Sports reporting
A conversation with Mike Lopresti

Mike Lopresti

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Award-winning sports reporter Mike Lopresti has been a national sports correspondent for Gannett News Service since 1982. He has covered almost every major U.S. sport and reported from 11 Olympic Games. He began his career at the Palladium-Item in Richmond, Ind., as a high school junior.

Chipsquinn.org: What's the secret to being able to crank out a quality game story so quickly after a game ends?

Mike Lopresti: How do I do game stories so quickly? One word: Panic. Actually, it goes a little deeper than that. Preparation is vital. I have to work several different versions, trying to guess what will be most important if there is an Ending A, Ending B, or Ending C. Kind of like the movie "Clue." I even like to have some quotes stored from before the game, to fit into different versions of the story, so even the story that moves right after  the game will have some quotes in it. In a close game, I will be constantly updating and rewriting and changing from about halfway through to the very end. Obviously, I have learned to appreciate blowouts.

Q: You've covered many major sporting events in your career -- Super Bowls, Final Fours, World Series, Olympics. How do you come up with original angles at events where access to players is so tightly controlled?

Mike Lopresti at work at the 2000 Summer Olympics in Sydney, Australia. © Gannett News Service

A: Originality comes from never forgetting one thing. Sports events, at their core, are about people. Every person has some unique story about him, and many times those stories can be told by talking to other people. I always am interested in the star athlete's  wife, husband, father, mother, child, friend, etc. For instance, one Super Bowl, I did a column on quarterback Steve Young. But instead of fighting the masses to talk to him, I did something with his sister, who also was a very good athlete. She told the story that when Steve was a kid he wouldn't got to sleepovers with friends. So I had a column about this big tough quarterback afraid of sleepovers.

One other thing I try to do is to find unusual angles away from the game itself. At another Super Bowl, in Los Angeles, I decided to visit three high schools in gangland, to write about what it was like to be a football player in a place such as that, when the glitzy Super Bowl was just up the street.

Q: Have you ever had a confrontation with a sports personality who wasn't happy with something you wrote? How did you handle it?

A: A unique part of my job is that I usually am an outsider from a faraway place, so I don't have as many confrontations because people often don't know who I am. I had many more back when I used to write for the local Richmond, Ind., newspaper. Whenever I have had them, I always have tried to use calm logic, to explain what I wrote and why, and to listen. And I always have tried to put myself in that person's place, too. I spent four years on the school board in the town where I live. That was an invaluable experience, to be on the other side of reporting, and be a subject, not a writer.

Q: Editors say you write for more than just sports junkies. How do you do this, especially given your intimate knowledge of sports?

A: One of the compliments I enjoy hearing most is if someone tells me they don't read sports very often, but they do read my column. I always try to remember that sports are people, and people are stories. I try not to get too deep in terminology or statistics. Not that there is not a place for them on a sports page, but a column can be drowned by them. In my particular job, I also always try to remember that in such events as the World Series, Super Bowl, Masters, etc., people will be following that event who don't follow baseball, football or golf at any other time. Again, I think they come for the personalities, the drama, the emotions and the people.

Q: How do you get a reluctant interview subject to open up? Can you recall a situation where you had little hope for a good story but came away with something spectacular?

A: A few ideas on this. First, when I am dealing with athletes or coaches in talking about games and their jobs in them, I always make it clear that I understand they have a much closer insight into it than I do, they know more than I do, and the reason I am there is to get their perspective. I think the media comes across too often as a know-it-all and that turns interviewees off in sports. How can a chunky guy like me sit there and try to tell a pitcher what it is like to face a hitter in the ninth inning? I want him to know that I am asking these questions because I understand he does know, and I don't.

Also, when dealing with off-field issues, I try to find some common ground. Take away the games, and we are all people. For instance, I wanted to do a column from the Fiesta Bowl on an Ohio State player who lost both parents this season. An assistant coach was grumbling that people would ask about the subject, and I am not sure the kid would have said much. But I mentioned to him how I felt when I lost my mother, and if he had some of the same feelings, and I went from a stranger asking questions to sell newspapers to another man who had lost his mother. His quotes were wonderful.

Q: Most sports writers begin their careers covering local and high school sports at smaller newspapers, just as you did at the Palladium-Item in Richmond, Ind. What advice do you have for them and for aspiring sports writers who would like to cover sports on a national level as you do?

A: I would tell small-paper reporters what I miss from those days. I miss the intimacy. I miss the close connection between the newspaper and the community. I miss the feeling in the newsroom that basically we were all there together. I miss sometimes doing things outside my area that were fresh and new (once, I had to take a photo of a bus accident, beginning and ending my short-lived photographic career). Those are all values that help make a reporter, and in some ways, never will be matched at bigger papers. And I would tell them that even though the newspaper business demands urgent deadlines, sometimes it requires patience as well.

About the column

Watch, listen, learn. One of the best ways to improve your skills is to mimic those who excel. Talented journalists share how they do their jobs so you can "learn from the best."

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