Sport-Blog.com

As a venue for new writers looking to break into a writing career and make something of a name for them and improve their writing skills, sports reporting is a great way to start. Some people may turn up their noses at the idea but I have found it to be an invaluable experience.
I started out by submitting a story I had written that was related to sports but had more to do with my experiences as a coach and the satisfaction that little league had brought to my family than it did as a true sports story. However, the editor of the local newspaper liked the story and the way I wrote and invited me to become a part of the sports staff as a part time employee covering football games. I actually took the job as somewhat of a lark, figuring I'd just do it for awhile to earn a few extra dollars (very few) and maybe get my name in the paper once in awhile to build up a list of published work.
To my surprise, I found that I loved the whole thing. I liked the coaches and the kids, it was a way to stay involved with young people, and it was good practice for my writing.
From the very beginning my sports editor, a guy named Kevin, ripped into my stories and my style with a vengeance. With Kevin it was a trial by fire, but eventually, by listening to his advice and refusing to quit, I became a much better writer. I learned that there are several ways to write a sports story. You can follow a formula if you have to, giving the who, what, where, when, and why of the game, or even better find a unique aspect of the game and report that. Finding a unique angle or a story within a story is the really sweet part. If you can find the angle, you can use the creative part of yourself to take off and run with it, using the game itself as a springboard to convey a bigger message than the game itself.
Being a sports reporter has taught me a lot of other lessons in writing. I've learned how to edit myself and to read my stories the way other people might read them. I've also learned that sometimes you can do your best writing when you just sit down at the keyboard and let it fly. The pressure of a deadline (which can be very tight at times) forces you to learn how to write under pressure. It teaches you that when you think you have nothing to say, saying something will get you started. Once you get started putting words on paper (or on the screen at least) a momentum builds and it gets easier.
For all you aspiring writers that sit down at the keyboard and know you have things to say but don't really know what they are, sports writing is a way to get yourself started.
I've learned that when you write anything worth writing, you lay a little bit of yourself open to criticism. I've been very lucky in that most of the things I've written have been very well accepted by the people who read my work.
As I've grown into the job, I've also expanded my horizons; going on to write a regular weekly column featuring a character I created to predict high school football games. This character started out as a feeble nutcase. In fact, after the first column I wrote using him as a voice, I wanted to kill him off. To my surprise, the editor refused to let me kill him saying he had gotten a lot of comments about how funny the character was and how they enjoyed reading something really different in the sports column. Since then, I've used this character to comment on politics, the Iraq war, and as a means of getting across my ideas on life and love. Having to write the column on a weekly basis has forced me to look inside myself and write about the things I really care about, which is a necessary part of becoming a writer.
If you're interested in becoming a writer as a career or just a part time job you use to express yourself, you could do a lot worse than starting out as a sports writer. The opportunity to practice your craft leads to their opportunities. Just sitting down at the keyboard and writing anything makes you a better writer, and having your work thrown out to the general public to judge forces you to become a better writer in self defense.
A final piece of advice on sports reporting: Pick a sport you enjoy to start out with. I started with football and have since moved on to baseball, soccer, softball, basketball, and wrestling. Learn your chops on something you enjoy and then apply those lessons to other areas.