The secrets to being a sports columnist
People sometimes ask me where I get the ideas for my columns, and by people I mean one person ever.
On the train, years ago.
That time on the 5pm out of Heuston I told the man I usually went to the ideas shop but he had already fallen asleep, head down in his Supermac’s. I hope he was able to get that special sauce out of his hair after.
Anyway, if I am ever stumped for a notion, I have a fail-safe question I ask: what would my favourite fictional sportswriter do?
My first port of call is usually Oscar Madison. Not the late-eighties vogue for pubs of the same name, but the slob roommate from The Odd Couple, either Walter Matthau or Jack Klugman, all depending. It’s funny that Oscar — unkempt, disorganised, dishevelled — is the very picture of a sportswriter in the popular imagination, or at least it would be funny if it wasn’t an accurate picture of all the sportswriters I know.
However, Oscar appears to save his best lines for incidentals, like the horrific food he serves his pals (“I got brown sandwiches and green sandwiches, it’s either very new cheese or very old meat.”).
I have a notion of Oscar battering his typewriter noisily, filing with minutes to spare, but sizzling columns? I think Oscar prefers stirring it up with a story that upsets management and fielding the angry phone calls that result.
My next port of call is usually Ray Romano from Everybody Loves Raymond, though that’s not always a fruitful line of inquiry either.
This is because Ray lives the life every sportswriter would love to lead, loafing around in a mouldy tracksuit pants at home, watching the TV, making bowls of cereal whenever he likes and . . . here’s the most remarkable thing about Ray the sportwriter.
The office never rings him.
In the episodes, 20-odd minutes of minor tribulations and heart-warming lessons spiced with the occasional double entendre, the sports editor never calls to ask where his copy is.
Heaven to this sportswriter, but not great for a colleague trying to fill a column, eh?
For true inspiration I go to Jack Rose, played by John C McGinley, in Any Given Sunday.
This never-knowingly-underplayed American football flick shows the pro game from every angle, including Jack’s. He’s the sportswriter who’s at odds with head coach Tony D’Amato (Al Pacino) and Jack is a godsend because he is talking us through his column as he writes it.
When Tony sends in inexperienced quarterback Willie Beamen (Jamie Foxx), Jack exclaims in the press box: “Can you believe D’Amato’s luck? He’s looking at four losses in a row and his ass is saved by this nobody? What a story!” Cheers, Jack. By simply saying out loud what’s in front of his eyes he gets his column done. Hero.
In fact, that’s not the end of the lessons Jack teaches. Even the old ‘coach/manager trying to embarrass the hack’ approach doesn’t deter him.
When Jack questions D’Amato about his tactics the coach says: “You know Jack, I’ve always loved the running game, but I read so much about it because of you, I decided I’m gonna give it up.” “The running game?” says Jack. “No,” says the coach. “Reading you.”
Jack comes back strong, though, and fires another question at the coach.
Undaunted!
It goes downhill later on when D’Amato hits him and is forced to apologise, but in the end, when the coach finally steps down, Jack is magnanimous enough to say he’ll miss his nemesis. Jack Rose, ladies and gentlemen. Saving fellow sportswriters since 1999.
Skull and crossbones are flying high
Congratulations to UCC on an impressive double in hurling and Gaelic football in the last week.
The Sigerson Cup was picked up by the College on a 0-16 to 1-9 scoreline against St Mary’s last Wednesday night, while on Saturday UCC won the Fitzgibbon Cup with a 2-21 to 0-13 win over Mary Immaculate College.
Not a great Marian week all round, then, but more company for soccer’s Collingwood Cup, already in UCC.
A few years ago I wrote a piece about third-level GAA competitions and fielded a few phone calls afterwards, most of them from people trying might and main to identify some colleges of wrongdoing in terms of player eligibility.
(You needn’t worry: I won’t inflict any tales from the dark ages about players “doing sums” at this point. I have too much respect for you all.)
At one point I got a phone call from a man with years of involvement at the sharp end of third-level GAA who gave me an entertaining if entirely libellous rundown of the sins of some colleges.
“Not UCC, though,” he said. “In fairness, they run their teams the right way and they deserve whatever they win.”
For your reading pleasure this week
A couple of good ones on the horizon if you’re a fan of crime writing, folks.
Thomas Harris, the man who invented Hannibal Lecter, has a new book — non-Lecter-related — out in May, but if you can’t wait that long I can confidently recommend Don Winslow’s The Border, sight unseen.
The Force, Winslow’s last book, was an outstanding read, but I understand The Border forms part of a trilogy with The Power Of The Dog and The Cartel. The New York Times called The Border “unputdownable”: vintage Winslow, then.
If that’s not to your taste try another favourite of this column — David Thomson, the greatest writer on film there is. His newest is Sleeping With Strangers: How the Movies Shaped Desire, perfect for someone with a birthday on the horizon.
