Writing mania

By Ed Piper, Jr.


Why I wrote five stories in two days on the boys basketball team over the weekend December 2-4:


1. My back wasn't hurting.


2. My back wasn't hurting due to football, which affects my attitude. (See other blog entries on the pain carrying my heavy camera equipment during football games causes me.)


3. It's a new sports season. New things often get my interest and create new energy.


4. I have a computer--finally--that doesn't freeze (though the email, which functioned without a hitch for a week, wouldn't open again this morning).


A malfunctioning computer, in my case, dampens my desire to create, and constricts endorphin flow. When you're gritting your teeth due to (1) a non-cooperative word processor, or (2) back spasms, or both, you're probably not going to write like a Nobel Laureate. (See my decreasing fall output, other than once-a-week football game stories.)


5. I know enough about what some of the members of the La Jolla boys basketball team have been up to since the spring, so I could cook up short "featurettes" on them.


6. My apologies to Gary Frank, La Jolla head baseball coach. I know that he reads my material frequently. I feel bad during the baseball season when I don't write lots of features about his team.


But the reality is that I didn't spend enough time around the team to do so last spring. Also, there are something like 13 sports in the spring, both boys and girls, including girls beach volleyball, and I enjoy the variety but my coverage of each sport gets diluted. (Plus my head can't take the straight sunshine for long, as I've written before, so when I do go, I often attend Gary's games later in the afternoon.)


7. I know more about basketball than any other sport, though my brother and I also played baseball growing up.


It's harder to write a story on a sport I didn't play and don't know from the inside. Also, in this day and age it is a little more tricky when arranging to interview a female than a male, due to issues of safety, conducting the interview in a public place, parents' concern, and so forth.


Plus the athletes in some sports know me less than in other sports. For example, when I asked soccer player Phoebe Riley for an interview two years ago, she asked, "Can I ask what purpose is this for?" I don't think she knew I have a blog, as well as a byline in the La Jolla Village News.


With cheerleader Sally Chen last fall, we agreed to meet at a Starbucks near her house, and her mother brought her and sat in the café. It's just wise these days to be public and to have a coach or family member in the vicinity. That way no one questions what is going on.