NABJ Sports Task Force

The Sports Task Force — National Association of Black Journalists

2009 Sam Lacy Pioneer Award winners announced

June 30, 2009 No comments »

Editor’s note: On June 29, The National Association of Black Journalists Sports Task Force announced its 2009 Class of the Sam Lacy Pioneer Awards, the group’s highest honor. These are the recipients.

Maritza Correia

Maritza Correia — She is the first Black female to make US Olympic team as a swimmer, and a silver medalist (400m relay) in the 2004 Games. Correia attended Tampa Bay Technical High School and joined the school’s swimming team. In 1999, she became the U.S. National Champion in the 50m freestyle in the 18 and under category. She was also a six time Florida High School State Champion in the 5 different events. In 1999, Correia joined the University of Georgia Lady Bulldogs Swimming and Diving Team. She aided the team when they won their title in the 400m freestyle relay. She earned a share of the SEC Commissioner’s Trophy for high point honors. First and only swimmer in SEC history to win an SEC title in all Freestyle events. During her college career she was a 27-time All-American, and 11-Time NCAA Champion.

Ken Riley and Doug Williams appear together in this 2001 photo.

Doug Williams — Williams was drafted in the first round (17th overall) by the Tampa Bay Bucs and led them to three playoff appearances, including the 1979 NFC title game. Later, he became the first and only black quarterback to win the Super Bowl, when he led the Washington Redskins in the Super Bowl XXII. Today he is director of professional scouting for the Bucs.

Ken Riley — Riley was a top NFL cornerback who played his entire 15-year career with the Cincinnati Bengals. Riley recorded 65 interceptions in his career, which was the fourth most in Pro Football history at the time of his. Before his professional career, Riley played quarterback for Florida A&M University. In addition to being a skilled athlete, Riley also excelled academically. He earned his team’s scholastic award and a Rhodes Scholar Candidacy. In 1986, he took over as the head coach of his alma mater, Florida A&M. Riley coached Florida A&M from 1986-1993, compiling a 48-39-2 record, with two Mid-Eastern Athletic conference titles and 2 MEAC coach of the year awards. Riley then served as Florida A&M’s athletic director from 1994-2003. He is now retired and living in his hometown of Bartow, Florida.

LeRoy Selmon

LeRoy Selmon — Selmon was a two-time national champion at Oklahoma, and the first pick of the 1976 NFL draft for the Tampa Bay Bucs. In 1976, Selmon was the first player picked in the NFL draft, the first-ever pick for the then-brand-new expansion team, the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. He joined older brother Dewey, who was a second round pick of the Bucs. In his first year, Lee Roy won the team’s Rookie of the Year and MVP awards. Selmon went to six straight Pro Bowls and was named NFL Defensive Player of the Year in 1979. A back injury made the 1984 season his last, and the Bucs retired his number, 63, in 1986. He finished his career with 78.5 sacks. The Lee Roy Selmon Crosstown Expressway is named for him, as is a chain of restaurants. The chain, aptly titled Lee Roy Selmon’s, was named one of the 10 best sports bars in America in 2009 it’s motto is Play Hard. Eat Well. And Don’t Forget to Share. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 1988 and the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 1995.

Jim Dent

Jim Dent — Dent was born in the golf mecca of Augusta, Georgia, home of the Masters Tournament, though as an African American he wouldn’t have been allowed onto the Augusta National course at the time, except as a caddie. He caddied both at Augusta National and at Augusta Country Club as a boy. Dent turned pro in 1966. During his regular (under 50) career he was Florida PGA Champion three times. However he is mainly notable for his success on the Senior PGA Tour (now Champions Tour), where he won 12 tournaments between 1989 and 1998.

Fred Goodall — Goodall is a long time sports journalist and mentor, writes for the Associated Press in Tampa. He will be honored with the organization’s journalism award.

A merit award will be presented Brian McIntyre of the NBA, who has helped provide long time support for the Pioneer Ceremony and NABJ.

The winners will be honored at the NABJ Convention in Tampa on August 7. The ceremony also includes presenting two students with Larry Whiteside Scholarships.

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Tags: Pioneer Awards Sam Lacy

Cutbacks hurt diversity in sports departments

June 5, 2009 No comments »

By David Ubben

Last year, Ivan Orozco told the story of a San Diego-area soccer player whose mother had been deported to Mexico, tearing apart his family in an all-too-common scenario within his California community. But after the San Diego Union-Tribune’s most recent round of layoffs—which included Orozco—stories like that might not be told so often.

“Those stories are everywhere, but they just won’t get told to some writers,” said Orozco, who covered high school sports, soccer and boxing for the Union-Tribune. “A lot of the people in this community just won’t relate to you if you’re not Latino.”

For a community whose population is more than a quarter Latino, that could be a problem for newspapers already trying to survive unstable times.

Orozco felt that some sports the Latino population embraced, namely boxing and soccer, don’t get the play the community demands. But Union-Tribune sports editor Chuck Scott says on nights the Southern California freeways will be jammed with fans trying to get a glimpse of the Mexican national team, the paper will provide extensive attention in advance of the event, and significant coverage in the following morning’s paper.

“It troubles me when you lose people who represent diverse categories of people,” Scott said. But we’ve lost a boatload of people of all ages, races and ethnicities.”

The issue of losing writers who reflect diverse readerships is not unique to San Diego. Terrance Harris covered Texas A&M football for the Houston Chronicle before he was laid off on March 24. That round of layoffs eliminated the jobs of six black employees.

“We disproportionately took a hit,” Harris said.

Chronicle sports editor Carlton Thompson does not agree. He called reflecting his community a “priority” and pointed out that while others lost their jobs, the Chronicle still employs a black columnist and sports editor, along with several female and Latino writers.

The budget strains haven’t been limited to newspapers. Justice Hill, formerly an editor for MLB.com, lost his job after a round of layoffs in Dec. 2008. Hill also helped recruit interns for the Web site and said it’s important for minorities to be integral parts of the continuing growth online.

“The Internet world seems dominated by white males,” Hill said. “If they don’t bring in minority voices, pretty soon it’s going to look like newspapers did 25 years ago.”

Hill worries that his concerns sound more like complaints that lack solutions. In today’s market, both inside and outside the world of journalism, his ideas, by his own admission, simply aren’ t feasible.

“Newspapers are just handcuffed in trying to fix these things,” Hill said. “There’s no solution, in this economy, that pleases everybody.”

No immediate solutions, that is. But that’s not to say an answer won’t arrive.

“Any young writer I see, I tell them, ‘Don’t aspire to be writers or copy editors,’” Orozco said. “Be the people who make those decisions, and help solve these problems.”

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Quite frankly, Smith in limbo

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By NATE TAYLOR
APSE Bulletin Staff Writer

The NBA is the sport that made Stephen A. Smith famous. It’s the sport that he never gets tired of talking about. It’s the sport that has made him a respected and high-profile sports journalist for more than a decade.

But during the NBA postseason this year, Smith was nowhere to be seen or heard. Instead of offering opinions on such topics as whether Kobe Bryant is better than LeBron James on the multiple ESPN platforms, Smith was relegated to the role of a spokesperson for the fairly new VitaminWater campaign of “The Great Debate.”

Like many journalists these days, he is looking for a job.

In May, Smith left ESPN after more than five years. The network and Smith could not reach a deal on a new contract after a month of trying.

“I wanted to be in a position where I didn’t have to depend on one entity to market me and to control my brand,” Smith said of his situation. “I wanted to be in a position where I could control that myself.”

At the moment, Smith does not know where his career is headed.

While he doesn’t want to leave sports, he said sports may not be his next gig. Smith said he still wants to work in television or radio, but, more than anything else, he wants to get back to work as soon as he can.

“I don’t just want to be an NBA20guy,” Smith, 41, said. “I don’t want my career to be dependant upon two television networks that have the NBA contracts.”

With ESPN, Smith, whose outspoken opinions earned him the nickname “Screamin’ A,” was a media personality who influenced columnist and colleague Jemele Hill.

“His style was so unique that you never forgot it,” Hill said. “During the time he did sports, I think he developed a brand and a signature that really no one else has. He is not afraid to call people out and make his opinions heard.”

With ESPN, Smith appeared on the morning show “First Take” on ESPN2, did a regular radio show, wrote for ESPN The Magazine and was part of news shows across the network, primarily to discuss the NBA.
Smith, a former Philadelphia Inquirer sports columnist, also hosted the short-lived late-night television show called “Quite Frankly.”

It was that show where Smith picked up his passion for television. It was also that experience that showed Smith he could do something other than sports.

Smith said he felt bad that he was limited to just talking sports on the show when so many other topics interested him. “That was something that was extremely difficult for me to stomach,” he said.

Even though Smith said that sports alone isn’t fulfilling, he said he will always be willing to talk sports. Then again, he knows he could talk sports on the radio and television bett er than any other subject.

“I still love sports,” Smith said. “I’m not going to limit myself to just this one thing for the rest of my life. I can’t do it.”

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Larry Whiteside to be inducted in NABJ Hall of Fame

May 1, 2009 No comments »

WASHINGTON, D.C. –The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) will induct four outstanding journalists, including Sports Task Force pioneer Larry Whiteside, who made integral contributions to journalism and civil rights into its Hall of Fame at a ceremony to be held on Friday, August 7, 2009 at the 2009 NABJ Annual Convention and Career Fair in Tampa.

“These remarkable individuals endured great challenges so that black journalists today can have more freedom and professional opportunity,” said NABJ President Barbara Ciara. “As Hall of Fame inductees, their memory and accomplishments will be preserved and passed on to future generations.”

The NABJ Hall of Fame inductees were named at the organization’s April Board of Directors meeting in Tampa.

Larry Whiteside – Reporter, The Boston Globe (Boston), (posthumous)

Whiteside, a 1999 NABJ Lifetime Achievement Award Winner and 2008 National Baseball Hall of Fame writer inductee, was the first African-American beat sports writer for the Boston Globe. Whiteside was also only the third African-American recipient of the J.G. Taylor Spink Award, given by the Baseball Writers’ Association of America in 2008.

Whiteside covered the Red Sox from 1973 to 1994, chronicling some of the team’s most notable moments in baseball history. He was an expert on Negro league baseball and one of the first sports writers to track baseball’s international play. “Sides” made four trips to Japan and two to Australia covering the sport.

Whiteside started with the Kansas City Kansan in 1959. He moved on to the Milwaukee Journal to cover the Milwaukee Braves and Brewers as well as civil rights issues in the ‘60s. In 1971, Whiteside started The Black List to help sports editors find qualified black journalists to hire. Whiteside died in 2007 at the age of 69.

The three other inductees are:

Earl Caldwell – Reporter and early Civil Rights Activist (New York)
Peggy Peterman – St. Petersburg Times (Florida); (posthumous)
Lynn Norment – Editor, EBONY Magazine (Chicago)

Read the full release at www.nabj.org.

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Wilbon to receive Lifetime Achievement Award

April 30, 2009 No comments »

WASHINGTON, D.C. –The National Association of Black Journalists (NABJ) announced at its spring Board of Directors meeting that Michael Wilbon will be honored with the organization’s Lifetime Achievement Award. Wilbon will join other honorees at the Salute to Excellence Awards Gala on August 8, in Tampa.

“Michael is the epitome of the cross-over journalist, and he has achieved that distinction at the highest levels,” said NABJ President Barbara Ciara. “One of far too few black columnists in the United States, Michael connects with sports fans and players like none other while capturing the enduring, challenging and inspiring moments of the game.”

A sports writer for the Washington Post since 1980, and a columnist since 1990 with a column that appears as much as four times per week, Wilbon is one of fewer than 20 black sports columnists at major daily newspapers in America.

In 2001, Wilbon became an original co-host for ESPN’s Pardon the Interruption, a fast paced sports talk show with in-depth debate on various topics between Wilbon and co-host Tony Kornheiser. Now one of ESPN’s most watched shows, Wilbon has excelled in covering nearly every major sporting event in the past three decades for the Post and ESPN. He has also co-written two books with NBA legend Charles Barkley: “I May Be Wrong but I Doubt It,” and “Who’s Afraid of a Large Black Man?”

“Michael is a thought-provoking columnist who still holds onto his foundation of being a print journalist despite being showcased on a variety of electronic platforms,” said NABJ Treasurer Gregory Lee, Jr. “Wilbon not only set the standard with his wide-ranging commentary, but his professionalism and mentorship ranks just as high as the columns that are printed in the/ Washington Post/. Michael is not just a role model for sports journalists, but for the entire profession.”

Wilbon has taken part in the NABJ Sports Task Force mentoring program where he helped guide up-and-coming black sports journalists. Wilbon was honored by the Society of Professional Journalists as its top sports columnist in 2001 and he has been among the top three national sports columnists selected by the Associated Press Sports Editors three times.

CNN’s T.J. Holmes will host the 2009 NABJ Salute to Excellence Awards Gala on August 8, 2009 as part of the NABJ Annual Convention and Career Fair in Tampa, Fla.

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The NABJ Convention is the largest gathering of minority journalists in the country.

Salute to Excellence recognizes journalism that best covered the black experience or addressed issues affecting the worldwide black community during 2008. For more information, go to www.nabj.org.

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Tags: Michael Wilbon

Sports programming at 2009 NABJ Convention and Career Fair in Tampa, Fla.

April 18, 2009 No comments »

The National Association of Black Journalist’s Sports Task Force will be coordinating the following workshops at the 2009 NABJ Convention and Career Fair in Tampa, Fla. More updates on STF’s programming and events will be posted here.

For more information on the convention and NABJ, visit NABJ.org.

Workshops

Extending Your Brand–A Different Kind of Sports Radio
1 – 2:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 6 | Session Number/Code: 135

In a marketplace of dwindling jobs, your ability to maximize your skills over a whole host of media is crucial for long-term success. Radio continues to be an underdeveloped resource for reporters and writers of color. These professionals will discuss how to develop the unique skills necessary to impact your marketplace and increase your reach in a given area, without devolving into typical “fire the coach,” misogynistic sports talk that is typical in most markets. Non-on-air careers (producer, running boards, etc.) will also be examined.

Ready, Set, Blog!: Taking sports journalism online
3 – 4:30 PM Thursday, Aug. 6 | Session Number/Code: 132

Over the past decade the tools of print journalists in the sports industry have changed from pen and paper to blogs and broadband. With the onslaught of downsizing newspapers and magazines, many sports journalists are transitioning to the brand new world of new media. From the major league sites to powerhouse blogs to official newspaper sites, online journalism is now a mainstay of sports reporting. This panel will explore the spectrum of sports websites – from how they work to how to work for them – and will include a discussion on the next big thing in online sports journalism.

Pros and Cons: Covering the Professional and Personal Lives of Athletes
1:30 – 3 p.m. Friday, Aug. 7 | Session Number/Code: 134

In the age of camera phones, tabloids and blogs, are athletes permitted to have a private life or is that freedom revoked in exchange for their celebrity? What rights to players have to privacy and what rights to writers have for publicity? With so many players getting their name in print for what they do off-the-court, sports superstars have become a mainstay of tabloid fodder. This session will examine the realm of covering the personal and professional lives of athletes and identifying the fine line of tabloid vs. sports journalism.

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Tags: programming

Happy New Year

January 4, 2009 No comments »

2008 was a tough year for our industry. We faced perhaps the worst financial crisis in our industry where buyouts and layoffs became just as routine as political scandals that were reported at our news outlets.

But all was not bad for the Sports Task Force. We raised nearly $40,000 for the Larry Whiteside Scholarship Fund. We awarded our first scholarship this past summer. We also had dedicated members take a group of students to Comiskey Park to teach them how to cover a major league baseball game.

The Sports Task Force has continued to grow but this year will be another challenging year.

NABJ is facing considerable affects from the industry and we expect financial support to drop from previous levels.

We as a group must work hard together to make sure we get the programming and funding to maintain the quality of work we have done in the past.

Already, Jemele Hill is working hard to secure funding for two possible events in Tampa.

And today I am announcing that Kim Bardakian will head up our workshop and plenary efforts for our Tampa convention. I hope some members will help Kim through this process.

NABJ in its efforts to help members get through these tough times and transitions we will have a convention that is based in education and re-invention.

Here is the note from NABJ that underscores that point:

Time to think about Tampa and Reinvention!

Now I know for many of us in the midst of freezing temperatures and wind gusts it can be difficult to imagine warm August weather but give it a try for these few minutes.

The 2009 Annual Convention will take August 5-9, 2009 at the Tampa Convention Center.

The NABJ Convention Call for Proposals is now online and available for your task force members and colleagues to submit programming ideas. We’ve added an online system where every workshop coordinator can submit workshop proposals electronically. Please find more information on the Call for Proposals and the 2009 Annual Convention at http://www.nabj.org/conventions/2009/index.html

DEADLINE FOR CALL FOR PROPOSALS IS JANUARY 31st

2009 in Tampa will be the REINVENTION CONVENTION

Programming will be reviewed and accepted based on their ability to strengthen the skills of your friends and colleagues toward complete career reinvention. A higher concentration in your proposal toward new media (intermediate to advanced skills) is strongly encouraged.

Provide attendees with new and innovative products, programs and speakers.

Don’t just talk about the technology, bring it with you, and invite participants to demonstrate it.

Encourage participants to open their laptop and connect with you before, during and after the session.

Encourage round table discussions where topic leaders break into groups and delve into plans of action for participants to follow up with these leaders after the convention takes place.

Motivate one another and this new generation of journalists and media professionals

Always watch for spelling and grammatical errors in submission information and speaker information.

Today, I pledge to you that we will be more active this year and help us to navigate through the perils that we face together and know that we are all family here.

Gregory Lee
Senior Assistant Sports Editor
Boston Globe
glee(at)globe.com
NABJ Treasurer
NABJ Sports Task Force Chair

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News updates

October 18, 2008 No comments »

Sports Illustrated and the National Association of Black Journalists Sports Task Force have wrapped up negotiations on a new scholarship for black women interested in careers in sports journalism. The scholarship would be two – 1 year scholarships for $5K each to a female entering her senior year and is interested in sports journalism. The first recipient would be chosen in the spring of 2009 to receive the scholarship in the Fall of 2009.

Thanks to STF member Tiffany Black for spearheading this effort at SI.

2009 Convention

Plans are underway for our meeting in Tampa from August 5 to 9. If you have any ideas or want to join in the planning. Please let me know.

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Thank you to our sponsors

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The success of the 2008 STF programming would not have been as successful without our partnerships sponsors.

Thanks to Turner Sports, Jocklife and Russell Simmons Argyle Culture.

Also a special thanks to ESPN, Major League Baseball and the National Basketball Association.

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2009 Sports Journalism Institute application

October 14, 2008 No comments »

Want to cover the NFL? Paul Gutierrez does for The Sacramento Bee and so does Gary Estwick of The Tennessean. Do you want to cover the Golden State Warriors? Marcus Thompson does for the Contra Costa Times. Have dreams of becoming a columnist? Ask Milo Bryant, who wrote insightful commentary for the Colorado Springs Gazette. Or do you want to lead a sports department? Gregory Lee does for The Boston Globe. Or do you just want to work for one of the co-founders of this program? That would be Ohm Youngmisuk, who covers the New York Jets for Leon Carter of the New York Daily News.

What do these folks have in common? They all had their start with the Sports Journalism Institute. Apply for the program today. Deadline is December 5, 2008. For questions email program co-director Gregory Lee at sjiprogram@aol.com.

Click here for the application (.doc).

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