As the Sports Layout and Copy Editor for the Boston Globe, John Vitti, guest judge for our Sports Writing Competition, understands what makes for captivating sports writing. And—spoiler alert!—it’s not a mere recap of an athletic event; it’s the rich stories behind the event. As John recommends, “Don’t look at the scoreboard. There might be a fascinating moment in a game, or there might be an athlete or coach with a story to tell. If it’s interesting to you, it will be interesting to the reader.”
Learn all about John’s career in sports and get more tips to elevate your entry below!
You’re the Sports Layout and Copy Editor for the Boston Globe. What does this entail, and how did you get your start in sports?
After graduating from Ithaca College as a Philosophy/Religion major, I went home to Boston and didn’t really have any idea what I wanted to do for a career, but at the same time, I needed a job. The local newspaper, the News Tribune, was looking for reporters to cover high school tournament games. I’d spent plenty of time working moving furniture or as a landscaper or in food service, so to get paid to watch sports was fantastic. Eventually I landed a job on the Boston Herald’s night desk—writing headlines, writing photo captions, editing stories, checking facts, laying out pages, getting it all done on deadline (three deadlines a night), working nights and weekends … pretty much exactly what I still do today.
After 11 years at the Herald, the exact same job opened up at the Boston Globe. The great majority of my time has been in sports, but I have done turns in Features and News, too.
And, yes, the web is where the readers are today instead of print, but the content is exactly the same. It’s just delivered differently. You can go to a drive-through or sit inside the restaurant, either way you are getting a tasty meal, right?
What are a few of your favorite stories you’ve explored as a sports writer?
In 1994, I did a project where I traveled the country living a sports fan’s dream. I attended everything from the Masters to the Super Bowl to the Kentucky Derby, as well as the Bass Masters championship, the Little League World Series, and the Rodeo finals in Las Vegas. I saw George Foreman win the heavyweight boxing title, Ken Burns edit his Baseball documentary, and one fan halfway up in a seat behind home plate at Camden Yards catch three foul balls in one game and get booed by the crowd.
One of my favorite stories was about a motorcycle stunt rider who was performing a death-defying trick at the Astrodome during a monster truck show.
However, 1994 was also the year baseball went on strike and the World Series was canceled, the NHL had a lockout, Tiger Woods was still at Stanford, Michael Jordan took the year off from the NBA to play baseball, and the internet wasn’t quite yet a thing. No, it wasn’t the best year to pick—but I wouldn’t have traded it for anything.
Sports writing is much more than a recap of a game or race. What are some of the many topics students can explore in their entries, and what advice do you have for picking a topic?
There’s a game story and then there’s everything else. Game stories serve a purpose. Game stories are the news of the day. Game stories can be “important—like a championship match or a world title fight—but they are by their nature unbiased, down the middle, all about capturing this moment in time. There are well-written game stories, but they are rarely in the category of “Hey, did you read this today?”
Everything else? Now that’s where the magic happens!
How do you find it? Don’t look at the scoreboard. There might be a fascinating moment in a game, or there might be an athlete or coach with a story to tell. Maybe it’s the referee. Maybe it’s the fans or the mascot. Maybe it’s a little brother who can’t play because he’s too little or an older sister who can’t play because she’s hurt. Maybe it’s in the trophy case outside the gym or underneath the stands next to the field. Maybe it’s the trainer who spent the last 18 months fighting COVID. Maybe it’s the marching band and THOSE outfits. Maybe it’s about the uniforms, or the sneakers, or the tattoos, or the haircuts, or the national anthem before the game or celebrating at the pizza shop afterward.
Most of all, if it’s interesting to you, it will be interesting to the reader.
Like all forms of journalism, sports writing relies on structure, including a good lede (the opening that grabs a reader’s interest). What tips do you have for writers crafting a lede?
The lede is the most important part of any nonfiction writing. The beginning is where you have your readers’ eyeballs. After that, they get distracted, or bored, or they get a text, or the kettle whistles, or the dog barks. So you must hook the readers and get them to read the second paragraph, and then the third and the fourth, and hopefully by that point they are all in and they just keep going.
Here is one writing tip I tell everyone: You don’t have to start writing at the beginning. You are not always going to have the lede on the tip of your tongue, but that’s fine! You know you need the who and the what and the where, so put it on the page. You need some how and when and why, too, so put those on the page. Great quotes and/or great description and/or fascinating facts and/or beguiling background? You know you are going to use them, so put them on the page. Now, before you know it, you have 75 percent of the story written. And as you get these things out of your head and onto the page, an order and flow emerges … THEN you can circle back and take a crack at the lede. And once you do that, the rest of the story falls into place and you can go and fill in all the missing pieces.
What are you looking for in a winning entry?
Good writing is good writing, regardless of the topic. A strong lede, interesting quotes, great description, word choice, flow etc. etc. For this contest, it really doesn’t matter the topic or angle—it can be surprising or mundane—but a winning entry keeps me reading. At the end, I might have learned something, or felt like I got to know someone, or felt like I was at an event … or wish I had written the story!
What event/athlete/team are you most looking forward to following in the Tokyo Olympics?
I love the track events. I just don’t understand why track isn’t huge as a spectator sport in the United States anymore. But I also find myself riveted by a lot of the sports that just aren’t on most TV, like badminton, wrestling, water polo, and team handball. That’s fantastic stuff.
