Sports Journalism: A league of extraordinary white gentlemen?

An aside by a confused 22-year-old kid from Chicago.

I've loved sports. I always have and probably always will. I began a writing habit in grammar school, developed it in high school and have watched it come to fruition now that I am in my third semester at the DE. For the longest time, I've wanted to be a sports writer. Someone who is given access to a team and a beat. Someone who gets to sit in the best seat in the house without paying a dime for a ticket. I have been granted that opportunity and the last two semesters, I have traveled far and wide (kinda) fulfilling a dream.

I've been to New York City and can say I have been blessed with the opportunity to cover Duke and UCLA (along with my beloved SIU Salukis) in Madison Square Garden. I've traveled to Indianapolis to not only cover SIU, the NCAA's highest scorer (Stephen Curry) and one of the Big Ten's best teams (Purdue) ... I was also given the opportunity to cover the Pacers-Clippers game. There I experienced a double overtime game, an angry post-game press conference from a head basketball coach (Jim O'Brien, thanks) and have experienced life in a winners locker room with interviews with Baron Davis, Zach Randolph, Eric Gordon and almost witnessed Paul Davis' whtie dong first hand.

Yet, there is something that bothers me, but only a little bit.

I have noticed a lack of minority sports writers in my travels outside of major metropolitan markets (Chicago, Indy, NYC). In addition to those cities, my hooptie (that's slang for car for those of you keeping score at home) has taken me to Springfield (Missouri), Youngstown (Ohio), Evansville and Terre Haute (Indiana) and Bloomington (Illinois). And not once in those cities did I see someone who looked like me nor someone with a darker skin tone.

I'm not going to beat the racial drum, I think that's the wrong thing to do in this situation. It's not like those cities are hot spots for the Hispanic population. I am a firm believer in the cream will rise to the top philosphy in the work force, noting that despite someone's race, creed, color, gender or sexuality, the best person for a certain job will get said opportunity. I'm just wondering whether or not there are enough people like me in their young 20s who have a penchant for sports writing, or any journalism job for that matter.

For the longest time, my fear was that as a Latino male (because I think that's how the AP wants it to read ... gotta check my stylebook) was that I would get pigeon-holed in sports writing and forced to cover soccer, because Latinos looooove soccer. I don't fear that anymore. In fact, I'd probably embrace it seeing that there are fewer and fewer jobs in the market.

Instead, my new fear in journalism is a lack of interest by my peers (people my age, sex, race, etc.) and what that means to the future. In my travels, I have noticed a whole bunch of old white men covering college basketball and football. To be honest, it's kind of awkward because I'm a twentysomething doing big boy things, asking big boy questions with guys who have been doing this since before I was born. I have gone to them after games and asked for advice, whether it be about writing leads (or ledes) or the job market or multimedia convergence. There's nothing wrong with that.

They all tell me the key is persistence. I told Jim Benson of the Bloomington Pantagraph that I feel the keys to being a good sports writer are marginal writing skills, a passion for the game and a little bit of hard work and I asked him for some advice.

He told me my hard work would eventually pay off.

Cliche, yes. But he made his point.

Now that this is off track, I would like to present to you the rest of your day. Go hug someone you love and then take a walk outside.

You'll feel better for it.