Advice is like. . .

On occasion, I get an email asking me for advice on how to follow this soccer-writing rainbow. I'm still trying to figure out how to do what I do myself, actually. I mean, to do it and also maintain some sort of sleep schedule, a life, and a measure of financial stability. Anyway, here's what I passed along.


Dear ******,

I can only give you advice from my personal experience, and it may not apply to your case at all, so pick and choose as you wish what's worth paying attention to.

Do something else. I don't mean give up on soccer journalism, but the reality of it is that it's difficult to cover soccer exclusively. I don't. I work on soccer part time. I also teach ESL. Another fellow journalist substitute teaches in elementary school. Grant Wahl, for my money the top soccer writer out there, writes mostly about college basketball. Other soccer journalists I know have also done PR, ad work, computer programming, and at least one is also an interior designer. Sadly, I know of one soccer writer who is completely unemployed right now, despite having years of experience for Soccer America and various newspapers. Another guy whose soccer experience goes back to the LA Aztecs just got pulled off the soccer beat and assigned somewhere else so that the NFL guy at his newspaper group could have more work.

So it's a smart idea to have a backup plan.

Try to limit how long you write for anyone for free. I did it for far too long. I think part of the reason I get paid so little is that it was hard to make outlets value what they previously had never paid for. Another tip is that print pays better than the Internet, nearly every time, so try to get print work if you can.

Be kind. Your soccer knowledge seems extensive, and depending on how you share that, it can turn some people off at times. It may not make sense, but a lot of editors believe their readers don't really know soccer, and aren't interested in the sport. You'll need to convince them that you can write a good story that happens to be about soccer, and that you won't talk down to their readers, or bore them with what they feel are unimportant details. I've learned this one the hard way. Of course, you can pick and choose when to use this - there are soccer people everywhere, even as editors, and some love the nitty-gritty.

Be fair. Soccer writing is a small world, so if you write in 2005 that Dominic Kinnear's naive strategy for the Earthquakes in the playoffs cost his team a great chance at the championship, be prepared to be interviewing him a couple of months later. Whether its writing that Bruce Arena's time should be done, no matter how well he does at the World Cup, or that Landon Donovan needs start shooting more at that tournament, or that Clint Dempsey should have taken that PK kick against Houston, or that Sunil Gulati promised one thing about the Olympic coach position and then changed it completely - you'll be talking to these people later. You need to believe your reasons for criticism have merit, so you can look the person in the eye. They may not want to ever speak to you again, though, so be prepared for that as well.

Be tough. There are a lot of fervent soccer fans. You are bound to offend some of them. If you manage to avoid that, you're probably boring them. Anyway, you may get a bunch of vicious emails or get links sent to you where people are discussing your intelligence, your level of mental illness, your weight, looks, your past history, who is paying you to write your drivel and specifics of what lake you should jump into.

Be persistent. My friend Greg Daurio just found a soccer writing job for a magazine by answering an ad on Craigslist. Now he can write about soccer fulltime. Don't give up on looking for your break.

Learn and practice another language. It's the world's game for a reason. I've used Spanish, and very hackneyed Portuguese, Italian, to get interviews. I also could have used German, Japanese, Korean, French and Chinese at various occasions.

Look at the entire picture. Some people think legitimacy is gained by being the one to point out all the valid wrongs in any situation, whether it be a player's game, a league, or the sport in general. But pointing out the negative so often actually limits the reader's perspective to the larger picture, because that type of writer is zeroing their focus in on only the bad. A story needs context to be really understood.

Have fun. There will be days in the pressbox when the wireless goes down, when the temperature is freezing, when the one player you wanted to talk to blows you off, when the batteries in your recorder die, when you misspell a player's name in an article, get a crucial fact wrong, get your foot stomped on by a TV journalist in spiked heels, when someone says you look/dress/smell/talk funny, when stories you worked hard on are rejected, and you inevitably think 'Why in the hell am I here, doing this?' If you can't think of a reason, if you can't remember the good times and decide the low pay and long hours are worth it, leave before you become bitter and snippy about everything in existence.

Good luck!