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Profiles. And feature stories. Player profiles. For media g uides For webpages To send out to media. The purpose:. Promotion of the school Promotion of the sport Emotional relationship Recruiting. Louisville football started offering one a week to email list. Before:.
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Profiles And feature stories
Player profiles • For media guides • For webpages • To send out to media
The purpose: • Promotion of the school • Promotion of the sport • Emotional relationship • Recruiting
Louisville football started offering one a week to email list
Before: • Do your homework. You should never have to waste time (or insult your subject) with questions like, “What position do you play?” “Where are you from?” You also shouldn’t insult then with “I know nothing about soccer so …” • Seek other’s views (co-workers, coaches, roommates) • Watch the person “in-action.” Go to a practice, a game. Spend time with them outside athletics if possible. • Prepare questions: (try to think of something no one has ever asked; I also always ask background questions, this gets some interesting responses sometimes) • Meet face to face. Profiles cannot be done over email or social media.
During • Get as much access as possible. Let this person know you would like to hang out at practice, attend meetings and speak with other people in their lives. This way, this person will not get worried when he sees you so often. You might also get some suggestions for new story angles. • Look around. What’s in their dorm, apartment, office that might tell about their interests, spark an interesting conversation. • Don’t start out with a difficult question. Ask them to let you start recording and then just start a conversation. • Keeping in mind your original list of questions, continue to keep it a conversation. The more casual, the more your interviewee will talk, relax, be honest, share. • Get them to share stories. Get them to share feelings. Ask your questions to elicit those responses. • Allow the source to talk. Do not interrupt or complete sentences for the source. Do not talk about yourself a lot.
If the interview stalls, allow for some silence. If the source gives you a short answer, don’t immediately fire off another question. Sometimes lulls in conversation spark answers to questions. Silence makes people uneasy, so they’ll keep talking to avoid dead air. Sometimes that’s when the source provides the most interesting and pertinent information. • Really listen. You likely will need to follow up many times on answers. “I’m looking to have a great season. I just hope everything that’s going on doesn’t slow me down,” your next question should not move on to another topic. • If you have any tough questions (like how bad they played last year ) save for the end. • Make sure you frame questions in as friendly and positive a manner as possible. “Last year was a challenge at times for you. What have you worked on in the off-season?”
After When you are writing you look for different elements/angles that might make your profile more interesting. Make sure you have a lot of “them.” Make sure you have a lot of detail. You had a general idea when you went in why you wanted to profile this person. But did that change during the process?
Elements of a sports profile:News angle • Determine the reason you are writing a story on this person. Why this person, and why now? Perhaps, this person is being profiled because of a recent athletic performance or because of a recent hiring. • Make sure a reason is clearly stated somewhere in the story.
Conflict In all good stories, a main character wants something but someone or some thing, stands in the way. Unlike fiction, in these sports profiles the conflict does not always need to be resolved.
Setting Put the person in a place, a physical location, whenever possible. Set the scene early, putting the main character in a certain place. Sometimes, you can describe the setting before you describe the profiled person, especially when the setting takes on the role as character. Scene-setters open with description. But the main point is to create a stage on which action can unfold or to give a sense of place important to the focus of the story.
Action • The person should be going somewhere, either on the field or off. The person may be working to go the state track and field meet, earning spot on an NFL team or going to the Olympics. Off the field, the person may be going off to war, going to therapy, or going to places in order to be a preacher.
Details This is a narrative style of writing which favors: • Observation vs. information • Showing vs. telling • Concrete vs. Abstract • Example: • Abstract: A hat vs. a brand new Cleveland Cavaliers baseball hat
Organizing the profile • Leads – Show in action, anecdotes, contrast leads and scene-setting work well in profile. But avoid overly long stories or descriptions at the start. Couple paragraphs. Not like the first 5. • Body – Supporting themes or concepts, times frames, chronology, point/counterpoint, sections. • Endings – quote kicker, circular ending (return to lead), future them, or simple factual sentence that conveys emotional impact. • Dave Sheinin: “No here’s something, here’s something else, here’s another thing.”
Some do more straightforward player profiles Still includes some elements of more feature style profiles like quotes from people who know subject More newsy lead
Details more statistics thanpersonal Facts that let us get to know subject
