How Students Can Cover School Sports in the Newsletter

School sports coverage that consists only of game results and season records gives readers information. Sports coverage that tells the story of a player who came back from injury, a team that learned something in a losing season, or a coach whose approach changed how students see competition gives readers something to care about. Teaching student sports journalists to find and tell those stories produces coverage that the full school community reads, not only sports fans.

Find the Story Before the Game

The best game coverage begins before the game starts. A reporter who has interviewed a player before the game, who knows what the game means to that player and why, can tell the story of the game in a way that a reporter who arrives knowing nothing cannot.

Assign student sports reporters to make one pre-game contact with a player, coach, or manager before every event they cover. Ask what this game, match, or meet means to them. That material is what turns a recap into a story.

Lead with a Moment, Not the Score

Sports articles that begin with the score ("The team won 4-2") tell readers who already know the result nothing new and readers who did not attend nothing that makes them want to read further. An article that begins with a specific moment, "When the sophomore forward scored the final goal with three minutes left in the game, her father, watching from the bleachers for the first time this season, covered his face with both hands," gives every reader a reason to keep reading.

Cover Every Sport, Not Only the Popular Ones

Student athletes in cross country, swimming, gymnastics, tennis, golf, and wrestling deserve the same newsletter visibility as football, basketball, and soccer players. A student sports journalist who follows the full range of school athletic programs builds a broader community investment in school athletics than one who only covers the three sports with the largest audiences.

Interview Athletes After Both Wins and Losses

Post-game interviews after a loss produce more honest and more revealing quotes than interviews after wins. Students who have just lost something they worked hard for are often more forthcoming about the experience than students celebrating a victory. Coverage that interviews athletes after setbacks builds a more complete picture of student athletic experience than coverage that only appears after wins.

Build a Season Narrative

The best student sports coverage follows a team or a group of athletes across a full season, building a narrative that carries forward from issue to issue. A student reporter who checks in with the swim team every two weeks from preseason to championships produces a season story that readers follow the way they follow a serial. That engagement is what distinguishes sports journalism from a sports calendar.