Sportswriters

Any volunteer or paid experience as a writer will be useful for those who aspire to enter the field. Contact community organizations, religious groups, or local businesses, and other organizations that require the skills of writers. Work as a sports reporter for your high school and college newspaper.

The ability to write well and concisely is a key requirement for the job of the sportswriter. Writers must also have a solid understanding of the rules and play of many different sports. To specialize in the coverage of one particular sport, knowledge of that sport must be equal to that of anyone coaching or playing it at the professional level.

Sportswriters must be able to elicit information from a variety of sources, as well as to determine when information being leaked is closer to promotional spin than to fact. There will be more times when a coach or agent will not want to comment on a story than the times when they will want to make an on-the-record comment, so the sportswriter must be assertive in pressing the source for more information.