There are a lot of complaints about journalism these days, but one of the problems with the profession is also one of the less obvious: no journalists are athletes anymore.
Jack Kerouac was a high school football star. Norman Mailer a boxer. Hunter S. Thompson founded a sports club in grade school. William F. Buckley was a sailor and skier.
In her new book, The Right Call: What Sports Teach Us About Work and Life, sportswriter Sally Jenkins notes that “essential elements of athletic success include conditioning, practice, discipline, candor, culture, and learning from failure.” All of these things are also key to making a great journalist. Playing a sport makes you more interesting, open-minded, versatile, and creative, and thinking on your feet during a game or on a sailboat translates to thinking both with great focus and also outside the box when working on stories.
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