This document provides guidance on improving sports coverage in student publications. It recommends treating sports like news by quickly reporting scores on social media and within 24 hours of games. It emphasizes using visuals like action photos to engage readers. It also suggests telling bigger stories by using sports to explore issues athletes face or lens of life through sports. The document highlights examples from the Viking, an all-sports high school magazine, as a model for comprehensive multi-platform sports coverage both in print and online.

1. BEYOND THE
SCOREBOARD:
Improving your Sports Coverage
Ellen Austin, MJE
The Harker School
San Jose, CA
EllenA@harker.org

2. WHY FOCUS ON YOUR
SPORTS COVERAGE?

3. How many of you here today play a sport?
[question during my session @ Spring NSPA 2010 Convention in Portland]

4. BETTER SPORTS COVERAGE
WILL BRING YOU….

More readers. Period.

Readers who might otherwise not read a traditional
newspaper or magazine.

Opportunities for your staff to develop a REAL
news rhythm of timely stories.

5. •
From a survey at Paly,
44% of student body
participates in at least one
sport
•
Equal or higher % at area
high schools (Viking
survey)

6. •
If roughly HALF of the
students are in sports,
shouldn’t your pages
reflect what your audience
is doing?

7. THE VIKING
an all-sports
high school magazine
•
•
•
•
•
•
Palo Alto High School
Founded in 2007
64 pages/ 6 issues per year
30 person staff
Self-funded through
advertising sales
Covers every Paly team,
specific athletes, deeper
sports issues

8. !
www.vikingsportsmag.com
Since March 2011,
also the first high school
all-sports website

9. •
Updated with online-only
content, as well as print
edition content
•
Using this for columnists
and bloggers, too

10. •
All print editions
archived online,
using ISSUU.com

12. THREE STEPS
TO
BETTER
SPORTS
COVERAGE

13. 1.TREAT SPORTS AS NEWS

14. Get instant. Now.
Tweets/social media send scores
straight to your phones within
minutes of the final buzzer

15. Twitter and Facebook:
your instant scoreboard

17. Keep it short, keep it accurate.
Get scores up within 15-20 minutes of last buzzer.

19. Standard game coverage:
• 200-300 word
game brief and
recap
• A dominant
image
• Quotes
• Timeliness
(within 24 hours
of the event)

20. 21 separate hits

21. 676 separate hits

22. Teams provide daily news events
for your publication. Aren’t you
ALWAYS trying to find news?
Try to COVER all home games,
if possible.
Use online options to get scores and
briefs loaded and in the hands of your
readers fast fast fast.

23. 2. VISUALS MATTER
THE DECISIVE MOMENT: action photos!

24. 
Human brains process IMAGES much more easily
and much more quickly than the complex decoding of
a WORD

In sports, the action is a true news photo that
conveys the story unfolding in real time

A good photo draws the reader to your TEXT.

Don t believe me? So, which of these slides captures
you more -- the one you re reading now or….

25. …. THIS ONE?
[photo by Allie Shorin]

26. [photo by Allie Shorin]

27. [photo by Brandon Dukovic]

28. [photo by Allie Shorin]

29. [photo by Allie Shorin]

30. [photo by Ali Kershner]

31. [photo by Allie Shorin]

32. [photo by Allie Shorin]

33. [photo by Anne Hildebrand]

34. [photo by Allie Shorin]

35. [photo by Allie Shorin]

36. Use both traditional photos
and art photos to tell the story
[photo by Malaika Drebin -- her first photo shoot for Viking]

37. BE CREATIVE.
This non-Photoshopped image,
shot underwater on a spring
afternoon, illustrated a cover story
on athletes balancing school
and sports.
It was later used as cover for C:JET
magazine.
[photo by Malaika Drebin]

38. FIND A NEW VANTAGE POINT.
[Photo by Allie Shorin]

39. SHOOT DETAILS.
[photo by Brandon Dukovic]

40. LOOK FOR EMOTION.
[photo by Ali Kershner]

41. BE READY.
[Photo by Allie Shorin]

42. BE READY. EVEN IN THE RAIN.
[photo by Brandon Dukovic]

43. 3. TELL BIGGER STORIES.
Use sports as a doorway
to issues, trends, advocacy

44. 
What are the stories
athletes are anxious
about?

Sports is a window
into all aspects of an
athlete’s life.

Find the lens
through sports.

45. ISSUE: HAZING ON TEAMS

46. INTRO TO HAZING STORY [October 2008]
by Peter Johnson and Noah Sneider
David, a Palo Alto High School senior and varsity football
player, remembers his first hazing experience, when his
hands were held behind his back and his legs spread
open next to a pool table.
“It all happened pretty fast,” said David, who like the other
students quoted in this story has had his real name
withheld as a condition for speaking with The Viking.
David, a sophomore JV football player two years ago, had
just been called up to the varsity football team for the
2005 Central Coast Section tournament when he was
hazed at an off-campus dinner. No coaches were present
at the dinner, according to David.

47. (cont.)
“Everyone surrounded me, and I got my hands held
behind my head by two guys,” David said.
“Another guy tried to pop the ball up [from the pool table]
and hit me in the balls. It wasn’t really working. They tried
five or six times and it kept hitting my belt or my leg or
something. Another two upperclassmen said, ‘Well f**k
this’ and they came up and hit me twice in my balls.
“I had my hands behind my head, so I was in a vulnerable
position already. Sometimes you feel like you can get out
of the way, but there was no doing that this time. It [the
punch] went low to high, so it was just right in. They hit
the spot. It was the worst because it was two hits in only
five seconds. After that I puked a little bit. It was like a dry
heave, and I felt pretty sick the rest of the night. They
stopped after I started gagging…”

48. ISSUE: IMPACT OF CHOICES
May 2012
A one-year story
investigation of a top
high school athlete’s
departure from (and
return to) baseball…
and the choices he
made along the way.

49. BACK IN THE BOX
by Jacob Lauing and Sam Borsos
Baseball is a game of adjustments. A flyout
teaches a hitter to stay on top of the ball. A walk
does not discourage a pitcher from pounding the
strike zone on the next at-bat, it drives him to try
even harder. A baseball player is considered great
for getting a hit just thirty percent of the time. Even
though perfection is unreachable, every athlete
from a backyard little-leaguer to a hall-of-famer
strives to have a perfect season, an undefeated
record and to be the best on the squad.
So what happens when players step off the field?
The same idea of perfection applies. The pressure
to be right, the expectations to practice morality,
the assumption that to be the best you can’t make
mistakes. Whether it’s on or off the field, perfection
is impossible.
Just as an baseball player can strike out during a
game, he can strike out in life. What separates a
good athlete from a great athlete is not the
strikeout itself, but how he reacts to it.

50. CONCUSSIONS:
an important
issue that every
school should
be covering now
Huge injury numbers, plus
a culture of silence and
athletes who won’t admit
to concussions

51. SILENT IMPACT
by Jon Dickerson, Nathan Norimoto,
and Mariah Philips
Imagine your body being slammed into
artificial turf by a 200 pound linebacker
wearing a helmet with padding as hard as
wood. Imagine your head smacking the
ground, then whipping back into place, all
in under a second. Ask Palo Alto High
School offensive tackle Michael Lyzwa (’12)
how it feels. Actually, ask the players on
the sidelines, because Lyzwa will not
remember; he suffered a concussion.
“I just remember being in one play and then
things just started going bad,” Lyzwa said.
“I couldn’t open my eyes, I felt really light
headed.”
In between the lines of the patchy story
Lyzwa tells lies the scary reality that his
teammates witnessed during that late
August practice at Paly.

52. (cont.)
Lyzwa was unable to speak fluidly, open
his eyes or recognize his teammates
after his concussion. He could not stand
on his own, and had to be propped up.
No matter how many times Lyzwa hears
the story, he will not remember this
occurrence, which became a red flag to
all who witnessed it.
THE WORD CONCUSSION derives
from the Latin word “concutere,” which
literally means “to shake violently.” A
force to the head can cause the brain to
move around inside the skull. This
shaking can cause bruises, nerve
injuries and blood vessel damage,
resulting in memory loss, and in the
most severe cases, death.
“The symptoms [I got after my
concussion] lasted for a few days,”
Lyzwa said. “I was feeling really [bad],
sensitive to light and sound, [my]
reaction time was really slow. I had on
and off headaches.”

53. CONCUSSIONS

MORE ON
CONCUSSIONS:
Read the New York
Times piece from Sept.
15, 2007 for great info –
this is the piece that
started the NFL
attention
to concussions.

Remember: cite and
attribute if you use it!

54. “HOW DO WE DO THIS?”
Planning a more comprehensive strategy for
your staff’s sports coverage

55. ANYWHERE
CAN BE YOUR NEWSROOM

56. DURING THE GAME
• Liveblog, tweet,
video, Facebook
• Action pictures

57. DURING THE GAME

58. DURING THE GAME
facebook.com/thevikingmag

59. DURING THE GAME
Cross-staff
collaboration with
INfocus broadcast
video clips uploaded
to liveblog
One subjective +
objective camera

60. UPDATE YOUR AUDIENCE
•
Link your liveblog
• Filter through Facebook!

61. AFTER THE GAME
• Link your
stories
everywhere!

62. AFTER THE GAME:
ONLINE RECAP
VIKINGSPORTSMAG.COM
Timely
(< 24 hours)
200-300 words
Dominant image
Quotes

63. AFTER THE GAME
Video clips
Social media links

64. AFTER THE GAME
Watch your
competition’s
coverage

65. AFTER THE GAME:
POST GAME VIDEO
Music video
to "All I Do
Is Win" and
"Don't Stop
Believin'"

66. AFTER THE GAME:
PRINT

67. AFTER THE GAME:
PRINT
•
•
•
•
"Golden Thread"
Should flow like a
story
Appeals to
community
Design

68. AFTER THE GAME - PRINT

69. AFTER THE GAME - PRINT

70. DON'T MISS THE MOMENT

71. vikingsportsmag.com
 BONUS:
Go there for a
shareable Prezi
on how to shoot
great sports
photos!
 Contact
info:
Ellen Austin
EllenA@Harker.org