When I came orientation at The University of Montana I was listed as a pre-law major. Seeing as this wasn't really an official major, not something you could actually earn a degree in, I decided to change my major to journalism upon arriving at the registration table for orientation. It was a quick and easy decision, the choice was between being just another lawyer or spending the rest of my life covering sports and eventually becoming the Cubs beat reporter.
Well, times have changed a bit. The path to becoming a successful sportswriter has split with more options available than plugging away at small print newspapers and eventually working your way up sometime around the age of 40. This post will look at a few sportswriters who have gotten to where they are using 'scrappy' methods.
Bill Simmons
One could argue that Bill Simmons is the most popular sports columnist in the United States. He currently writes the most popular column for the most popular sports site on the web, ESPN.com. While he used some 'scrappy' methods to get where he is now, he's not entirely without journalism trainings as he earned his masters degree in journalism from Boston University. And while he spent some time working for the Boston Globe, he found himself bartending in the late nineties.
And while becoming a bartender after being out of college for nearly 10 years would be one of my worst fears, Simmons used this time to build a presence on the web as 'The Boston Sports Guy,' penning long columns laced with extended analogies and pop-culture references. He wrote about sports the way everyone else talked about it. He built a huge following on his own site before being signed by ESPN. He wrote for 'Page 2' of their site before becoming popular enough that his byline and picture is often on the front page of ESPN.com, with links to a page titled 'Sports Guy World'.
He didn't have press passes or other access regular sports fans did not, he just worked hard and knocked out good content. It can happen.
Will Leitch
Will Leitch has sometimes been dubbed as 'The Godfather' to all modern-day sports bloggers. He was the founder and editor of the most poplar sports blog on the web, Deadspin.com. The site was willing to cover stories other sporting outlets would not, despite their limited access. He'd run less-than-becoming photos of athletes that were sent in by the blog's readers. The site would comment on the ridiculousness and sometimes blatant bias of the sports media. They'd frequently show the darker side of ESPN, or at least point out cases when they were showing very little journalistic integrity and instead put their business interests in front of everything else.
He began as the editor of the site in just September of 2005 and pushed it to becoming the most popular sports blog on the web in only a few short months. Leitch left the site in June of 2008 to become a contributing editor at New York magazine. When myself and many others consider that move actually a step backwards, you know he's taken the sports blogosphere a long way.
Henry Abbott
I include Henry Abbott on this short list not only due to his success but with a little bit of bias as he was a LexBlog (my current employer) client when he began his current rise to success. Before becoming a blogger, Abbott did have a lot of experience as a sports journalism having worked a great deal in broadcast before eventually doing freelance work for publicates that include Hoop, Inside Stuff and sometimes the NBA Finals program. While also writing on sporsts, he'd be writing marketing copy as well.
He used his marketing copy to start Gekko Blogs, an agency created to publish blogs for corporate clients. These blogs were designed and developed by LexBlog, with also Abbott starting his own NBA blog on the platform. It started out as a part-time thing before evolving into something much bigger than that. Much like Simmons, he built a huge following through great content. Then just like Simmons, he was picked up by ESPN.com, and now TrueHoop is hosted and published on their site with frequent front-page links to his entries.
These are only a few as there are definitely many, many more sportswriters who have used the web to make a very strong personal brand for themselves.