My Re-Purposing Project: The Curse of Little Brother
-My First attempt at Writing a True Sports Article
When the why I write was completed, we moved on to our next project for the semester: the re-purposing project. This was something I had actually been waiting for, as it was the main assignment that had caught my eye when we went through the syllabus on the first day of classes. The purpose of this assignment is to take an original piece and transform it to suit a different type of publication. When we read about the project, I could tell that this would be my chance to truly write my first sports article, and I was not about to pass that chance up. I already knew exactly what my source was going to be, and what the publication was going to be.
The Source - My Blog
Back on January 1st, 2014 Michigan State won the Rose Bowl and had claimed the number 3 spot in the nation. For Michigan State fans this was a day that I'm sure none of them will ever forget. For me however,as a Michigan fan, this hurt me. I had just witnessed Michigan lose their own low tier bowl game 4 days earlier, and watching Michigan State win one of the biggest bowl games of the season frustrated me. The only thing I could think of was that "Little Brother" had surpassed us. That idea bothered me so much, I couldn't just keep these thoughts to myself. So I went to my blog and began writing about how the moniker of Little Brother came to be, and why it has come back to haunt the Michigan Wolverines for the past 6 (now 7) years. It ended up being one of my favorite articles I wrote, and it was the article I knew I wanted to use for the repurposing project.
Publication Modle - Sports Illustrated
Around the time we were planning out the formats and publications we would be using for out projects, this issue of Sports Illustrated hit the stands. When I received a notification about it, and I pulled it up on the computer, I realized that this was the perfect publication for the story I wanted to tell. Out of all of the sports publications, I believe Sports Illustrated focuses more on telling sports stories than covering then industry trends like magazines such as ESPN the Magazine or Sporting News. I felt as though by using Sports Illustrated as a model, I could complete the project, while still writing in a style that I prefer over other publications. This also meant I would be able to use many pictures as I felt as though the story wouldn't really be complete without them.
All Elements of the First Draft
Each of these represents a different part of the process that went in to crafting this project exactly the way I wanted.
- First I had to do the proposal which helped me identify the exact audience that I would be writing for. I knew that it would have to be a sports fan, so this proposal helped me to figure out how detailed and data driven the article should be. I also had to address the limitations that this article and medium might present. This was helpful because it made me keep in mind that the article should be straight forward and that the audience would be at least somewhat knowledgable. This helped me determine how much sports lingo I could use as well as how detailed I would have to be.
- The next step was finding the data for the assignment. I found plenty of articles depicting exactly what happened in specific games along with the track record of specific coaches. What was most interesting is that I was not the only person who had noticed a change in the rivalry since the "Little Brother" comment. The New York times came out with an article 3 years after the comment that pretty much stated what I was saying, but didn't realize how long the trend would continue. This and other articles and data bases such as the College Football Reference helped me find all the data I needed. I even found some of the photos I wanted to use.
- Finally, before I formatted the article to actually look like an article from Sports Illustrated, I simply wrote the entire article out and turned it in early so I could get completed feedback. I wanted to make sure I had written everything I wanted to say and that my point came across correctly before I concerned myself about the layout. Finishing the draft early allowed me to better hone the piece and eliminate some of the content that wasn't necessary. Some of the paragraphs ended up being almost a whole page long, and that was not the original intention. It also helped me make sure I was writing this as similarly to a Sports Illustrated article that I could.
The Final Draft
Once I had several of my classmates peer-review the assignment, I knew what I was going to cut out and what needed to stay. This then led me to the formatting portion of the project. This actually took more time than I originally thought it would. Formatting photos to fit in the right location and making sure that all of the captions were the correct font size and color might not seem like it is a lot of work, but when you want the project to look just right, those are what becomes the most tedious. Still, once everything was set and done, I was very proud of my work, as when I was done, it looked as close to something I would see in a Sports Illustrated magazine as I could have gotten it. Although I am sure that it's not at the quality of an actual Sports Illustrated article, for my first formal sports article, I am very happy with how it turned out.