

During the first week of October, Grantland announced a collaboration with humor publication McSweeney’s to offer a “best of” compilation entitled Grantland Quarterly. The topics covered will span sports, entertainment and social commentary. Readers will be able to subscribe to a year worth of the publication, or order individual copies for $19.95. Each issue will be edited by site founder Bill Simmons and former GQ editor Dan Fierman, and will include a few print-only exclusives. In a quote to the New York Observer, Fierman says,

“If our site has a problem it’s that we move so fast that readers miss stuff,” he said. The print journal serves up the site’s greatest hits in a medium better suited to long-form journalism.”

Here we have two sports heavy sites, founded and edited by sports journalists, who are trying mightily to carve out a niche as the online men’s magazine. And by men’s magazine, they mean they are striving to be the 21st century version of Playboy’s articles, GQ’s interviews and Details discussion of entertainment and social topics. They want to write long-form pieces for the sake of being wordy, which sometimes results in both sites taking topics deserving of brevity and drawing it out like taffy.

But wait – what’s so wrong about just writing about sports? And why is the only “respectable” journalism “long-form”? And why do the powers-that-be at both sites believe that men’s magazines are the only places where respectable sports and cultural journalism occurs?

If it’s not broken, don’t fix it. Deadspin seems to be grasping at this long-form, men’s mag model after “mistakingly” going in the tabloid direction with its exposes of ESPN’s inner workings and Favre’s exploits (which, mind you, had been long out there, but carefully forgotten – it’s funny how Super Bowl titles erase irresponsible behavior and painkiller addiction.) Deadspin no longer wants to be seen as the sports version of TMZ, but that may just be what they’re good at. Readers turn to them for that. Why abandon sports for exposes of gender bias, interviews with little known comedians and ponderings about middle age?

And Grantland striving for the men’s magazine model isn’t surprising. The site needs a focus, and trying to fit that model could give a sometimes schizophrenic site just that. Currently, Grantland resembles an entire bulk foods aisle in a supermarket. You want essays on movies? Those bins. You want pondering on reality TV? Those six bins in the middle. You want sports? That entire wall over there. Bill Simmons achieved popularity for blending pop culture with sports in the same articles; the next logical step to him was to combine the two on the same website. Many of the writers are promising, but the site serves up too much variety mixed with a ton of inconsistency, and the combination keeps you from making it a regular destination site. The lack of focus will doom Grantland, and I doubt labeling the site a “men’s magazine” or a haven of long-form journalism is enough of one to solve its issues.

Adopting a long-form journalism model is dicey for any website, given that internet usage studies have shown us that anything “below the scroll” is often disregarded. In a world further dominated by internet usage on hand held devices, brevity will be even more useful. Banking on the average reader hanging on for 2,000 plus words is a risk.

In addition, are sites serving a variety of topics useful in this day in age? Isn’t internet usage training our consumption to include various sources for various subjects, and to curate them all on our own (through Google Reader, through Facebook, through Twitter)? Why then is any one site trying to be everything to everybody? Why do we need the magazine model when readers essentially are their own magazine editors?

What happened to writing clearly written and interesting stories on sports? What happened to just wanting to be good at that? And why do the writers and editors of both feel that they need to grant themselves credibility by labeling their sites as wanna-be “men’s magazines?”

Said Lefsetz:

“Despite the prevalence of prepubescents, our rock stars are going to be older and older, because not only does it take that long to get noticed, but it takes that long to be good.”

Is this the way writing – in particular sports writing – is going?

Is writing becoming something you need to dabble in part time before you can make a sustainable living doing it? Is the new sports journalist the 29 year old who has had a blog for years, balanced writing with a non-writing full-time career, and eventually cobbles together enough to fashion a full-time living from it?

That’s both the rub and the reward of the Internet, online media and the growth of blogging. It gives those of us who dreamed of writing for a living but were discouraged and confused a second chance. But it widens the pool of writers, making things difficult for those who devoted schooling, internships and low paying police/fire newspaper beats to their craft.

Who is the new sports media member? Is it the nearly-30 blogger who tries their best to emulate the writers who inspire him or her, or is it the writer with the print journalism degree who took a more traditional path? Who will be the sportswriter of the future?

In this new media world, are sportswriters going to be much older when they finally, to quote Lefsetz, “get noticed” and “be good”?

John Mayer at Berklee on July 11, 2011. (Photo: Berklee College of Music)

I recently read coverage of singer/songwriter John Mayer’s July 11th lecture at his alma mater, Berklee College of Music. Mayer returned to his Boston music school to share his ups and downs musically and with his celebrity.

Mayer touched upon his once obsessive use of Twitter, which he eventually had to abandon. Berklee Blogs reported from the lecture:

“(Mayer struggled) to curb using social media, which should have been an outlet for promotion but eventually became an outlet for artistic expression. Mayer shared that he found himself asking himself questions like ‘Is this a good blog? Is this a good tweet? Which used to be, is this a good song title? Is this a good bridge?’

And possibly more alarming, Mayer realized that pouring creativity into smaller, less important, promotional outlets like Twitter not only distracted him from focusing on more critical endeavors like his career, it also narrowed his mental capacity for music and writing intelligent songs.”

Most telling was this direct quote from Mayer:

“I stopped using Twitter as an outlet and I started using Twitter as the instrument to riff on, and it started to make my mind smaller and smaller and smaller. And I couldn’t write a song.”

Even though I’m tone deaf, Mayer’s insights regarding Twitter hit home for me as a sports writer. I devote so much of my time engaging my sports communities via Twitter, and having worthy and in-depth conversations there. I’m using ideas and thoughts on Twitter that might be better explored via my sports blog.

It is an easy rut for sports bloggers to get stuck in. You leave some of your best material – the discussion of a player’s role on a particular team, a discussion of how you would set hockey lines, who you would hire for a vacant coaching position – on Twitter. You might not even realize you are putting your creativity priority on Twitter, but step back and look at what discussions you’re spending a lot of time having on Twitter. You might be leaving a lot of topics there that you could be having on your blog.

Remember that even though Twitter has exploded with popularity, not all of your blog readers are there. Consider about expanding on topics you’re discussing on Twitter on your blog. Or write about a topic first on your blog, then share the blog post via Twitter and let the post generate the discussion. By putting your blog as creativity priority one over Twitter, you may not run into difficulty finding time to post or coming up with post ideas.

Start by asking yourself: Are you using your blog or Twitter to “riff” on sports? Is whatever one you’re using the one you want to be using?

- The snarky, insightful and wildly inconsistent figure skating and gymnastics blog, Aunt Joyce’s Ice Cream Stand, interviewed 1998 Olympic ladies figure skating gold medalist Tara Lipinski this week and posted it in two parts. (Here’s Part 1 and Part 2.) As a Lipinski fan growing up (I know, a rarity), I was interested in reading it. The interview doesn’t disappoint. In fact, it may be one of the best interviews with an athlete I have read in a long time, regardless of sport.

Lipinski won her medal months shy of turning 16, retired from competition weeks after, tried to make a professional skating career for herself, suffered serious hip injuries, and retired at the sport all together at 19. She had an entire career by the time most of her peers were finishing freshman year of college. She is now 29, back involved in the sport, and is blunt, truthful and talkative. She basically admits she was obsessive as a skater, tells the backstories figure skating fans have longed for for years, and is a perfect example of how much one completely changes between 15 and 29. The comments section of the two part interview still has Lipinski haters, but they are outnumbered by readers convinced to change their long held negative opinions of her after the interview.

- On tonight’s theme of comebacks, the CoverGirl Classic is this weekend. It is a gymnastics meet that determines qualifiers for the U.S. Gymnastics Championships, but also is used for already qualified gymnasts to test skills and build buzz heading into that event. Since next year is an Olympic year, the CoverGirl Classic is being used by several 2008 Olympians who want to mount comebacks for another Olympics. Shawn Johnson, Massachusetts favorite Alicia Sacramone and my all-time fave Chellsie Memmel (who I saw compete live at this same event when she was 11 and knew she was talented) will be among those trying another Olympic run for size.

The meet will be broadcast on Universal Sports, but there are several members of the online media covering the event online who will blow them out of the water. Blythe Lawrence of Gymnastics Examiner must be the world’s fastest typist, because her notes columns and running commentary are seemingly posted within seconds of an event. Lawrence is a great example of using notes style columns to produce online content. She also has good relationships with gymnastics photographers which allow her to feature slideshows of in-meet photography not found elsewhere.

Gymnastike is a model of how to use online video in sports reporting/blogging, and not just in the world of gymnastics. They have endless amounts of clips and interviews, from carefully edited to quick, shaky takes, that their audience eats up. For them, online video has helped them find a nice niche in the gymnastics community.

Then I started going to sports networking events, and confident me came back. At the first Boston Sports Blogapalooza last spring, I was tentative at first, but lost the trepidation within ten minutes. I felt like I knew what I was talking about, and I was interested in hearing from my fellow attendees.

Confidence reinstated post-Blogapalooza, I started to sign up for networking events in higher ed and in general social media. Things quickly returned to the status quo: my glass of generic white wine in hand, I would stand in the corner after ten minutes of being intimidated by the discussion and attitudes around me. Or I would try to pitch in, even if they didn’t need the help. (I became really adept at unofficially filling in at registration tables and “admiring” scenic views out windows.)

Going into the third edition of the Blogapalooza on Saturday, I didn’t have high hopes. I had signed up to present during a panel, and was excited to do that, but I was so beaten down from my introversion that I didn’t know if I could work a room. Within a minute of walking in, I recognized three people. I turned the corner, and ran into more. Then I started talking to new people. Introvert? What introvert? I didn’t stop talking for five hours. I gave my panel, I did interviews with The Pulse Network and Comcast SportsNet New England, and I bounced from group to group.

Afterwards, it hit me: I’m not really an introvert. I just have been trying to fit in places I might not fit in. I might not be cut out for higher ed, much like some of my higher ed colleagues aren’t cut out to be a sports writer. You do best at what you’re passionate about, and I am more convinced than ever that I’m passionate about sports media.

Just a week and a half prior, I had remarked to a higher ed colleague that I felt like I am at a crossroads in my career: am I in higher ed technology or am I in sports media/social media? I need to choose one to throw all of my effort behind so that I don’t stagnate in either. At the time, I was leaning towards higher ed, and was entertaining thoughts of dropping sports writing all together.

But why would I dump the one field that is obviously the field that I am most comfortable with? There is a reason I can work a room at an event like Blogapalooza, and that I struggle in higher education events, that I feel like I’m welcome at one and feel like an outsider at another.

In some respects, Saturday’s event kept my career debate alive. It at least gave me more initiative to find at least a happy medium. And for that, I have to thank Joe Gill and his team for putting the event together and being such strong advocates for building a bustling Boston sports blog community; Chris Villani, Ken Fang, Kevin Paul, Kisha T, Ryan Durling, Amy Blue, Mike Riley, the BC Interruption crew, and the Days of Y’Orr crew for being so friendly and fun every time I see them; Kathy McDonnell for being my fellow social media panelist and someone that always makes me laugh; and Butch Stearns and Jess Camerato for interviewing me and being able to pronounce my last name.

I had just two paragraphs left to write on Sunday night, but had a long week at work ahead of me, so decided to head to bed. I would polish the rest of it off on the train in the morning.

As I went to bed, President Obama announced that United States forces had killed Osama Bin Laden. No matter what you thought of the action, you had to acknowledge that it was a giant story, a monumental event, and one that deeply affected many people. It also changed a news cycle. Newspaper journalists and editors on Twitter were stating that they literally tearing up front pages of their Monday morning editions, moving other stories to other days or killing them all together.

It wasn’t just physical newspaper layouts that the event changed. It changed what an aware and smart online writer could post on Monday. I read a comment on Twitter that said, “If you’re Tweeting or posting about anything unrelated right now, you’ll come across looking stupid.”

To be honest, I’m an escapist. When big events happen, I internalize silently, and then look for something else to pay attention to. So as much as I was tempted to dive into the post I was working on, finish it off, and post it Monday or Tuesday morning, I knew two things:

1) No one would pay attention to it.

2) I could come across as being insensitive, since many equate escapism with insensitivity.

So, I put the blog post on hold. I’ll post it this week, barring unforeseen circumstances.

But it brought up a bigger issue that I think writers within this still-new sphere of independent sports writing might struggle with. How do you respond to world events – the Japan and Haiti earthquakes, the Bin Laden death – without appearing insensitive?

• Do you write about the intersection of the event and sports – like the perfect illustration of the power of smartphones and social media spreading important news last Sunday night during the New York Mets-Philadelphia Phillies game?
• Do you just go silent for a bit, because you know your readers may be focused elsewhere?
• Or do you go forward with what you planned to write and post, because it’s what keeps you grounded?

As a sports writer, is how you react to a major event much bigger than sports tied to how you view your writing? Do you write to express your own feelings, to tell a story, or as something fun? Do you write for other’s eyes, or just feel lucky that other’s may want to read at the end of the day? How you view the desired outcome of your writing will guide on how you handle writing and posting in the days following a giant world event.

However you decide to proceed is a personal choice, with no right or wrong answer. But in order to gain credibility as an independent sports writer, showing consideration of your reader’s attentions during an emotional time without being exploitative, is always the best direction.

I paused because I don’t believe that anyone is a blogger, especially here in April of 2011. We are all writers – even if you are on Blogspot writing grammatically incorrect ramblings about how much you hate the Montreal Canadiens, or on your own domain providing serious and detailed coverage of an emerging sport such as lacrosse. Everyone is writing. Why must we qualify the action by the medium in which it is taking place?

Writing independently of established media outlets and starting your own means to showcase your writing is nothing new. In the mid 1980s, my father and uncle saved money and created an independent music magazine called Rochester Rox. The first and only issue’s cover story was my Aunt Linda’s take on Bruce Springsteen’s influence on current rock music and his most recent concert in Rochester. Sure, she was a tad biased because I think she had a crush on him, but nevertheless. My father desired an outlet for his music writing, but couldn’t find one suitable. Faced with the same desire today, he would open a WordPress account and start writing within ten minutes. But back in 1985, he had to save up money, find a printing press and lay the whole thing out via an X-acto knife and our Sears electric typewriter.

Yes, Rochester Rox only lasted an issue. Dad and Uncle Rich were giving it away for free, and that lone House of Guitars (hop hop, hop hop – a joke all Rochestarians know well) ad didn’t pay all of their expenses. But would anyone describe what my father, uncle and aunt was doing was, “independent music magazining?” No. They were writing.

Thus why am I described as a blogger at times? Why does being a blogger have such a negative connotation? In 2003, just like my father 18 years before me, I sought a venue for my writing and none existed. Thus I started this sports blog. I always fancied myself a writer without a home, not a blogger. I wanted to use a blog – a website – to show what I could do, and hope that someone down the line would want to hire me to write.

Communication mediums have always changed over time. Cave paintings were replaced by books, which were supplemented with newspapers, which were supplemented by magazines, which were complimented with the radio, which evolved into television, all of which are currently being challenged by websites and social media. Blogs are a part of that evolution. But the blog is the noun, not the verb. Writing is writing, and while some writing still ends up on newsprint, other writing ends up online. Some of that online writing ends up on the sites of traditional media sources, while others end up on independent sites – many of which qualify as web logs, or blogs.

Like in any field, there are those who do their job well and those who do their job poorly. In any artistic pursuit, there are those who don’t get a point-of-view of the artist, or those who don’t agree with a style or presentation. Writing is no different. Some sports writers who use blogs as an outlet are awful. They spew rumors. They disparage other fans. They stalk athletes. In the case of Bleacher Report, they crassly build on a natural disaster to relate it to Japanese sports. Those are examples of bad writing. But bad sports writing isn’t limited to blogs. Look at the newspaper columnist who last week claimed the comatose San Francisco Giants fan who was brutally attacked by LA Dodgers fans “deserved it.” He is a writer, albeit a bad one. His medium was a newspaper, not a website. Bad writing, like good writing, can be found everywhere, and is not limited to the blog medium.

And some sports writers will choose to go about their craft in a different way than others. There are those among us who write game recaps and feature stories. There are others who tell personal stories about the sports they love. There are others who create humorous Photoshops to illustrate tall tales that are rooted in a factual basis. You don’t have to like the style they use, just, but you have to respect that they are creating. We are all writing. We all sought an independent outlet for writing. But unlike years past, there is a far easier way to find such an outlet.

I write because I couldn’t imagine my life without the written word. I write what I want to read myself. I write because I love it. If someone else is motivated to write, I can’t ever disparage them, even if I may personally disagree with their tone, methods or point of view. We share a commonality, no matter how grammatically incorrect or how strange that writing may be. No one gives anyone else a bad name as long as our desire to communicate via the written word is genuine.

As of late, I’ve been thinking about the same topic. I was using it as a potential reason why I have been struggling with such debilitating writers block. I never had the chance to play hockey or lacrosse myself – they weren’t offered at my school, and youth programs for girls in both sports were still rare when I was young. When you have less knowledge of being on the ice or field, you tend to use stats almost as a crutch – as your main tool of evaluation because you don’t have that first hand experience to fall back to.

I may watch an entire game intently, but I immediately turn to the stat sheet when I start to write a game story. Because I haven’t played first hand, I always have that worry in the back of my mind that if I try to describe what I just saw, I am not doing the game justice or could be explaining things incorrectly. What can I interpret without the first hand experience? Stats.

Readers yearn to read that first hand experience. I am one of many hockey fans who eagerly await pieces by Jason Bourne, a former college and pro player turned excellent writer for Yahoo Sports’ Puck Daddy, among other sites. And one of my lacrosse writing idols and someone that I have been lucky enough to have as a mentor, Andrew McKay of The Laxist, skillfully weaves in his own experience scouting and working within the game into his coverage. Unfortunately, the number of former high level athletes in both sports who are great writers are few. Having the written perspective of a former athlete, which fans desire because of its behind-the-scenes nature, is rare.

But that isn’t to say that if you haven’t played the game, you can’t report. The majority of sports writers haven’t played the game they cover. For many of us, we write because our siblings and cousins played the game(s), and we desired to participate in a way in which our talents provided us. Or it’s because the stories we read in the sports section of the newspaper captured our imaginations much more than any political analysis on page A3 did. Or maybe we played, but were too short, too slow or not able to afford further training to advance.

As writers who haven’t played, how can we step back and capture the game’s action and finesse without years of first-hand knowledge? If you have the ability, ask the athletes about the movement and tempo of the game. Use the athlete’s description of their play to guide how you write about it – the act of it is far more interesting than the fact that it was their 24th goal of the season. Ask teammates what they saw of certain plays while on the bench. Watch practices and the drills run, then find out what those exercises are for.

Use the age-old tenant of all writing that was imparted on me the first day of creative writing in seventh grade: Show, don’t tell. Is the team skating with speed, or through molasses? Are the teammates and coaches on the sidelines yelling at teammates in frustration? Are lines being changed mid-game? Is someone getting a lot of shots, but just not being able to convert them? Don’t be afraid to say what you see. Move past what a reader can get in a box score, and describe the game to someone who didn’t have the opportunity to sit next to you.

As I wrote in 2009, that Super Bowl also meant a lot to me because reading the Sports Illustrated covering that game inspired me to want to be a sportswriter. If you doubt how much that one issue impacted me, I present to you a photo taken this morning of the ragged original copy that has moved with me to college, to Boston and grad school and now to my place in the ‘burbs. It may be torn, it may be worth absolutely nothing – but to me, it’s worth everything.

There are days where I wonder why I down multiple cups of coffee a day and sit up all hours of the evening to write for anyone and everyone who asks, despite working a demanding full-time job. All I have to do is break this out and flip through a few pages. If I can chronicle some event as well as King and Rich Telander did in this issue, and inspire some awkward thirteen year old by doing so, then all the late nights will all be worth it.

—–

Surprisingly, I’ve only written two blog posts over the years on Super Bowl XXIX. Here they are:

Fourteen Years Later, I Experience My Super Bowl XXIX

On Excitement and Nervousness

If you want to see some of the other newspaper clippings thirteen year old me saved from that Super Bowl, I took pictures and posted them on Flickr. It’s from back when there were two newspapers (Democrat and Chronicle and Times Union) in Rochester, NY. Snapping shots of these this morning made me appreciate newspapers the tactile quality. Saving printed articles from online isn’t the same as trotting out my folder of newspaper clippings.

Vinny Saponari in a March 2010 game against Merrimack College. Photo: Flickr user seriouslysilly (Some Rights Reserved)

The story of the day amongst BU hockey fans was the reported Boston College transfer application rejection by dismissed Terrier forward Vinny Saponari. The rumor had been lurking amongst those close to Boston area college hockey for a few weeks, and the story broke for good when US Hockey Report (aka, USHR, a subscription site that reports on junior, youth and college hockey) posted a piece this morning quoting Saponari’s USHL head coach.

Saponari’s current coach with the USHL Dubuque Fighting Saints, Jim Montgomery, is the only interview in USHR’s brief report, which then spurred on reports by the Eagle Tribune’s Mike McMahon, BostonSportsU18 and the Daily Free Press’s Boston Hockey Blog. The Boston Hockey Blog tried to get a quote with Saponari, but “a call and text were not returned.” Word had spread outside of the USHR report – two individuals mentioned to me that area coaches had just started being open about the news last evening, and the news spread like wild fire through the expanding, but still very small, world of hockey.

As the news was circulating on Twitter, a few folks asked within social media, “Well, who are we all to be talking about a pretty embarrassing and private matter for this hockey player? Why is Saponari’s rejection news?”

There is no question to me that this is news – Saponari’s initial dismissal from BU was very public, as the Terrier program had to give reason for his absence in the then upcoming season, and he decided to engage on interviews on the subject. His decision to subsequently transfer to BC, BU’s biggest hockey rival, was made public on his own Facebook page and a few media sources.

So Saponari’s rejection by BC was going to become public whether he liked it or not. For better or worse, his own statements on the matter earlier this fall made us all expect to see him on the Conte Forum ice come next September. Because of the level of expectation already prepared, the college hockey watching public would find out about the rejection eventually. In hindsight, Saponari, his family and his “family advisors” should have kept word of his desire to transfer down Comm Ave quiet until all the i’s were dotted, t’s were crossed, and transcripts approved.

But where the critics of the publicity of Saponari’s denial may have a legitimate point is that the only on-the-record source through this entire story has been the player’s own USHL coach. Was it really appropriate for Montgomery to be so forthcoming with this news with USHR in the first place? Was it his place to do so? Was he representing the family, and if so, should he or the USHR author been more explicit in saying so?

On a much larger level, if a coach is part educator, part advisor, part mentor, and part counselor, shouldn’t he uphold a certain level of confidentiality?

I’m not defending Saponari in any way (if I don’t have anything nice to say, I’m not going to say anything at all), but didn’t he deserve a tad more from Montgomery? Should USHR have looked for a quote from Saponari or his family? If Montgomery was acting on their behalf, shouldn’t that have been more explicit?

What do you think?