Bridging reader-writer gaps

The difference between you and me is that I know who I am.

You can see my picture above this article, then read what I have to say and make a judgment, but you don't really know what I'm all about.

You might read something and decide I am a pretentious tool who takes himself too seriously and has illusions of one day breaking magnificent stories for a major newspaper and basking in my own glory.

Or you may think I'm a pathetic sports nut who sits on his ass all day watching SportsCenter reruns, eating chips and browsing the deepest depths of the Internet to find out how potential future Husky basketball recruits did in their middle school games that day.

I don't feel comfortable with the distance between readers and writers. So today I try and share some insight into who I am, where I'm coming from -- hopefully on some level where most of The Daily's sports staff is coming from -- and my opinion on the most important challenge for sports journalists at college papers.

The truth is that I, like most of the people who write sports for The Daily, find myself somewhere between the ambitious journalist and the sports freak. Part writing junkie and part sports fiend, but not defined by one passion or the other.

When my mind wanders in class, my daydreams are not limited to black-and-white visions of myself slaving over a typewriter, furiously composing a Pulitzer-caliber article with a cigar in the corner of my mouth, a fedora on my head and a loose tie around my neck.

I don't just ponder the win-loss impact of Tyrone Willingham's strict facial-hair policy or Ichiro Suzuki's on-deck stretch routine, either.

It's a little of both.

I'm a writer and I'm a fan -- and that's a problem. The problem being that the frigid and rigid world of journalism and the emotional, anarchic world of fandom are not compatible.

One requires a total abandonment of bias -- writing that walks a straight line of nonpartisanship. The other is defined by the reckless encouragement of bias.

Simply put, writing impartially about a team you are a fan of sucks in emotional situations and is always difficult to do.

It is something faced by sports writers at all levels. Roger Kahn, a childhood-fan-turned-beat-writer for the Brooklyn Dodgers, documented this struggle in his national bestseller, and iconic model of sports literature, The Boys of Summer.

But the conflict of the journalist/fan is especially prevalent -- and especially tough -- on college campuses.

First, realize that sports writers really like sports. If we didn't like sports, we would be news writers, arts writers, features writers -- poets maybe -- but not sports writers. We also really like writing. If we did not like writing, we would obviously not be writers.

Next consider that practically every sports fan on a college campus supports the school's teams. Try to think about the people you know who are big sports fans, but not big Husky fans. They are few and far between. Shockingly this trend also includes sports writers.

What you have then is a set of writers trying to compose balanced and efficient stories about something for which their feelings are far from balanced.

Unlike journalists for major newspapers, college sports writers don't spend their waking hours surrounded by other journalists. We spend them as fans, with our friends. A quick look at the Dawg Pack, for example, would reveal the faces of at least five Daily sports writers.

We lead a double life. We are fans at heart and writers at heart. The challenge is to subdue that fan side for those minutes when we must sit in front of a computer and do our journalistic duty.

Reach Daily columnist Eric Nusbaum at [url='mailto:ericnusbaum@thedaily.washington.edu']ericnusbaum@thedaily.washington.edu[/url].