‘Plan’ may be a four-letter word in many news rooms, but direct the other four-letter expletives at yourself if you can’t produce a decent section. Each staff has unique challenges, but the biggest is a failure to plan. As the old adage goes: If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.

At times, we can pull off a terrific page, section, or package at the last minute. But that’s the exception, not the rule. Instead, sports editors need to plan well in advance. Plan, at the very least (and I do mean ‘very least’), one week in advance.

Enter meetings with a goal. Your goal could be making sure you have at least one feature story per day for the next month. Or, it could be having one in-depth story per week. After the planning meeting, immediately enter everything onto a budget — deadlines, length, visuals, assigned reporter — and distribute it to the staff. And post it on the wall in the sports area. (That way, everyone will know exactly when the content is due — no excuses.) And follow up on everything. Get regular updates from reporters, cajole staffers to do follow-up reporting, make sure visuals have been assigned. Neither stories nor visuals should be submitted the day before publication. You’ll need time to send back stories for revision and to plan how you’ll use photos and graphics. You should also sketch the main pages before creating them on Quark or InDesign. (I’d also plan to have an extra story just in case someone does not come through, which could leave you with pages to fill but no copy.)

Finally, put together a long-range budget that can either cover a semester or a school year. This is the spine for all other budgets. Typically, the Associated Press will send out a list of major sports events at the beginning of the year. Simply cut and paste these to your long-range budget. Of course, most college departments do not need major events like the Masters or the Super Bowl. So, instead, insert your school’s sports schedule for the year. You can call the long-range budget something like “SportsSked–spring08.” You can use this as the basis for your monthly planning budget, which, in turn, would lead to easier weekly planning sessions. As a result, your stories will have more depth and your section will be more interesting than a series of game stories and columns. Include fun stories like how to bunt or how to run a marathon but also include hard-hitting stories on athletic budgets. These stories take time — and planning.

Remember, photos, illustrations and other multimedia reporting should not be an afterthought. Plan these vital, and time-consuming, elements early.

The crosses shown above are part of a cemetery planted by the Schouests, sport fishermen who could lose their livelihood in Louisiana. The 101 crosses, planted in their front yard, bear the names of the family's favorite things about Grand Isle.

When the Grand Isle Tarpon Rodeo was canceled, few people outside the Louisiana bayous cared.

Aside from anglers and locals, few people had even heard about it.

But everybody knows about the disaster that started it – the explosion at BP’s oil rig that has allowed 25,000-60,000 barrels of crude to flow into the Gulf of Mexico each day. This oil currently covers about 2,500 square miles, causing birds to suffocate, dolphins to flop dead onto beaches, and unknown numbers of fish to die. The spill is also destroying the livelihoods of tens of thousands of people. ESPN’s Wright Thompson focuses on someone who has been hit hard by this disaster – Lance “Coon” Schouest, a man considered the greatest living tarpon fisherman – for a story on ESPN.com (and that is also featured on the network’s news program, “Outside the Lines.”)

In the story, “Paradise Lost,” Thompson reveals the impact of this ever-growing environmental disaster. It’s a story all sports writers ought to check out.

Thompson does an excellent job mixing strong reporting with evocative writing. In “Paradise Lost,” the opening scene (below) works well. Schouest watches his life unravel before his eyes as he views a news program on the oil spill. In this opening, the writer also introduces the main character, describes the scene in detail, and reveals the main conflict – that the tarpon are headed toward the waters off Louisiana at the exact time the oil spill is reaching the bayou. Notice that Thompson offers much of this information through Schouest’s perspective, using third-person limited omniscient.

Here’s the opening to the story:

HOUMA, La. — The greatest tarpon fisherman who ever lived sits in a house on the side of a forgotten bayou, stuck in a blue recliner, watching his world die on live television. Oil gushes out of the well, every lost barrel another line in his obituary.

Though he’s only 55, Lance “Coon” Schouest is about to become obsolete. Everything’s being taken from him, in living color with a network logo and theme music. His way of life, his job, the marshes he grew up in and possibly even an entire breed of fish that has survived since dinosaurs walked the earth. The tarpon has taken every disaster man and nature could throw at it.

Watch “Outside the Lines”
There are places along the Gulf Coast where the oil coats birds and beaches, and there are places where the marshes remain untouched. Wright Thompson shares the story of one town in the middle. Watch “Outside the Lines,” Sunday at 9 a.m. ET on ESPN.

Until now.

The oil pours into the water, and in the next frame, washes up on the shores, over and over, a looped montage of destruction. Coon just stares.

“Look, y’all,” he says to his family, his voice raw. “Jesus. Look at that.”

Above his head hangs a long, silver tarpon, almost 200 pounds and taller than a man, with giant scales. Every now and then, Schouest turns away from his TV and looks up at the fish, remembering the day he caught it — Oct. 3, 1976 — and wondering if he’ll ever catch one again.

These days, he finds himself, hour after hour, obsessing over the map of oil on his television, a growing, black stain on the waters of his childhood. That map is his family history and his memory.

He’s full of a lifetime of knowledge that might soon be useless. He knows the Gulf of Mexico like other people know the streets of their hometown. He knows where tarpon eat, how they move, when they arrive. He senses them. Sometimes, he can close his eyes and see the big school, acres across and sparkling like diamonds, migrating from Veracruz and the Florida Keys toward the mouth of the river. Tarpon, he’s learned, love water that is 74 degrees. They chase it, a need hardwired into their prehistoric DNA. The water off Louisiana is just hitting 74 degrees.

The tarpon are coming, headed for the spreading shroud of oil.

Thompson does so many things well in this story, but I especially love the strong narrative voice that guides the reader to new locations, new characters and new ideas. This is an excellent story that is instructive to writers and both informative and engaging for readers.

Jason Fry

Jason Fry says writers who offer the best perspectives are the ones that are the most relevant in today’s multimedia world. Fry, writing for Indiana University’s sports journalism blog, writes that fans usually follow a process similar to this.

• Watch game.
• Get basic details online
• Read recap from local media
• Watch highlights on TV at ESPN, MLB Network or local media.

After this, fans seek perspective – wise appraisals, historical significance, entertaining word play, statistical analysis, and game analysis. Fans continue to seek information and perspective until they are satisfied, writes Fry:

But I think it’s fair to say that the Web encourages a relatively new way of reading: one that begins with searching for information and ends with a reader diving into an event until he or she feels sated.

So learn as much as you can about as many sports by chatting with coaches off the record about strategy, attending practices, and reading voraciously about teams, sports, and athletes. Covering a beat is also essential. Unless you’ve done some reporting and research, your perspective won’t be worth reading, really. And, clearly, perspective is something fans really desire.

Rick Hummel

A few nuggets from Hall of Fame baseball writer Rick Hummel, a beat reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, who spoke at today’s MPI sports conference here in St. Louis.

What motivates Hummel to keep writing about baseball after so many years:

“Every day you look at what you’ve done and say, ‘How can you do better?’ Baseball is so enjoyable. I can’t think of any two games that are remotely the same. Every day you’ll see something out there [on the field] that you never saw before. Maybe someone will hit five home runs.  I’ve covered four or five no-hitters. That makes it interesting. I’m not sure I’d have the same verve for it if I covered another sport. I don’t find baseball monotonous at all.”

On relationships with players:

“You can be friends with players, but you shouldnt’ be out with them socially until they retire.”

Hummel also suggested that reporters talk with bench player more frequently so they’ll know you – and more importantly, speak with you – if they do something noteworthy.

Do computer-generated stories hurt or help sports coverage?

You know you’re being controversial when someone in the audience accuses you of aligning with Skynet, the robotic force that nearly destroys the world in the movie “Terminator.”

But that was the case in St. Louis this morning here at the Mid-American Press Institute sports conference.

Challenging assumptions is never easy. Erik Smelser, who essentially directs online prep coverage for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch and the Suburban Journals, knows that better than most. Smelser is an employee of Lee Enterprise’s company, The St. Louis Sports Agency, that oversees STLhighschoolsports.com. Lee also owns both the Post-Dispatch and the Suburban Journals. As director, Smelser is breaking with many traditional journalism practices. For example, he tells reporters that nothing’s more important than generating audience. He tells reporters that they will be evaluated each week based upon page views, byline counts, and multimedia posts. Smelser also relies heavily on a computer program that generates game stories based upon information submitted by coaches or stringers. That’s the statement that prompted a sports writer to blurt out: “Have you ever seen the Terminator?”

But let’s consider some of these ideas. At first, it seems absurd to allow a computer program to generate game stories. In reality, these game briefs are formulaic like the following – an athlete scored a number of points, drove in several runs or scored numerous touchdowns to lead a team to a victory. Then, you cite the team records and information that really offer stats in prose.

Some nights, I used to feel robotic knocking out these briefs, concerned that I may have repeated the exact same phrases or words in more than one story. These stories require very little thought or creativity. Smelser says several hundred schools may play a variety of sports in a single day, a schedule that would overload his staff – no matter how much caffeine he fed his staff. This computer program allows them to handle every single game. Sometimes, the staff adds information to selected game stories, padding them with quotes, stats, context – an act that is rewarded in Smelser’s evaluations.

“Think of this program as getting rid of writer’s block,” Smelser said. “This was all scary for the staff at the beginning. But they’ve learned this [program] has eliminated some the drudgery of writing those short stories.”

Here’s an important point to consider as well – these computer-generated stories do not replace reporters.

Byline counts are also important to Smelser, a standard that can be used to inspire lazy reporters (but which can also yield lazy, superficial reporting.) Reporters at the Suburban Journal’s high school site are evaluated based upon byline counts, readership numbers for posted stories, and number of blog entries.

Getting more content and readers is essential for the business of journalism. A friend of mine who manages at another newspaper asked me during a break – are newspapers about service or business? Both, really. Advertisers want page loads. And newspapers want revenue.

Reporters no longer select each game they cover. Instead, they must pitch games to the online editor, something that requires research to find compelling storylines and drama. “What’s missing from a lot of sports reporting is context,” Smelser said. “Is a player a conference leader or a college prospect?” He wants reporters to report more than the plays on the field or court.

Smelser jokes that he does not know whether this approach has been successful. The Suburban Journal’s prep website, which could not attract ads at first, now has a six-figure sponsor, a local cable station, and generates ads that are worth several times this figure, Smelser says. At its busiest, the site has more than 600,000 page loads a week. “I’d like to have time to evaluate all of these stats,” he said.

Right now, we’re all struggling to find ways to keep journalism afloat. That means eliminating assumptions, changing habits, and trying new approaches. That’s what they seem to be doing at the Suburban Journal.

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The St. Louis Post-Dispatch has developed a phone application to promote news, results and analysis about the Cardinals.

Sometimes, I assume everybody’s on board when it comes to the Internet. I assume that most newspapers and college journalism programs realize how to use multimedia. And we all know what happens when one assumes.

Spoke with some college students here at the Mid-America Press Institute  sports conference in St. Louis who shook their heads when asked about their college publication – a weekly in print.

The conversation:

Me: “So do you print updated news each day.”

College journalist: “No, we just put everything online the day the print edition comes out.”

Me: “But do you post stories on sports, like football, online the night they are played.”

College journalist: “No, but that’s a good idea. We might have to try that.”

Clearly, this college student is not at all fault. He has not been taught, or encouraged, to think about the news process. This needs to come from the senior editors, and, more importantly, from those running the journalism program at his school.

Every single college publication needs to publish news online daily. That does not mean lengthy features, which can be reserved for the print edition. At the very least, write a quick overview of a football, basketball or softball game online that offers results, key plays and a few quotes. In print, can then offer a game with far more context, depth and sources. This is the way of the sports journalism world. If your paper does not have a website, create a WordPress account, which is free and easy to use.

Here are a few topics addressed in the first session here at the MPI sports conference.

Where to break  news

For example, should newspapers scoop themselves online or in other social media. ESPN does not allow reporters to break anything on Twitter, but does allow on their website.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch sports editor Reid Laymance said his paper experimented with this last fall when his reporters had scoops on both the Cardinals and the Rams. The Cards news was immediately inserted online; the Rams news was held for the print edition. The next day, the Rams story was the most heavily read in print while the Cards story was the most read online. Plus, local TV stations reported the story, citing the Post-Dispatch, giving the paper free publicity. Ultimately, both stories recorded about the same number of hits. In this case, it did not matter where the story broke.

The Post-Dispatch also relies on the copy desk for breaking news.  A reporter first posts a few graphs on news, such as when the Cards traded for Matt Holliday last year. The sports desk then pads the story, adding career stats and comments from manager Tony La Russa. This allows the reporter to get back to covering the baseball game.

Using social media

The Post-Dispatch is also developing ways to distribute info on other social media. They recently offered an application for the phones that offers news, analysis and results on the Cardinals. At $2.99, the P-D figured 20,000 people would sign up for the application. So far, about 6,000 are on board – but most of the revenue has probably gone to the software developer, Laymance said.

Revenue

Advertising revenue from the print paper is still about 90% of revenue – and Sunday ads still drive all advertising. “We can’t forget about the paper,” said Laymance.

Sure, cheer can be glitzy but so is 'Dancing with the Stars.'

You can bet the pending federal case involving Quinnipiac University is going to shake up college athletics. A federal judge heard final arguments Friday in a case that may determine whether cheerleading is a sport.

The Quinnipiac volleyball team has been pressing this case since the university eliminated its team in order to add a competitive cheer squad.

Many people are hoping the judge rules against cheer for many reasons. Some argue that cheer participants do not compete directly against one another, moving and flowing more like ballroom dancers. Or they claim cheer has few sports skills besides tumbling and that the scoring system is vague.

Sports must have clear rules and standards for competition, ones that most fans can easily understand as they watch. For example, a serve that does not go over a net yields the next serve and a point to the other team in volleyball. A player who proceeds around all four bases earns a run for a baseball or softball team, and a football squad that advances the ball 10 yards earns a first down. The rules for competitive cheer are far less precise. For example, crowd participation is used in scoring. So is showmanship, a scoring category defined by facials, voice and energy.

The CEO for Varsity Sport, a cheerleading organization, even said cheer is not a sport, comparing it to chess. Making cheer a sport, he said, would threaten “classical sideline cheerleading.”

There’s nothing wrong with having competitions for cheerleading, band, baton throwing or speech. But these activities are not sports.

A victory for cheer squads could be a defeat for Title IX in some ways. This precedent could allow administrators to eliminate sports with smaller squads, like volleyball and cross country, in order to add a cheer squad that can field about 25 competitors. Plus, cheer is far less expensive than hockey or lacrosse, another factor considered by admins.

Yet, these same school athletic directors also understand that most parents and young women scoff at the notion that cheer is the same as softball or swimming. Most realize Title IX was implemented to give young women a chance to compete just like young men. Still this case may impede Title IX by allowing schools to add cheer at the expense of more highly athletic, skilled and competitive sports.

If this federal judge concludes that cheer is a competitive sport, parents will furrow their brows and young women athletes will roll their eyes at such a claim. And Title IX will once again be under scrutiny.

Great sports story models

Here’s a few solid stories to check out this week.

• The Dallas Morning News does a terrific job investigating the dangers of watching baseball.
• Fans love features like this – top 5 things to watch in a sporting even. Boston Globe offers its insights into today’s PGA event at TPC River Highlands.
• Think baseball or football is America’s game? Soccer has a much longer connection to Americans, according to the Boxscore.
• The London Guardian explores the cattyness behind the women’s world tennis tour, which is not far different than the days when Christ Evert and Martina Navratilova chummed it up off the court.

Another interesting action: the FHSAA board discussed whether to change from aluminum to wooden bats – a far safer approach in an era where balls fly off composite bats at increasingly faster velocities.