This is a great Read and why you may want to become a subscriber. I would encourage everyone to think about supporting Georgia Tech Press through
The Athletic
Link
https://theathletic.com/436006/2018...ing-is-what-you-can-expect-from-the-athletic/
I stopped showing up to the men’s tennis matches during my junior year the University of Florida. I wrote for the student newspaper, the Independent Florida Alligator, and disliked it. The daily grind of having to produce stories that had to fit certain word counts and writing game recaps that were ancient by the time the paper was printed just didn’t interest me.
I was already a sports anchor and reporter for the campus television station, and TV is what I wanted to do when I graduated in 2014, so I quit the paper. The freedom to be as creative as I wanted while expressing my personality is what drove me to wanting to be on television.
I only applied for TV jobs out of school, but when I got my first two offers — I was shocked at the salaries. Not only would I make pennies, but I would have to move to the middle of nowhere. So, I rejected both offers and waited.
A recruiter from Cox Media Group in Atlanta reached out to me on LinkedIn in 2014 just weeks before I graduated and told me that they were interested in talking to me about a college football website the company was launching. The site, FanBuzz, which is now defunct, was almost entirely aggregation and clickbait. It’s not what I wanted to do, but I took the job mainly because I had fallen in love with the city of Atlanta while interning for 680 The Fan just a month after I quit the paper.
I made sure I worked harder than everyone on FanBuzz’s staff. I made it my mission to get out of aggregating other people’s work as soon as possible. I got my break less than a year into the job with the launch of SEC Country, another Cox Media Group outlet.
That’s where I learned how to be a reporter and fell in love with telling stories. I covered Alabama recruiting for almost 3 years before that site folded at the end of June.
The one thing I noticed while being a recruiting reporter is the majority of the writers only focus on asking standard questions:
Where are you visiting next? Which schools lead? When are you committing? Those questions are vital to ask, for sure, but I always wanted to be different. I would get that information, but I would also find out details no one else would get, like how running back Najee Harris slept on the floor of his home while he ascended to be the nation’s No. 1 overall recruit; how senior picture day changed the life of an Alabama offensive lineman; and how Tua Tagovailoa throws left-handed because his father wanted his son to be left-hand dominant like him, so it would be easier to train him.
Those are the stories I crave and the ones I hope to tell here at
The Athletic. You guys are watching the games. You know who won and who lost. I don’t need to tell you those things. But do you know what makes the players and coaches you’re watching unique? Do you know what they’ve sacrificed to get to where they are today? Do you know about the heartaches they’ve had to overcome growing up? Sometimes, we look at these athletes as machines. I want my storytelling to remind you that these people breathe the same air as you and I and go through the same highs and lows as us.
The great thing about this site is I’ll have the chance to tell these stories because we want to write well-written, well-reported, informative and entertaining stories that you likely won’t see on other sites. You won’t see clickbait, meaningless lists and annoying auto-play videos on this site. You’re going to get some of the best reporting on the internet.
I’ve been a subscriber to
The Athletic since last fall and fell in love with the concept that a site can produce quality journalism without having to aggregate every piece of “news” on the internet and turn into a content farm.
I fell in love with sports writing once again by being a subscriber at
The Athletic, and I hope you get that same feeling, too.
If you haven’t subscribed yet, join now with this link to get 30% off plus a free T-shirt: theathletic.com/atlantalaunch
