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Interview with Dick
Schaap
Why did you want to be a sportswriter? All of the questions about my background are best answered in my book, "Flashing Before My Eyes," to be published January 9, 2000, but, to condense, I wanted to be a sportswriter because I loved sports and I could not hit the curve ball, the jump shot, or the opposing ball carrier. I was also in love with the English language. How did you land your first sportswriting assignment? I landed my first sportswriting assignment-- writing a column for the local weekly when I was 14-- mostly by being a pest, and partly by being willing to work for nothing, or close to it. Why do you now say you were overpaid for your early work? If I got paid, it was no more than five dollars a column, and I still think I was overpaid. Cliches and adjectives permeated my prose. My writing improved the more I wrote-- and the more I read good writing, from Shakespeare on down. What kinds of mistakes were you making? I think my mistakes were kind of common-- leaning on cliches and adjectives in the place of clear, vivid writing. But at least I knew how to spell, which seems to be a rarity these days. How did you come up with new leads for the same basic "this team won, that team lost" articles? I came up with new leads for game stories by being observant and clever, by using the many gifts of the English language to intrigue and hook a reader. Who were your mentors? My earliest mentors were Jimmy Breslin, who was my first boss, and Roger Kahn, who was my second. They were both very young, only five or six years older than I, and both very talented. Both stressed reporting; both stressed writing. They were great role models-- as journalists, that is. You've written articles and books, hosted television shows, served as an editor, etc. Why so many fields? I hate repetition and I love challenges, and that is why I've jumped from newspapers to magazines to books to television to radio to public speaking. Each has its own rewards, its own hazards. But all the areas in which I've worked come down to one basic skill: the ability to put words together in interesting ways. How did you decide on the articles to be used in The Best American Sports Writing 2000? For "Best American Sportswriting 2000," I read more than 80 articles-- a far larger group had been cut down by series editor Glenn Stout-- and I was pleasantly surprised by the quality and the range of the articles. Many of the best were by writers I had never read before, and several came from publications I had never read before. I picked the ones that read best to me, no matter the writer, the subject, or the source. Considering the amount of work you've done, you must be a workaholic or crazy. Which one and why? Depending on how you count anthologies and translations and collections and other non-pure works, I've written or shared the writing of somewhere between 30 and 35 books-- in addition to newspaper, magazine, television, and radio. I always try to hold at least two full-time jobs at a time, sometimes three. The explanation is simple: I am a workaholic and I do not know how to say "no." Also, I am driven by a wonderful muse called alimony. How do you approach the writing process? I approach writing from every conceivable direction, but, almost always, whether it is a newspaper article, a magazine article, or a book, I concentrate on the beginning and the ending, a strong hook and a strong denouement, and then try to see that everything in between leads from the beginning to the end. I do my most productive writing between six and ten in the morning. Then the phone starts ringing, and I am a phonaholic as well as a workaholic. How has the sportwriting field changed since you began your career? Sportswriters have changed more than sportswriting. When Red Smith was a sports columnist, he was purely a sports columnist. Now, Mitch Albom and Tony Kornheiser are sports columnists sometimes, and general columnists other times, and host radio shows and appear on television shows and still manage to write an occasional book; in Mitch's case, a goldmine of a book. I was among the first to cross the line from print journalism to so-called electronic journalism, but now the line is blurred. Have you ever been intimidated by an interviewee? Of course I've been intimidated by interviewees, by the poet Robert Lowell, for instance, by his intellect; by the actress Brigitte Bardot, by her beauty; by the football player Jimmy Brown, by his glare; and by the fighter Mike Tyson, by his fists. A few have cursed me out and at least one subject, Thomas Pynchon, whom I did not interview-- I interviewed only people who knew him-- threatened bodily harm. All of this is detailed in "Flashing Before My Eyes," by Dick Schaap as told to Dick Schaap. What's one thing you wish you'd learned earlier about the sportswriting business? I began learning the sportswriting business very early in life. I wish I had learned to go to sleep earlier. But I was afraid to miss something. Any further advice for aspiring sportswriters? My advice to an aspiring sportswriter is to read the best, from Shakespeare to Kornheiser, to write as often as possible, to accept criticism and guidance from someone whose sensibilities you trust and admire, and then to work your butt off. There is no substitute for hard work. Click here to order The Best American Sportswriting 2000.
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