I missed it the first time and I missed the reprise yesterday -- Alex Wolff's "Mining the Past of Sports: The art and craft of the historical feature."

Luckily, I was able to snag a copy of the Sports Illustrated senior writer's handouts. So, although it's nothing like experiencing Wolff’s session in the flesh, here is a compilation of the notes that he gave out to participants:

For starters: 

The advantage of the historical piece:

• Athletes and coaches may not have time for you now, but…
• Adaptable to the smallest papers in the smallest markets
• "Counterprogramming" niche
• ESPN and the Web emphasize the now, the quick
• The therapeutic urge
• Subjects and sources will finally want to talk
• Consider the virtues of losing for providing rich material

Before you begin:

Plot for space:

• Find a peg
• Anniversaries
• Year-end ("instant history")
• Death (the prepackaged obit)
• When all else fails, serialize
• Accommodates shortened attention spans
• Allows for promotion
  

Ways to go about it:

The hybrid

• Tie the past with the present
• The "where are they now?" or "catch-up" piece
  

The "one man in the riptide of history" lede

Never forget…

Chronology is your friend, and will permit you to:

• Write a straight, chronological "tick-tock"
• Begin in the middle or end of a story, then rewind to fill in
  

Where you should go…

Primary sources

• Libraries and historical societies
• University archives (not just sports information departments)
  

And keep in mind…

History itself is your ally: Consider how shifts in political winds will open up rich material.

Use a photograph as your starting point: A la "the Ken Burns Leer."

To see Alex Wolff's strategies in action, check out these historical features from Sports Illustrated:

"When the Terror Began" Thirty years later, the hostage drama that left 11 Israeli Olympians dead seems even more chilling and offers grim reminders to today's security experts. [Aug. 20, 2002]

"Ghosts of Mississippi" Forty years ago a courageous college president defied a court order barring Mississippi State from integrated competition and sent his team to face black players in the NCAA tournament. [March 10, 2003]

 -- Meg Martin, Naughton Fellow, Poynter
Friday, April 14, 2006
4:03 p.m.

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GET IN TOUCH WITH YOUR INNER CODGER

How do you get a pro athlete excited about talking to you? Ask him about his barber. 

Or his iPod. Or what she was thinking as she ran for the breakaway.

Or, better yet, forget about the pro athlete. Write the definitive history of the athletic cup instead.

Sometimes the best sports stories don't even appear on the sports page. Sometimes you can't find them at the stadium or in the pressbox. Sometimes they're getting their hair cut across the street, swimming laps at the beach or hanging around the local batting cages.

The secret to finding and telling those offbeat stories? Ask Jeff Klinkenberg, bard of Real Florida for the St. Petersburg Times. All it takes, he said, is a little visual cleansing.

Remove the scales from your eyes. These stories are just out there. But there are no public relations people involved, no professional athletes involved.

Go to the local batting cages and find the guy who the regulars talk about. Check out the rock-scissors-paper tournament nearby. Get into the head of the player who's perfecting her jump shot.

"It's the 10th hour and you've swam [2.5] miles, you've biked [112] miles and you've run 23 miles. What are you thinking?" he asks the triathlete.

He talked about Earl Morrall, the last of the NFL flat-tops, and his barber, Michael Composto.

About Joakim Noah, front man of the Florida Gators basketball team, and his feral curls.

About Carl Crawford and the on-field logistics of a triple.

He doesn't forget to think like the guy keeping score in the stands: "I look at the world of sports through the eyes of an old codger."

And Klinkenberg's got a radar for passion. That's where you'll find the folks who are the most fun to write about, he said.

So, how can you discover your inner codger?

Klinkenberg's tips:

Look at the sports world though the eyes of a child. Be guided by your curiosity.

• Write about the eccentric who has built "Boston Gardens" in his garage, where he plays Nerf-ball basketball.
• Write about the local king of the amusement-park batting cage.
• At the football stadium, somebody fires a cannon every time the home team scores. Write about the cannon person.
• Look for stories at the county fair -- maybe the boy who gets dunked in a tank of water by a baseball.
  

Remove the scales from your eyes. Good stories are everywhere you look.

• At NASCAR events, chefs compete to feed their crews the best food.
• At the ballpark, the music critic takes note of the "at bat" songs broadcast for every player and writes a column about it.
• Write about the blind broadcaster.
• An all-star has an eccentric hairdo. Who does his or her hair?
  

Look at the world of sports through the eyes of a codger

• Why don't baseball fans keep scorecards any more?
• Babe Ruth lived here?
• Where did Bob Gibson sleep during Jim Crow?

 -- Meg Martin, Naugton Fellow, Poynter
Friday, April 14, 2006
12:31 p.m.

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CHANNELING SCREAMIN' STEPHEN

We should all be a little bit more like Stephen A. Smith.

Hear me out.

He personifies what should be a concern for the sportswriting community. If you do good things, if you make people read your stuff, if you make people pay attention to you, new multi-media opportunities are gonna come your way. And those opportunities are probably gonna look like this: Write less. Make more.

Good for you. Bad for the state of the written word.

Jim Stem Photography Stephen A. Smith

In Stephen's breakout session Thursday afternoon, though, he was what he was: loud, OK, but also engaging and entertaining. You want to listen to him. He makes you.

Newspapers these days? Not so much.

So maybe there's a lesson here.

Stephen said after the session that he gained an audience and has grown that audience mainly by being straight-up and true. The reader or viewer -- the consumer -- needs to know who you are, where you're coming from, where you're getting your information and what you believe. No matter what you think of "Screamin'" Stephen A., and everyone's got an opinion, of course, I took that as his way of saying transparency is a good thing.

Know your stuff.

Let your audience know how you know it.

Then disseminate it with the utmost authority -- and if that means having a take, having a personality, shoot, so be it. All the better.

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THE MOVING PROFILE

Thoughts on "Beyond the cartoon athlete: writing sports profiles in three dimensions" with Michelle Hiskey:

Not only does your subject have to be doing something in a profile, but he/she has to be going somewhere.

There has to be a progression. Even if he/she did something that you didn't see and he/she has to recall the whole thing for you. Otherwise, it's nothing more than a really wordy Q&A session. Might as well put that in a graphic -- at least it'll look appealing.

A profile isn't just a story about a person, either. What's a game story if not a profile of the game you just watched? An enterprise piece if not a profile of an issue?

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GOING DEEP

Jim Stem Photography

A collection of wisdom from Teri Thompson, editor for the sports investigative team at the New York Daily News, who led a session called "Going Deep: Strategies for enterprise and investigative reporting":

Curiosity might have killed the cat, but at least it asked the question: "Find out the answers to all types of questions -- not just who scored the touchdowns."

Jim Stem Photography Teri Thompson: Enterprise & investigative reporting

Just do it: "Go to the police department or courthouse and just begin your search."

Patience, patience, patience: "Working sources is a huge part of this, and many times, it is painstakingly slow."

What are you waiting for? "If you have a tip, the first thing you should do is start reporting it."

Take a head-first plunge: "Go there and begin reporting. Throw yourself into it."

Persistence: "Just keep going back."

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TURN THE PAPER GLOSSY

John Rawlings of The Sporting News and Sports Illustrated's Sandy Rosenbush led a session on  "Bringing a Magazine Sensibility to the Daily Paper"

Daily newspaper work can be just as bold and deep as the stories you read in the glossies. All it takes is a fresh approach.

Some pointers:

• Identify the story and the approach.
  

• Know your subject.
  

• Grab the reader's attention.
  

• Be fair, but don't be neutral.
  

• Go for access.
  

• Take a chance!
  

• Do something different.
  

Jim Stem Photography Sandy Rosenbush and John Rawlings

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YOUR BEST WORK: STAY IMMERSED IN SIMPLICITY, SIGNIFICANCE... AND THE SUPERMARKET

Simplicity, significance and supermarkets. That's all you need to know to create your best work.

Jim Stem Photography L to R: Kelly, Christine, Jemele & Amy

Just ask the Orlando Sentinel's Jemele Hill, The Associated Press' Amy Sancetta and USA Today's Christine Brennan. They chatted with each other and Poynter's Kelly McBride this morning about the virtues of good work. Here's what they preached:

Jim Stem Photography Jemele Hill

SIMPLICITY. (Jemele)

• Use simple, declarative sentences. Their power is might. You'll like it. But, more importantly, the reader will like it. People tend to speak in short sentences. It's natural.
  

• Keep it tight. Long-winded storytellers cause the big sleep.
  

• Leave out the stuff that doesn't advance the story. It's not even gravy.

• Quit earlier rather than later -- in hopes that the reader will leave the story wanting more.
  

SIGNIFICANCE. (Amy)

Don't just make a good picture, make a significant picture.

Jim Stem Photography Amy Sancetta

For instance: "If I'm covering a Super Bowl, I don't want [just any] picture at the end when the Patriots win -- I don't just want a picture of the players jubilating. I want Brady jubilating."

But Amy's work, moderator Kelly was quick to point out, has cross-craft applications. It works for writers just as well as it works for visual journalists.

The goals are the same, Amy added. Photojournalists just carry more stuff.

Jim Stem Photography Christine Brennan

SUPERMARKET. (Christine)

Think like the guy -- or the woman -- in the supermarket.

That is, answer the question your readers want to know.

"Think like your readers. Think like a fan or an interested observer -- not the wacky ones who are screaming at the coach on a radio show -- but the people who are reading you. And [don't] always give them what they want� but be smart about [it] and anticipate; be a couple days ahead."

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PICTURE THIS

 

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DEATH TO THE GAME STORY?
 
The town-hall session Wednesday evening got me thinking: Who's gonna be the first shot-caller bold enough to kill game stories as we know them? Some say that's crazy talk. Their reasons why that would never EVER work usually boil down to this: But we've always done it THIS way, boo-hoo, wah-wah. But sports has the best chance of any part of the paper to get wild and start blowing stuff up to adjust specifically to the changing habits of consumers of news.

Jim Stem Photography Buddy Martin leads a town-hall meeting Wednesday night at Poynter.

Maybe some folks watched the game last night on TV, or maybe they missed it but logged onto ESPN.com later, or maybe they caught highlights on "SportsCenter" or local news -- if they didn't do any of these things, though, chances are really, really good they're not going to be clamoring for a 22-inch gamer in this morning's paper anyway. This is not a plea for the death of game coverage. Just do it differently. With graphics, photos, charts, bullet points -- whatever. Anything but an I-was-at-the-game-you-already-know-about narrative.

Seriously: Sports sections have a huge opportunity to be the trailblazers in the industry-mandated shift in newspaper presentation. Non-sports reporters have more things they have to do. Put it this way: AP isn't at County Commission. Coverage of that is more a public service than it is compelling for the most part. This should allow sports reporters to shun the obligatory and hunt the new, the offbeat, the inventive and fresh. So who's gonna have the guts?

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MAKING MAMA PROUD

Sure, Mom always said to treat people the way they want to be treated.

But, for a moment, forget it.

How about treating folks the way they want to be treated? Roy calls it The Platinum Rule -- more valuable than gold.

Some of the visual journalists in the room offered some insights to their writing counterparts: What do writers need to know about helping photojournalists do their best work?

Just remember that we're all journalists, we're all doing the same job and we all have the same goal, one photojournalist said.

Writers and photojournalists have to be equally informed. Writers, seek out your visual colleagues and find out what they're doing. Photojournalists should do the same. If you get a tip, pick up the phone and give them a call. That goes both ways. Share stories, share quotes and share coverage plans. (And don't forget to share cell phone numbers.)

Mom would be proud.

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NAVIGATING THE JOURNEY

As someone who is in the generation behind John Schulian's and appreciate his take on his journey through this business. What I'll remember:

• Sometimes you have to gamble -- you have to take a risk to see if you can do something else
  

• Sometimes your phone doesn�t ring. Do something else.
  

• No matter if you work for Hollywood or Hack City Tribune, find a way to organize that works for you.
  

Even Gay Talese did it in Esquire's "best magazine story of all time" about Frank Sinatra.

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SERVING THE SPORTS WRITING AND EDITING COMMUNITY, ONE ENTRY AT A TIME

I ran into this blog as I searched for old-school sports stories yesterday. I don't know who the blogger is -- he or she is identified only as "SWE_Blogger," but it's called Sports Writing and Editing, and looks to be a great resource for -- yes -- sports writers and editors.

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COVER THE RIPPLES, SUMMON THE LEGENDS AND ADJUST YOUR CLOCKS

The sports writer's challenge: Write a next-day story about something -- a game, an Olympic event, a tournament -- your audience has already seen on TV.
 
The solution: Well, I'm pretty sure every journalist has got his or her own answer for that. But one that especially struck me tonight was the idea of answering the why in the who, the what, the where, the when and the how that journalists cover on a daily basis.

But how can sports journalists do that?

Adopt Sally Jenkins' mantra throughout this "town-hall meeting": Learn to write the p.m. story for an a.m. medium.

It's writing about last night's story ahead. It's projecting the story a day ahead, and yet digging a little deeper in the locker room with the people you're writing about... I just think we have to be a little more creative and look back at what we do best.

That means paying attention to the work of the sportswriting legends -- a common theme at this summit, it turns out -- and figuring out what they did right so it can be applied to sports writing now.

Seems like the perfect time for some inspirational writers who have come up so far:

• John Lardner (One of Ring's famous sons.)
  

• Grantland Rice (With a link to what is perhaps his most famous piece, unofficially referred to as "The Four Horsemen," on a Notre Dame fan blog called "The Rock.")
  

• Dan Jenkins (Yes, he's Sally's dad.)
  

• W.C. Heinz (With a link to his "Death of a Racehorse" on gangrey.com.)
  

It's intimacy, Jenkins said, that was one of the hallmarks of the sort of writing that the above men were famous for. Their work had the ability to draw readers in -- to the event, to the athlete and even to themselves.

That's the ultimate in sports writing," she said, "When you explain to the viewer and the reader why you're feeling what you're feeling about what just happened... and that's what a great sports writer can do that no other medium can duplicate."

It's also something that sets sports writing apart from its broadcast counterparts, she said.

Jason Whitlock talked about the sporting event as if it were a rock being dropped in water: "It creates ripples. And a good writer covers all the ripples. You've got to cover the ripples... That's what TV and radio don't do as well."

In short, summon the legends.

Cover the ripples.

And think night when it's really day.

"We have to become p.m. writers on an a.m. schedule," Jenkins said. "I think that, as our synapses get more accustomed to this medium [the Internet] that we're working ... I think sometimes you're most quick-firing responses are your most creative... Sometimes deadlines almost push you into creativity. I think we have to embrace it, because I think that's the deal."

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SPORTS PHOTOJOURNALISM: UNFRAMED

Kenny Irby

On any given day, on any field of play, there are numerous high-action encounters and collisions. And the peak moments captured by photojournalists for the viewing world to reflect upon are decisive and definitive.

In a heartbeat, they represent the competitive tenacity of the athletic pursuits, the thrill of victory and, yes, the agony of defeat.
 
So much goes into the documentation of sports photographic coverage worthy of being called excellent or, better still, great or iconic that is outside of the frame. The new "auto- everything" world has surely increased the number of technically sharper and clearer -- but meaningless -- photographs.
 
For the 12 participants and seven faculty members in the photojournalism component of the Sports Journalism Summit, the issues of why and how we cover sports was put to task in four days of gymnastics-of-the-mind-like training. All without any competitive photographic coverage -- only reference documentation.

And yet, there has been tremendous growth and value placed on topics such as:

• Improving planning, communication and teamwork between writers and photographers to build stronger reporting partnerships in the field.
  

• Sharpening our ability to spot visual potential in sports coverage and to explore the power of dramatic sports photography.

• Building meaningful relationships as a strategy for gaining better access.

• Being more reflective and responsible with our ethical conduct and decision-making.
  

• Having more fun and enjoying the privileged role given to us.
  

Few conversations have been about F-shops, shutter speeds and focal lengths -- technical matters. There has been a little bit of that, but even a trip to the St. Pete Times Forum to study remote-camera coverage ended on the familiar note: access is all about relationships.

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LATEST FROM THE SPORTS SUMMIT: THINK LIKE A PHOTOGRAPHER

The secret to detailed writing: think like a photographer.

And, oh yeah, it is still all about people. (Seems to be something of a theme...)

We just ended a session with Tom French, Roy Peter Clark and Kenny Irby: what writers and photographers can learn from each other.

We looked at iconic sports images: Muhammad Ali taunting Sonny Liston. Babe Ruth's final appearance at Yankee Stadium. Mary Decker's 1984 Olympics fall.

Different sports, different stories, different eras. But they conveyed the same emotion, same humanity and same timelessness that good writing and good images share.

The strategies they share:

• Sequencing. Choose details to create an effect. Pull together the unpredictable angles to tell the real story.
• Working hard for access. Take advantage of surprises and opportunities. Pictures like the famous Ali triumph are the reward for unpredictability.
• Zig when everyone else is zagging. Take the unpredictable position and find the vantage point that tells the story the most powerfully.

A writer should use his (or her) notebook as a camera and focus on the faces he (or she) sees. "That's the heart of the story right there," Tom said. 

Journalists, we heard, should all embrace the opportunity, the challenge and the advantage of collaborating across craft. Understand the language of your colleagues across the newsroom and translate it to your own craft. But, Kenny warned, there's danger in duplication. Colleagues' work should should complement one another, not echo.

Roy said: "The best thing to do as a writer is to take an interest in all the associated crafts. As we move continually into new media, those crafts are not only going to be design and photojournalism, but also the use of natural sound and use of video more often It really helps you develop your craft if you can speak about those crafts without an accent. That's a powerful mode of learning for a reporter."

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FOUR TIPS FROM A WRITER WHO KNOWS: JOHN SCHULIAN

John Schulian learned one of his greatest lessons about sports writing when Muhammad Ali rubbed his thumb and forefinger together in front of his face.

It sounded like a cricket. And it snapped Schulian out of a trance he had sunken into. He was sitting on a couch next to the world's greatest in Caesar's Palace in Las Vegas, listening to him tell the same story he had told 45 minutes before. Schulian had been trying to see the world through Ali's eyes. Think how he thought. And he had stopped listening.

Until Ali rubbed his fingers together.

"Pay attention, white boy."

Some of the best sports writing advice he'd ever gotten.

Schulian is almost two decades removed from regular sports writing, but he has the enthusiasm of a kid who's just written his first column for a major paper.

Jim Stem Photography John Schulian

"Sportswriting is about chasing your dreams," he said. "That's what being young and being in this business is about: about being young and chasing your dreams."

So he did. He started on the copy desk at the Salt Lake Tribune (where, he said, "I do believe I was the only guy on the desk who wasn't in A.A."), and eventually moved to places like the Chicago Sun-Times, Sports Illustrated and The Washington Post.

Now he writes scripts. Books. And the occasional feature for Sports Illustrated.

But from the start, the goals for his newspaper columns were simple. And they translated to his work in television and publishing: 

• Pursue good writing, no matter what. "More than anything else, I wanted my column to be a good piece of writing," the best piece of writing in the newspaper that day, he said.
  

• Emphasize story. It seems simple, he said, but it's often forgotten across the pages of the newspaper. Beginning, middle and end. "Sometimes I already knew how the piece was going to end before I had the lede," he said.

• Be influenced by great writers: W.C. Heinz. Jimmy Cannon. Gay Talese. Jimmy Breslin. Dan Jenkins.
  

• Scenes, dialogue, character. All great ways to tell stories, even in columns. And columns don't have to be in the first person, either. Readers know, he said, that the guy in the mug shot is the guy who wrote the column. And the words in the column are clearly his thoughts.
  

And an emphasis on people: "Anybody who's written about sports knows it's not about the games, it's about the people."

Technically, it's helpful to write a "beat sheet" of a story, he said. That's TV talk for an outline. It helped him stay on track when he wrote scripts for "L.A. Law," and it's what Gay Talese used in his famous "Frank Sinatra Has a Cold" Esquire piece. They work.

Related reading: 

"A One-Way Ticket to Obscurity," by John Schulian

"Frank Sinatra Has a Cold," by Gay Talese

 -- Meg Martin, Naughton Fellow, Poynter

Wednesday, April 12, 2006
5:30 p.m.

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SPORTS JOURNALISM SUMMIT: THE CONFLUENCE


The photographers have left for a field trip. For the first time in three days, their computers are still and the visual journalism lab is empty. The halls of Poynter soak in a few precious moments of silence. For now.

In a few hours, the photographers will return and the sportswriters will invade. About 130 of them. They'll all converge this afternoon in the largest, most ambitious discussion of sports journalism Poynter has ever orchestrated.

Sports journalists don't often get the same kind of attention that their news and feature counterparts find in the world of journalistic training. And some who might want to attend cannot be squeezed in or had coverage commitments.  

So to make this event accessible to as many people as possible, we will be blogging it, in a manner of speaking, from now until the writers leave on Friday. We'll add content, pictures, links and quotes over the next three days. Things we hear in the halls and tips we find in the sessions. 

SPORTS JOURNALISM SUMMIT

"Passing the Torch: Don't Let Great Sports Journalism Flame Out," by Roy Peter Clark

I'll kick it all off this afternoon, writing from the first converged session, "From Ali to Xena: Hanging on to the life of a sportswriter," with John Schulian. He's a sports columnist and a television producer who's written several books and just happens to be the creator of "Xena, Warrior Princess."  

We have also asked a handful of  participants to contribute their impressions of the event as they experience it. They'll be attending a number of the simultaneous sessions.  Check back to see what they've posted, and feel free to continue the conversation in our "feedback" section.

Coming attractions include:

• Tom French of the St. Petersburg (Fla.) Times will chat with conference organizers, Poynter's Roy Peter Clark and Kenny Irby about what writers and photographers can learn from each other.
  

• Buddy Martin will moderate a conversation with a dozen other sportswriters and editors about "The rich athlete and the poor sportswriter: a story of frustration and alienation."
  

• Amy Sancetta of the Associated Press and USA Today's Christine Brennan will join the Orlando Sentinel's Jemele Hill to offer tips on getting their best work into print.
  

Click here for the rest of the lineup. We'll hear from the likes of Sandy Rosenbush and Alex Wolff of Sports Illustrated, ESPN's Stephen A. Smith and Woody Paige, John Rawlings and Dave Kindred of The Sporting News, Teri Thompson of the New York Daily News, The Kansas City (Mo.) Star's Jason Whitlock,  The Washington Post's Sally Jenkins, Kevin Kerrane of the University of Delaware, Tom Jolly of The New York Times, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution's Michelle Hiskey and more.

They will talk about everything from covering race and sports to how sportswriters must reinvent themselves in the modern world of newspapers, radio, television, the Internet and magazines.

But first, a peek into how the conference came together from co-director Roy Peter Clark:

It all started at a reunion with an old St. Petersburg Times editor, Buddy Martin... It occurred to us that maybe sports journalists weren't getting the kind of attention that they needed... so we hatched a plan and we presented it to the Associated Press Sports Editors.

From there, Roy said, interest spread. Support came pouring in from places like ESPN, The Sporting News, Sports Illustrated, The New York Times, the St. Petersburg Times and Poynter's own faculty and staff, fueled largely by the enthusiasm of dean Keith Woods and program assistant Jennette Smith.

More than 150 applications made their way to Poynter's mailboxes (of both the virtual and the physical variety). The Sports Journalism Summit will be the first Poynter conference dedicated to sports writing since the Institute moved to its current location in 1985, and the biggest on-site seminar the Institute has ever hosted.

It's historic. It's new. And it's huge. Stay tuned.