The world of sports journalism is heavily dependent on experience and connections. As I begin my journey in this world, I decided in July of 2018 that I should get my name out there.
My first attempt was with a man named Joey, who runs TheHoopCentral.com. He tweeted that he was in need of writers for his website, and I responded. The, he asked me for an original article. Since I was looking for this to be my first opportunity writing, I didn’t have any articles to offer, so I stayed up until 6:00 in the morning to write an article about the New York Knicks’ outlook for the 2018-19 season.
Although he accepted me as a writer and added me to a GroupMe chat with the other writers, things didn’t go any farther. Several login issues and Joey dealing with a personal issue caused my time with HoopCentral to an end, as I had already begun writing articles for a different website, HoopsHabit.
(disclaimer: I hold nothing persona against Joey and his site. He’s a good person who did his best to help me and is very dedicated to his craft.)
As writing for HoopCentral started to fade, I reached out to a couple basketball news outlets, and HoopsHabit, a part of the Fansided network, was the first (and only) site to respond. After submitting sample articles and reviewing their code of conduct and rules regarding plagiarism, I finally started writing basketball with the Miami Heat being the team I was assigned to write about.
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