Filed under: Basketball
KENNEWICK — A good day in the world of my beat. This weekend, as you may know, I am in the Tri-Cities covering the Community Colleges of Spokane (the Sasquatch) in the NWAACC basketball tournament. Both the men and women won, and here’s my story.
The crowds at the Toyota Center for the CC bball games are respectable, though they seem to be mostly friends and family of the athletes. But there are so many athletes here the fans add up.
While I was writing the above story, I flipped the media room TV over to the WSU-Cal game. I watched it through my peripheral vision while I wrote, and once I finished I laid back and watched the rest of the game (probably the last 15 minutes). The Cougars, of course, are my actual beat.
What I found interesting — but not surprising — was that once I turned back on the volume, people started trickling into the media room. NWAACC tournament volunteers, all of them, and some team coaches. While there were CC tournament games going on across the hallway in the arena, many of us just ignored them and watched the Cougars crush Cal. I think that shows where Eastern Washington’s true passion is.
EDIT: By the way, I’ll be doing another “where I work” video this weekend. Keep on the lookout.
KENNEWICK — A brief post from my room at the Fairfield Inn by Marriott, a discount hotel that tries to make up for it by attaching “Marriott” to the name. It’s really not all that bad — my room is very nice, just the hallways are kind of dark and dreary. Anyway, my drive from Pullman to Kennewick was thankfully uneventful, considering my brakes need replacing.
There is a mall near the hotel (it seems there’s one everywhere I travel) for plenty of entertainment for my down time between basketball games this weekend. The Toyota Center, where the NWAACC tournament is held, is just a short drive south. If only this tournament were in Hawaii.
Last night I traveled the quarter-mile from my apartment (AKA the Spokesman-Review’s Pullman bureau) to Pullman High School to cover a winner-to-state basketball game between the Greyhounds and the West Valley High (Spokane) Eagles. Now, I was given just a day’s notice and hence scrambled throughout the day yesterday to research the teams enough to be able to insert some context into my article. This, of course, is one of the fundamental jobs of a journalist; you don’t just say that something happened, you say why it’s important.
When I got to the high school at 6:30 p.m. and told the ticket-takers I was with The Spokesman-Review, they got all excited. “The Spokesman-Review, wow!” I asked where I should sit to watch the game. “[Random guy wearing a blue Pullman HS jacket], come over here. This guy’s from The Spokesman-Review! Where should he sit?” Anywhere, apparently. No press table (I didn’t expect one in the least, I’m not that dense). So I sat down on the empty bleachers opposite the main stands — mid-court, front row. Great, I thought, a perfect view of the game.
Yeah. Right.
Aside the fact that this is the first week since I was the Spokesman’s night cops reporter that I have something in the paper every day (and it could stay that way through Monday, if the Community Colleges of Spokane teams do well in the NWAACC tournament this weekend), here’s some of what’s been going on in Nick Eaton’s world.
- Back when I was in Oregon, the Tacoma News Tribune’s Todd Milles and I talked about how we both worked at The Daily Evergreen when we were at WSU. We discovered that he was sports editor when the Cougars went to the NCAA Tournament in 1994, and I was editor-in-chief the next time they went to the Big Dance, in 2007.
- A number of small controversies surfaced.
(more…)
Filed under: Basketball
I got a call from my editor this morning and received an assignment for this weekend. I will be stepping out of my normal WSU role and covering the Northwest community colleges basketball tournament, a four-day extravaganza held in a 5,000-seat venue next to a small airstrip in beautiful Kennewick, Wash. The Spokane Community Colleges men are a No. 1 seed and are expected to do very well — probably take the cake. The women are ranked in the Top 8 and should do alright.
I’m charged with covering the men’s games and keeping an eye the women’s games. This is a good way for me to continue to develop my sportswriting — and deadline writing — chops before I take on the WSU beat full-time. It also is a good way for me to miss watching both WSU basketball games this weekend (California on Thursday, Stanford on Saturday). Hopefully, I’ll be able to follow them somewhat closely — since, you know, that’s my job. (Thank God for ESPN.com GameCast.)
Anyway, it should be an interesting trip. I’ll be all on my own for four days and four nights, enveloped in basketball and bad hotel coffee. Perhaps I’ll do another video of my road trip.
For the first time since I started this blog, the Cougars men’s basketball team lost a game. And this was a home game, in front of 10,000 WSU fans. Now, I did my work — my quick web story and my post-game video — but there was a lot going on at the press table as the Cougars somewhat self-destructed and gave Arizona a win.
Tonight was the first time I really noticed what I can only describe as a question of ethics. If the Cougars missed an easy shot (which happened a lot) or the refs made a questionable call (which also happened a lot), a few of the so-called objective sportswriters would comment on this. A “c’mon” here and a “what was that?” there. It was mostly on things detrimental to the Cougars, though not exclusively.
As journalists, we are supposed to be objective and not have a tendency to pull for the team we cover. But it’s obvious to me that a sportswriter on a beat such as the WSU basketball beat has some justification to do so. First of all, you have been through it all with the team from the beginning — games, practices, interviews, traveling. In a way, you have grown to like the guys on the team. You know them. And you want them to do well, because you know how much work they put into it.
The other reason might be because the better a team does, the more interest there might be in your writing. I don’t want to discount this idea, but I really don’t believe this comes much into play. When you’re a journalist on a beat, you become so interested in the job that you want to tell the stories. You don’t really care how many people read them. Sure, it’s nice to get feedback, but — at least for me — once you’ve written a story and it’s published in the paper, you forget about it. You move on to the next story.
I just found it interesting, today, to realize how much each sportswriter has vested in the team. You follow it day in and day out. It becomes a large part of your life. And, like any other part of your life, you want that to succeed.
Whaddaya think?
I went ahead and edited my video on Beasley Coliseum, how the media get in and where we camp out. Of course, I cover more games at Beasley than any other venue, because it’s the Cougars’ home court, so you can imagine me here numerous times a season. I shot this all about two hours before game time yesterday, so there aren’t many fans there yet, but you’ll get the idea.
It’s 11 p.m., and I just finished up posting my post-game video from WSU’s home win over Arizona State tonight. It took me a little longer than usual — I started about 9 p.m. — because I had more raw footage to sort through than usual. The player interviews were a little more upbeat that usual, mostly because of one thing: Big-man Aron Baynes stole the ball from ASU’s star player and ran it down for an uncharacteristic fast-break dunk. That riled up the crowd, and had those of us in the press box laughing.
Anyway, I couldn’t resist using this goofy picture of Baynes for the video. Click it to watch.
Filed under: Basketball
I got to Beasley Coliseum early today because I was already on campus listening to journalist/author Jess Walter speak. (More on that later.) So, I had some time to kill, and due to popular demand (one person) I took some video like I did in Corvallis and Eugene. But that will probably have to wait until tomorrow, when I have some time to edit and do the voice over.
To hold you over, I took a crummy cell phone picture of my press seat at Beasley. In here, it’s dark everywhere except for the court, so I apologize for the poor quality. I actually took about 10 before getting an acceptable one.
Wow, there are some fellow journalists out there with some serious chips on their shoulders. Check out this website to see what I mean.
I wonder if there’d be so much frustration if print journalism weren’t floundering. While the threat of losing your job is great, I think journalists are more scared of the possibility that their jobs are becoming obsolete. At least in the traditional print model. It’s time to change, folks. Blah blah blah Internet blah blah blah blogging blah blah blah videos blah blah blah.
Shut up. Stop talking about the “future” and do it already. The future you’re talking about was five years ago.
EDIT: By the way, I stumbled upon this picture on the Internets, and I couldn’t resist posting it. I think we all have wished we could do this at one time or another.
