This Sporting Life
August 14, 2009

When I was a lad, my dream, like most kids, was to become a famous sportsman. My chosen sport was football (we no longer call it soccer) and my ambition was to emulate my heroes, like Bobby Charlton, George Best and Gordon Banks, who were superstars in their time.

Once I realised I wasn't going to be anywhere near them in the superstardom stratosphere, I wondered how, if I couldn't play like them, I could get near them. So I became a sports journalist!

They say every sportswriter is a wannabe sports star, and that's probably true. But those journalists don't care because, in their minds, they've got one of the best jobs in the world.

When I came to Australia, my sound knowledge of sport around the world stood me in good stead and enabled me to get a job on the now-defunct Sydney Sun as a sub-editor on the sports desk.

It is a dream job, there's no doubt in my mind about that and particularly for young people starting their journalism careers. The players you idolised as a kid could be the same players you to get to interview before or after a game. And you're getting paid to live out this dream!

I know many students at the Australian College of Journalism who love their sport and I can highly recommend, from personal experience, the rewards that such a career in journalism offers. It means hard, thankless work initially but if you show you love sport and have enough enthusiasm, it will take you a long way.

A close friend of mine, who was my deputy when I was a sports editor early in my career, is now covering the England cricket team for a national newspaper in the UK and gets to travel with them, to places such as the West Indies, India, and, of course, Australia! Whenever I speak to him I remind him that he's got the best job in the world!

Happy writing!

Gary Smith

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