I hate writing about myself.

It reminds me of a time when I was a novice writer walking into the sports office of The Daily Orange. A wise assistant sports editor who would go on to become sports editor the next semester skimmed through my unfocused profile of a swimmer, one that lacked the appropriate sourcing as well.

‘Why,’ he asked, ‘did you choose this person to write about?’

I chose him because I didn’t really know any better — he was offered up for interviews. More than two years later, I feel exactly the same.

Why did I choose this guy?

One hundred words. Too long of a lede. But it’s hard to sum up three years of writing in 700 words — probably why some of you readers didn’t think I summed up a game well enough in 700 words from time to time. I guess, though, what’s most interesting about me is that I had the privilege of covering Syracuse athletics for The Daily Orange for the past three years.

Everything seems to come together so effortlessly on the page. Writing game story after game story, sometimes it does come together that way.

This piece is not effortless. I thought about what I was going to write for a while, and I still don’t really have a clear topic — 200 words into the piece. My apologies to every sports editor that scolded me for that when I first started writing.

Once in a while in this job, something more happens during the game that you take for granted watching as a sports fan. That’s where the effortlessness stops and the lessons begin. Sometimes, there’s more that goes into the 450 of my words and the five or six quotes from others.

At times, everything prevents you from putting those words on the page. At other times, you want to make the words on that page that much more eloquent. One such moment keenly sticks out from my time at The D.O.

The moment just happens to be one of the biggest events in SU sports this academic year. In writing, you have to capture moments — and the emotions that come with them — in so many words.

The first was in a spacious Yankee Stadium press room as members of the Syracuse football team filed in one by one after its Pinstripe Bowl victory.

It was a lot to capture. With your beat partners, you always have a good idea of what you’re each going to write late in the fourth quarter. Then, you get a game like the Pinstripe Bowl — where a shootout and other crazy things happen.

It took me back to another chilly night at Yankee Stadium, when, as a fan, I watched the Yankees come back from a Game 2 deficit to beat the Minnesota Twins in the 2009 American League Division Series.

It took me back to being a fan and appreciating sports and appreciating the game I was watching, something I had lost a bit once I started writing more for The D.O.

And it took me into a postgame frenzy.

Plans changed quickly with a controversial penalty call on Kansas State’s last touchdown that didn’t give the Wildcats a chance to tie the game. In the heat of the moment, I tried to capture a flurry of emotions into two stories.

There was Doug Marrone’s utter jubilation as the boy from the Bronx accomplishing something in the city where he grew up. There was the sense of accomplishment from offensive coordinator Nathaniel Hackett after his unit torched the KSU defense. Hackett jokingly asked me if ‘that was enough,’ after I had asked him a few times during the season about opening up the playbook. There was a combination of emotions from the Syracuse players.

On the other side, there was KSU head coach Bill Snyder’s tongue-tied explanation to the penalty call. There was utter disappointment all around from players.

For this hack, witnessing that contest — and, in my mind, accurately capturing it — was the one of the things I’ll remember most about my time at The Daily Orange.

Seven hundred words later, you might wonder why you’re still reading about me. Now you know why I hate writing about myself.

Brett LoGiurato was the sports editor at The Daily Orange, where his column will no longer appear. You can reach him at bplogiurato@gmail.com.

 

 

Published on May 10, 2011 at 12:00 pm