Lunch
I just returned from lunch with one of my mentors in the business, SportsDay "superstar" columnist Jean-Jacques Taylor. Jacques has been one of my primary contacts and sources of help since my sophomore year of high school, and he and I were finally able to carve out some time to grab lunch and talk about the business.
In addition to stepping on his "soapbox" about a couple of issues, he was able to drop some advice on a variety of different topics, including:
- The importance of building relationships on a beat
- Always looking for news and finding out "why things happen," even if it doesn't matter 95 percent of the time
- Finding out who you can trust: both for stories and for advice
- Certain events or stories that stick out in his mind
- How to position yourself for good jobs and steps needed in college to do so
- How he obtained his columnist position after years in beat writing
- Why he refuses to believe the people who think "doom and gloom" for the journalism industry
We even had time for some other topics, including one of the best sporting events he's witnessed, as well as our shared infatuation with the NCAA Football series (including NCAA Football 08 dropping tomorrow - a day my brother and I will meet with much joy and celebration).
But now I return to my desk with things really beginning to pile up. I'll be covering a golf tournament later this week, which is making the amount of High School Football Preview work I have left seem much more daunting.
Comments
Ross, you calling in sick tomorrow?
Posted by: Matthew Haag | July 16, 2007 2:12 PM
I can neither confirm nor deny that statement.
However, the golf tournament I'm covering Wednesday-Friday will likely keep my NCAA addiction in check.
Posted by: Ross Taylor | July 16, 2007 3:09 PM
I remember picking up Sports Day on the Sunday after that high school football game (that I had not yet heard about.). If memory serves me correctly, the opening sentence referred to it being "the greatest high school football game ever played." I immediately looked at the writer's name because I thought he had to an idiot. The name belonged to Taylor. And he wasn't an idiot - he was spot on.
Posted by: Barry | July 16, 2007 4:22 PM