I have decided to try out this whole “video blog” genre, even though I have a face meant for radio. So here’s my first SportsGirlKat video blog, in which I give you some quick facts (in ticket sales) about the growth of the Bruins’ popularity and a quick “independent sports writing” (my term for sports blogging) tip about writing about the Stanley Cup.
Category: Uncategorized (Page 14 of 34)
The great team at Tickets for Charity has another giveaway for Boston Red Sox fans and baseball history buffs. By entering this contest, you could win a VIP tour of Fenway Park on May 25th. This tour involves features of the park not usually explored during routine tours of the historic venue. After your unique tour of America’s oldest ballpark, the Tickets for Charity crew will treat you to lunch.
To enter the giveaway, please click on this link. This contest runs until Thursday, May 19, 2011 at 6pm. A winner will be selected at random by Tickets For Charity.
Best of luck!
To learn more about my partnership with Tickets For Charity, read this earlier post. The organization sells popular sports and entertainment tickets and uses the profit to support a variety of charitable groups.
I spent time last weekend polishing off a blog post I had been considering for a while – one that took a lot of research, having my mother look through a box of books at home, time on LexisNexis. It was a story not many had touched, and one I wanted to be the one to tell.
I had just two paragraphs left to write on Sunday night, but had a long week at work ahead of me, so decided to head to bed. I would polish the rest of it off on the train in the morning.
As I went to bed, President Obama announced that United States forces had killed Osama Bin Laden. No matter what you thought of the action, you had to acknowledge that it was a giant story, a monumental event, and one that deeply affected many people. It also changed a news cycle. Newspaper journalists and editors on Twitter were stating that they literally tearing up front pages of their Monday morning editions, moving other stories to other days or killing them all together.
It wasn’t just physical newspaper layouts that the event changed. It changed what an aware and smart online writer could post on Monday. I read a comment on Twitter that said, “If you’re Tweeting or posting about anything unrelated right now, you’ll come across looking stupid.”
To be honest, I’m an escapist. When big events happen, I internalize silently, and then look for something else to pay attention to. So as much as I was tempted to dive into the post I was working on, finish it off, and post it Monday or Tuesday morning, I knew two things:
1) No one would pay attention to it.
2) I could come across as being insensitive, since many equate escapism with insensitivity.
So, I put the blog post on hold. I’ll post it this week, barring unforeseen circumstances.
But it brought up a bigger issue that I think writers within this still-new sphere of independent sports writing might struggle with. How do you respond to world events – the Japan and Haiti earthquakes, the Bin Laden death – without appearing insensitive?
- Do you write about the intersection of the event and sports – like the perfect illustration of the power of smartphones and social media spreading important news last Sunday night during the New York Mets-Philadelphia Phillies game?
- Do you just go silent for a bit, because you know your readers may be focused elsewhere?
- Or do you go forward with what you planned to write and post, because it’s what keeps you grounded?
As a sports writer, is how you react to a major event much bigger than sports tied to how you view your writing? Do you write to express your own feelings, to tell a story, or as something fun? Do you write for other’s eyes, or just feel lucky that other’s may want to read at the end of the day? How you view the desired outcome of your writing will guide on how you handle writing and posting in the days following a giant world event.
However you decide to proceed is a personal choice, with no right or wrong answer. But in order to gain credibility as an independent sports writer, showing consideration of your reader’s attentions during an emotional time without being exploitative, is always the best direction.
I recently met the fabulously passionate staff of Tickets For Charity, an organization that uses the demand for sports and concert tickets to help charities nationwide.
Teams and concert promoters provide Tickets For Charity tickets to high-profile events which the organization turns around and sells at the market value. That premium price you would usually be paying then goes to a charity group as opposed to a profit margin. Tickets For Charity also develops VIP packages that provide fans access to events that they couldn’t get unless they were in the know.
Currently, Tickets For Charity has Boston Red Sox regular season tickets and both Boston Bruins and Celtics playoff tickets. With each purchase, you can designate what group receives the charitable portion of your purchase price, including the official charities of the Bruins, Celtics and Red Sox.
I hung out with the Tickets for Charity crew at Jerry Remy’s (a very neat take-in in itself), and was impressed at how dedicated they are to the cause and how knowledgeable they are about sports. This is code for, “We had a long conversation about the woes of the Buffalo Bills” and “We talked college hockey.” These aren’t folks oblivious to the passion of sports fans – they’re sports fans themselves.
If you’re going to be paying out the nose to get to a must-see sporting event – especially a playoff game – why not help out others in the process?
During the Red Sox season, Tickets for Charity will be giving you the opportunity to win some unique ticket packages, including Green Monster seats for a Yankees-Red Sox game, Fenway Park tours plus lunch, and tickets to the Red Sox Foundation’s Picnic in the Park. Stay tuned – I’ll have more info as we get closer to these giveaways!
I’m working on another video and text piece for BU Today, with Nick, the same filmmaker who I worked with on “Born to Skate,” the story of the a figure skating family…who happened to raise the best D1 women’s hockey goalie in the nation. This time, Nick and I are covering the Boston University Synchronized Swimming team, a club team that is a great example of athletes competing purely for the love of the sport. The coaches are volunteer, the team is a club sport, and they do not have the resources of some of their counterparts. Despite those obstacles, the team only just keeps getting better, and have qualified for Nationals – against Division 1 varsity teams! – in Buffalo next week.
Nick donned a swimsuit and jumped into the water with a waterproof camera to catch both team routines this evening. While capturing the footage and directing Nick where to shoot while they ran through their routines, it struck me that these athletes had the brightest smiles I’d ever seen. Bright, huge smiles while they were busy doing eggbeaters, changing patterns and then getting ready to stick their heads under water keep them there while doing leg moves for an extended period of time. All smiles, trying to convince us that no, they weren’t out of breath or physically exerting themselves to the max, though we knew much better. There is no doubt in my mind that synchro is an incredibly difficult sport.
But despite the intense physical exertion of these swimmers, they’re still smiling every second their heads emerge from underwater. And they made eye contact with us on the deck, like they were performing for us personally. Their smiles reminded me of my very first dance competition when I was 11.
It was the Summer Dance Festival at Our Lady of Mercy High School in Brighton, NY, and my large group was the only one entered in our division. We would still compete, but the goal was to get a High Score award instead of trying to win first place. I was all about smiling. Smiling was knocked into my senses like tying my shoes or breathing. If you forgot the entire routine, that was fine, as long as you remembered to grin like you were charged with providing a spotlight for the entire room.
So smiling at the panel of four judges was a given. I took my place for our first routine, staring straight into the spotlights in the rear of the auditorium. The music began – the infamous Barnyard Boogie – and the smile became plastered on my face. Then I looked down at the judge in front of me. She was smiling right back, just as massive and tooth filled as my own.
Maybe she was like Pavlov’s dogs, and every time she heard 15 pairs of tap shoes flapping away she had the automatic, uncontrollable urge to smile like a neon sign. I remember looking at her and thinking, “Well, she’s smiling too. She’s smiling as big as I am. Well gosh darn it, I’m going to dance to keep that smile on her face.”
For the next two and a half minutes, I locked her in my sights and wouldn’t keep her from looking at anyone but me. Her eyes followed me across the stage. And I performed my heart out for her. The next two performances, I did the same. She did the same. The smile didn’t leave my face and it didn’t leave hers.
It was my own personal a-ha moment, I guess. I don’t need the half-hearted attention of many, just the complete attention of one, while it be now while I’m speaking, or writing or whatever. Pick out one person in the audience and do it all for that one person. And don’t make that person think that what you’re doing is difficult. No. What you are doing for them is like breathing, so automatic and easy that it’s no great shakes. Though, just like we saw with the incredible synchronized swimmers this evening, it is hard. It is difficult. You’re nervous. You’re stressed. You’re sick. You’re out-of-breath. You want everything to be perfect, but you know it just won’t be.
But to that one person, everything is just fine, and whoever they are, you want them to believe that you really have whatever you are doing under control – even if you don’t.
I don’t like lying, but I’m great at smiling.