By Gary Lloyd
PINSON — I came to talk about the inverted pyramid writing style and the importance of accuracy, but Alabama football is just too fascinating.
I was asked to speak to Jennifer Moore’s 1:30 p.m. Pinson Valley High School creative writing class Wednesday, about how working on the yearbook staff in high school convinced me to pursue this as my career, job challenges, the story writing process and more. I’ve spoken to a Rotary club and a small journalism class, but this was different.
I mentioned that while in college I covered Alabama football, recruiting, men’s basketball and softball as an intern for a website. One of the four girls at a square-shaped table in the back of the room asked if I knew AJ McCarron. When I said no, but I had talked with predecessor Greg McElroy on multiple occasions, the disappointment felt obvious, as if I had told her that no, I had not sat with Batman, but rather settled for Robin.
It was a fun 45 minutes, though, something not easy for me to say about public speaking. I had, after all, weaseled my way out of taking that particular course in college. I briefly explained how I do what I do each day and why, and how the world of journalism today is so competitive with social media such as Twitter.
But I wanted these 30 students to know more than how to drive traffic to a website and what questions to ask a busy mayor or a school superintendent or a tough baseball coach. Should they choose this career path, I don’t want them to just “fit in,” I told them. I told them to write each sentence descriptively, with colors and numbers and feeling. Turn a page of a few hundred words into an attractive picture. Even describe the seemingly mundane things. I find NASCAR — outside of Dayton and Talladega — to be relatively boring, with the perpetual turning to the left for hours on end, even if it is at 200 mph. But I read a lot of Lars Anderson, who’s covered the sport for Sports Illustrated and details Dale Jr. racing his No. 88 Chevrolet to Victory Lane last month in the March 3 issue. I read it because it shows me instead of tells me how the son of The Intimidator beat the field and celebrated into the wee hours.
I told them reading books by Rick Bragg is a great thing to do. Though the pages are beginning to fray and the paperbacks are worn out, I still have all his books in my house, to use as an accelerant when I can’t get the creative juices flowing. To be a good writer, you need to be a good reader, I told them.
For the most part, these students seemed to have a genuine curiosity about journalism and creative writing, something I sincerely didn’t expect in this 140-character news world. One boy asked me multiple questions about covering sports and where I see myself in 10 years, while one girl asked me about six questions.
“A budding journalist,” Moore called her.
Maybe these students were perpetuating my time there, to avoid school work by not letting the guest speaker get away. Hey, we’ve all tried that in high school, to put off the busy work. But I don’t believe this to be the case. There was authentic marvel in some of their eyes about the possibility of their names appearing in print, some with constant nodding of their heads as if they understood what they had to do to get where they want to go.
Or perhaps the intrigue of a high school cheerleader getting to potentially interview AJ McCarron is just too good to ignore.
Contact Gary Lloyd at news@trussvilletribune.com and follow him on Twitter @GaryALloyd.