sports // 18

Sports Shorts

» The write idea, Mississippi mistakes,
and women’s b-ball falls short

   

Natalie Serafini
, Editor-in-Chief
“e editor

?, @theotherpress.ca

Sometimes sports news requires tidbits and brief bytes, rather than
lengthy in-depth articles. For those times, we suit up in our Sports
Shorts and delve into the curious occurrences of athletics.

 

Sports (pen)manship

Derek Jeter has started going into journalism—no really, I’m
being serious. The baseball player has founded a website,
titled the Players’ Tribune, dedicated to “[presenting] the
unfiltered voices of professional athletes, bringing fans closer
to the games they love than ever before.’ The premise of the
site is that it’s created, not by the usual sportswriters and
sportscasters, but by the players themselves. One of the site’s
first articles, titled “Let’s talk about domestic violence,” is
penned by Seahawks quarterback Russell Wilson—now senior
editor for the Players’ Tribune. In an interview on The Tonight
Show, Jeter denied that this new media outlet was a way to
get the sportswriting monopoly out of hands of journalists;
he stated, “This is not trying to eliminate sportswriters.
Sportswriters are what make sports great and fun to watch.
This is just another avenue for the athletes to use and express
themselves.” Regardless of motives, it'll be interesting to see
what the players’ of the tribune bring outside of the brawny
medium.

 

Women’s b-ball falls short

The Canadian women’s basketball team fell short against
Australia in the world championship’s quarter-finals, with a
score of 63-52. This comes as a surprise, as thee team had been
showing promise after destroying the Czech Republic team ina
score of 91-71. Canadian head coach Lisa Thomaidis stated that
their advantage against the experienced Czech team came from
the Canadian’s speed: “Our speed negates their size.” Although
the team is out of medal contention, they remain in the top
eight, and will compete in classification games to determine
their final standing. After winning against the Czech team,
Thomaidis said, “We're ecstatic to get to the top eight, the

last time we got there was 1994.” Indeed, in the last women’s
basketball world championships in 2010, the Canadian team
came in 12th. While top three is out of reach for them now, the
drastic improvement they’ve shown could hold if they continue
to use their speed to their advantage.

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Miss-step

The NCAA is taking a
closer look at several of the
University of Mississippi’s
athletic program’s

sports. The sports being
investigated include football
and women’s basketball,
although the allegations of
rule violations have not yet
been released. The hearing
date also hasn't been set
yet, but Ross Bjork, athletic
director of Ole Miss, is
cooperating with the NCAA
for the investigation. The
allegations will remain
unknown until the notice

is released, and questions
remain as to whether the
violations date back to
previous employees: former
Ole Miss women’s basketball
coach, Adrian Wiggins, was
fired along with two of his
assistants two years ago.

THE OTHER PRESS IS HIRING

 

 

FEATURES EDITOR

Wanna flex your lexicon on longer form pieces? Want to
dedicate some time and effort to producing more
in-depth articles?

The Features Editor is responsible for three articles for
four pages worth of content in the Features section. One
article in each issue should be 1,200 — 1,500 words long
for the cover story; the other two articles (“featurettes”)
should be roughly 800 — 900 words long.

Must haves

* Experience writing and editing, with a history in
student journalism a plus

¢ Strong writing skills

* Interest in student and community news and events

* Experience with conducting interviews

* Ability to produce quality, long-form content

* Ability to work with contributors and staff on producing
the Feature/featurettes, or to go in search of stories

Pay: $470/month

Interested? Apply by October 23, 2014 to
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