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This story is part of our CSC 360 package for August 2023, to view more stories, click here.

Pictured above: Chris Harry of the University of Florida wrote the National Story of the Year for 2022.

Writing ideas and strategies from a trio of Stabley Writing Contest winners
With insight from Chris Harry, Samantha Sunseri and Brian Hand

by Barb Kowal – College Sports Communicators, Director of Professional Development and External Affairs

Three CSC members who earned 2022-23 Fred S. Stabley Writing Contest honors offered some insights on their writing process and shared some thoughts for CSC members on the topic of writing and editing: Brian Hand, Conference Carolinas Associate Commissioner for External Relations who earned a national honor in the preview/recap feature category and several district recognitions; Chris Harry, University of Florida senior writer in the athletic department who earned National Story of the Year acclaim; and Samantha Sunseri, University of California assistant director of athletic communications who had several of her content pieces earn district recognition.
 
Harry earned top writing honors with his gripping and inspiring feature on former Gator basketball standout Patric Young, “I will be the one who defines this chapter of my life,” selected from among 400 submissions in the annual contest. The former Gator basketball standout is now paralyzed following a car accident and he and his mother opened up to Harry, who built a trusting relationship with him while working with the basketball team over the years. Harry also was national runnerup in the coach/administrator profile category, Billy Napier’s Paladin Pedigree”
 
Hand earned top national honors in the preview/recap category with his feature on “Tigerville to Title – North Greenville Baseball Takes Unique Approach to Climb Mountain to First National Championship.” He also placed second in his district in both the coach/administrator profile and historical feature categories.
 
Sunseri was District 8 district winner in the coach/administrator profile for “More Than a Leader”  and district runnerup for her story on Cal swimmer Trenton Julian (athlete profile).
 
“I’ve told people that it was an honor to write the Patric Young feature, and that in a perfect world, I wish I had not had to write it,” Harry noted. “I was able to write it due to our past relationship built when he was at Florida. He is one of the most beloved student-athletes to come through. Was an SEC scholar-athlete and a fantastic player on 36-win team. I had a trust level and stayed in touch with him. part of it is. To drive to Jacksonville to visit him in his wheelchair, paralyzed, was difficult. I dreaded the drive. But he flipped the script in being optimistic. He is faith-based and gregarious. I visited with him for three hours.

"Patric put me in touch with his mother which helped me do a deep dive into his story and talk to others. Honestly, I did not feel worthy being around him. It was a very difficult story to write; I had 27 pages of notes … to write 3,000 words. It’s very hard to write long-form. You slave over it, paragraph over paragraph, and that’s how I felt with the Young story. Once you get into a flow and transcribe your conversations, if you are organized, you can tell the great story. That all helped me in this case.”
 
Check out the full list of Stabley Writing Contest national and district winners HERE.
 
Here are responses from Harry, Sunseri and Hand.
 
 
What are some of the most important skills for an athletic communicator to have in order to become a stronger writer?

Hand: Devote time to thinking, researching and planning. That's easier said than done with all our duties, but writing and telling our stories is at the root of our jobs. You’ve got to be curious and ask good questions. Go beyond the superficial and ‘easy’ competition and stats-based questions. Writing takes work and planning and a devotion of time.
 
Harry: Simply put, you have to have institutional knowledge. This is paramount. If you are new employee to a school or conference, you have a lot of catching up to do. You must spend quality time researching the record books and the honors that a particular sport and its players have gained.  Find an old hard copy of a media guide and read up. It behooves you to know the history.

Have clarity and organization. Don’t get too tricky with your writing. Bang it out, especially when it comes to previews and recaps. Be organized. For a game story, be organized with your note-taking, circle stuff on the box score, talk to people. I’ll put out a quick who-what-when-how-where story first with just facts, and then do a narrative story with quotes for a follow story.

Sunseri: I think it is vital to care about your subject – when you’re invested in your teams and in the athletes/staff as individuals, it comes through in the writing. If the authors themselves is ambivalent and just “going through the motions”, then why should the audience care?
 

"I always preface my interviews by telling my subject that if they aren’t comfortable answering a question or want me to take something out later, that’s more than fine. In my opinion, establishing a rapport and ensuring that your interviewee feels comfortable with you is more beneficial to your own reputation as a writer in the long run, even if you need to edit out something you may have wanted to keep in otherwise. You want the subject to trust you and remember you in a positive light – the interview, and the story, will be better for it." - Samantha Sanseri, University of California assistant director of athletic communications and a Stabley Writing Contest district winner

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Best way to brainstorm ideas for a feature piece?
 
Hand: We make storytelling a priority at Conference Carolinas, and our work and stories have been singled out quite a bit over the last few years because of it. In addition, setting up a regular series like we have with our Conference Carolinas “Body, Mind, and Soul" feature series will help generate story ideas, too. Our “Body, Mind, and Soul” feature series is a collaboration between public relations legend Bob Rose and myself, as we co-strategize and work with the entire Conference Carolinas office and member institutions to help tell the stories.
 
I would encourage staffs, particularly conference staffs, to make talking about content a PRIORITY. On each of our monthly calls with our athletic communicators, one constant agenda item is “what stories do you have to tell? What story ideas do you have for us?” Keeping that as a priority has paid off, and we have some SIDs who are so responsive and have shared a lot of ideas. This topic of “what are your stories to tell” doesn’t end with the athletic communicator calls. I bring it up on all our monthly calls with the coaches groups, the events and marketing folks at our schools, too.
 
Harry: I know it’s difficult for CSC members who have three, four or six sports to cover, but, do not sit and stare at your computer all day long. Please get over to your sport practices, even if it’s only for an hour each day. Converse with coaches in their down time. There’s a wealth of knowledge to be gained by building relationships with assistants and with athletic trainers, people the student-athletes spend so much time with. Doing both will help the student-athletes and staff know your face and when it’s time to flush something out, you have a place to start from.

Covering Florida men’s basketball, I have the advantage of being on the plane, at team meals, on the bus, and can get access to the stories to be told. When you are traveling with your teams, please don’t bury your head in your laptop or phone. Again, I go back to knowing we juggle a lot – it’s hard. But, I really think that if some of our younger members would step out of their comfort zone and challenge themselves, they could write something a little different, and might gain confidence in themselves and their writing. Challenge yourselves and write!
 
Sunseri: I try to ask myself a series of questions: 1. Who stands out? 2. Has their story already been told, and can I bring something new to the table?; 3. What, if anything, makes them exceptional beyond their athletic success?

To me, the last one is most important. Anyone can read a stats sheet or results list, but people want to get to know the person behind the name. Even if the individual is not the most standout member of the program, an interesting personal story gives audiences someone to root for and can help generate more investment in the success of the team.
   

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How have you learned to ask pertinent interview questions? 
 
Sunseri: Be around the practice environment before the interview, to let your subject recognize you and get to know you if possible. For situations where that doesn’t work (for example, when you’re taking over a story from someone else), try to get as much background information ahead of time from people who are more familiar with your subject. Getting input and advice ahead of time does wonders for your own comfort when it’s time to conduct the actual interview.
 
I try to start with easy-to-answer, basic questions that will give the readers some context while trying to avoid falling into the trap of “asking the same things that everyone else asks”. After the subject has “warmed up”, I move on to the more introspective or personal questions. It’s important to remember that people like to talk about themselves as individuals – what they like, how they see themselves – and not necessarily answer all the usual questions about their athletic performances for the umpteenth time. You want your audience to see the subject as a person, not as a figure.

“When writing a feature, I will print out my notes and take a highlighter and go through the pages, highlighting key quotes. My outline becomes clear as I go over my notes. You cut it along the way, even though I transcribe the whole interviews. When you write a nice feature, the lede is important but it’s most important that you don’t TELL ME, you SHOW ME. Paint me a picture of your subject. So, you need to dig deep with your questions, and say to your subject, by way of those questions, tell me something that I do not know about you.” - Chris Harry, University of Florida senior writer, Stabley Contest National Story of the Year author

 

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Ledes and headlines – advice for young SID to understand setting stage/getting most important info up front?
 
Sunseri: I admit that I struggle with headlines – I tend to leave them for last. For me, committing to a headline ahead of time limits my options in what I can do with the story.  I have a favored tendency in my stories to paint a scene before doing anything else, so that the reader can understand right away who the subject is and why their story is worth telling.
 
It doesn’t have to be a particularly exciting environment – it could even be as simple as “what is going on around the subject during the interview”, but it adds color to the piece and helps to keep the final story from reading as a simple “question-and-answer” format.

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The art of editing: What is the most important thing writers should remember when proofreading work? Should another set of eyes review it?
 
Hand: Yes, when time permits. In our world of late-night web story recaps and work, for instance, it is not always an option to have another set of eyes look things over. However, I have made it a point to make sure I go back early the next morning after late-night posts – to re-read and ensure that the stats are accurate, spelling is correct, and that the flows makes sense. It does take that extra step, but it’s an important step.
 
If working on a series or a feature, however, as many people as possible should take a look at the work. Sharing information back and forth will catch mistakes, and you might also receive a comment and a way to re-write some content that will add to the story.
 
Harry: In terms of copy editing, I am like most SIDs — writing on deadline on the bus from the game site to the hotel or the plane. I don’t have anyone who reads it, especially on deadline. However, I’ll get up and read it again in the morning and maybe catch errors then and be able to have more clarity if needed.
 
Sunseri: As much as my pride hates to admit it sometimes, it’s definitely a good idea to have someone else look over your writing – either to spot grammatical issues or for suggestions on sentence structure/word choice. After a while, you’ll start to notice patterns in the feedback, which can help you improve your future pieces (and thus streamline the process by not having to constantly fix the same mistakes). I personally try to read over my own pieces before sending them off to be proofread – sometimes I’ll catch an easy fix or two that I can edit right then and there, and it hopefully keeps my editors from having to roll their eyes at the same old issues every time.
   

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Anything else to add?
 
Hand: Do not forget that visuals – graphics, photographs, videos - are so important in storytelling. For instance, in our story on Hall of Famer Susie Toomey (Stabley Writing Contest second-place district finisher in historical feature category) you’ll notice a series of photographs that we researched for and that we reached out and asked for. With due diligence, we were able to get photos from the 1970s of Susie playing volleyball and from the 1990s of her coaching. This takes time, but it’s a step when writing features that cannot be ignored. Visuals sell the content!
 
Harry: You need to be honest in your writing. If I read one more headline in a game story that your team lost a thriller … and they lose by 15 … just no! Fans know the difference. It’s OK to say they lost the game. I understand about being protective and being concerned about a coach reaction to a headline, but please do not do that. 

For instance, in a game story or a feature, I will say an athlete struggled, and there is nothing wrong with that. I won’t be negative or overly criticial, but will be accurate. And, I don’t want them looking at me sideways, so building trust with athletes is key, so you can write honestly. I want them to know, you are going to see me every day, or a few times a week. I will tell the story of the team from the first day of practice until the season’s end. If you go 1-for-12 shooting, I am going to mention it. I won’t rip you, but will tell the fans, our audience, what happens. 

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