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This Sporting Life
August 17, 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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