Ten Top Tips for
Tiptop Sports Writing
How to make your sports section the
best-read, most-meaningful part of
your high school newspaper
Karl Grubaugh
The Gazette
Granite Bay (Calif.) High School
The Sacramento Bee
Top 10 Tips
for Tip-Top Sports Writing


So, do you get the feeling
that people aren’t reading
your sports section? Is
your sports coverage
dominated by dated game
stories and cliché-filled
features?
These 10 tips can go a
long way to improving
your sports coverage – and
your readership of the
entire newspaper.
1. Reporting Comes
Before Writing


You MUST do the hard
work of reporting before
you sit down to write a
story
Remember, sports is one
of the most statistics- and
facts-heavy subjects out
there – you have to have
those at your fingertips to
write good sports stories.
That means you have to
find out who has them, or
keep track of them
yourself.
2. Don’t Try to Do Too Much



Find a SINGLE FOCUS
and stick with it!
Don’t try to tell someone’s
life story
It’s tough to tell more than
one person’s story at a
time, so avoid the
temptation to tell the story
of entire teams. Pick a
player or two, not the
whole offense or defense.
3. Show, Don’t Tell




OK, so this is
perhaps a bit of a
cliché, but it’s
important that you
understand what it
means – you have to
put the readers in
the story.
Some examples:
Use
DESCRIPTION and
get the DETAILS!
How? DO YOUR
REPORTING!
4. Don’t Do Game Stories *


Most high school
newspapers distribute
approximately every
three or four weeks.
Unless you distribute
more often than once a
week, leave the game
stories to the daily
newspapers.
Exceptions? When you
can get a big game
story into your paper
less than a week after
the game has ended.
* Only do game stories for your
regularly updated ONLINE
EDITIONS





Get them up THE
NIGHT/DAY they
happen!
Get the results in the first
couple of grafs.
Add at least a quote or
two.
Team records (overall and
league) should be in the
story.
Report some statistical
highlights.
5. Avoid Cliches Like the Plague


If you’ve heard it before,
figure out how to say it
another way.
An example: He took it to
the hole in a gut-check
game. “It’s all about the
team,” Smith said. “There
isn’t any ‘I’ in TEAM, so I
played my own game and
took it up and down the
floor at 110 percent, and
then let the Ws and Ls take
care of themselves.”
6. Avoid ‘Jock Talk’


With all-ESPN all the
time, this is a pernicious,
difficult problem to avoid,
but you must endeavor to
only use intelligent,
meaningful quotes.
Suggestions – 1. Some
coaches and athletes will
fill SILENCE with more
thoughtful remarks, so
learn to WAIT for better
answers. 2. Don’t ask
cliché questions.
7. Use Dramatic Story-Telling
Devices to Tell Your Stories




Use the drama of sports to
write more dramatic
stories.
Consider literary devices
like foreshadowing, etc.
Consider story-telling
approaches like italics to
set off events in a different
time or place, etc.
Try techniques like the
Wall St. Journal feature
method.
8. Don’t Always Write
The Obvious Story


Look for the littleknown, unmined
nuggets on your
campus.
Look for the stories
that people don’t
know about. Those are
the stories people will
want to read.
9. Sports Is Also News


Just because it’s going
in the sports section
doesn’t mean it needs
to be soft and squishy
and entertaining. Even
on high school
campuses, sports has
its share of hard-news
stories that are
begging to be told.
Some examples:
10. Read Good Sportswriting!



There is plenty of bad
sportswriting out there.
Try to avoid it.
Find the good stuff and
use it as a model for
reporting and story-telling
techniques.
Examples: The Best
Sports Writing of the
Year, Sports Illustrated,
ESPN the magazine, the
L.A. Times, the Boston
Globe and many others.
Thanks for Listening!







Karl Grubaugh
Granite Bay (Calif.)
High School
1 Grizzly Way
Granite Bay, CA
95746
916-786-8676, x5811
or 5514
kgrubaugh@rjuhsd.us
granitebayhigh.org