The University of Rhode Island
Department of Journalism

Following hoops in NYC takes major a step closer to dream

September 29, 2004 -- Internships are an important part of a journalism major's education, as Patrick Stevens' report about his summer experiences in The Big Apple demonstrates. Patrick is a senior from Warwick.

I said I would never write a story on Little League baseball once I graduate from college, and this past summer, I took some steps to avoid having to.

I’m doing everything in my power to not have to cover some city’s local sporting events. I want to be involved in basketball in some capacity, eventually covering the NBA or a franchise within the league, and I don’t exactly have the patience to go through the motions that a typical sports journalist does.

But after reading Kerry Sweeny's "Spotlight" essay here on our Journalism website, a start that could propel me to do what I want in life began to seem realistic.

For 11 weeks between May and August, I interned at College Sports TV. CSTV is a relatively new sports network that was developed by Brian Bedol, who developed what is now ESPN Classic. The best way to describe CSTV is that it’s like ESPN in that it’s a 24-hour sports network, except it covers strictly college sports and some prep/high school events. During my time there, I wrote feature stories, event previews and player profiles for the network’s website, collegesports.com. At the same time, I was also able to do some freelance work for Insidehoops.com, a website that I began freelancing for the summer before.

Kerry spent the summer of 2003 in New York City living in a New York University dorm room, thus allowing her to be closer to the city so she could intern at Chelo Publishing.

Now to me, timing is everything. I knew this past summer was my chance to do something big, and I also knew just being a writer for a college newspaper wasn’t going to cut it for what I hoped to do. I had to separate myself somehow, and with Kerry’s writing about her situation, it made me realize that a blueprint on how to eventually get somewhere that would help me establish some credibility as a basketball writer at a national level, meet some contacts, and get credit for school at the same time, was right in front of my eyes.

NYC has always been the place to be for summer basketball. Not only is it the home of events like the legendary Rucker Park/Entertainer’s Basketball Classic, the NBA Draft this year, and the Hunter College Nike Summer Pro-Amateur League, but more importantly for me, it is a recruiting hotbed.

Recruiting is an area of basketball that involves people from all three levels: high school, college and professional. Combine that with NYC bringing in not only the best area high school players, but also the top kids competing for college scholarships from around the country, and my plan was looking good. I would be around potential contacts at three levels of the game and covering some of the best summer ball on a national scale.

My philosophy going in was that the coverage I’d be doing deals with kids close to my age that are at a level in their careers where they are coming up in the game, just like I am coming up as a writer. This was going to be my way of "paying my dues."

Another key part of my summer decision, though, was the fact that not only did I feel I needed to be in NYC, I loved it there.

It was around winter time last year that I noticed Kerry’s story on the site. It was also the same time that I had just come back from covering the Jimmy Valvano Classic at Madison Square Garden in Manhattan for Insidehoops.com.

I had been to NYC one time before that -- for the Big East tournament in March. It was then that I got caught up in the city itself. The high-rises, the money-making atmosphere and the non-stop lifestyle got my attention. Yet when I went back in December for the Jimmy V Classic, I arrived there thinking the vibe I had got before was a one-time thing.

I got out of the car, walked 34^th Street like I had back in March, and said to myself: "Eh, it’s nothing special." Then I was in MSG on my laptop writing about what I love and I realized again that there was something different about covering a game there than there was at the Ryan Center.

Now granted I didn’t need an internship to make my way back to the city this summer, but it was necessary to have if I wanted to stay there for an extended period of time rather than just taking trips.

So through a contact that my uncle, Ed Quinlan, a URI Journalism grad himself, had during his time as Public Relations Director for the National Hockey League’s Washington Capitals in the mid-1990s, I landed the internship at CSTV.

I got the opportunity at CSTV to cover a lot of events that I actually wanted to cover, which was key in my positive review of the experience, and met some good people at the same time. One of those people actually has a friendship with URI men’s basketball Coach Jim Baron and Director of Basketball Operations Pat Clarke that dates back to the three’s college days at Saint Bonaventure. It is contacts like that which are benefiting me now, and other I made in the summer that should benefit me down the road.

During my time around the studio, for instance, I got to speak on several occasions with Seth Davis, who covers College Basketball for Sports Illustrated and is now an on-air talent for CSTV.

On the road at events, I met many people whom I hope to be dealing with more in the future and people I hope will remember my face. Among them were college coaches like Louisville’s Rick Pitino, Maryland’s Gary Williams and Indiana’s Mike Davis, Cardozo High School, N.Y., coach and The HoopScoop recruiting newsletter’s New York editor Ron Naclerio, founder of ABCD Camp Sonny Vaccaro, SLAM Magazine’s Senior Editor Ryan Jones, scouts and writers from across the country and numerous AAU coaches from throughout the country.

Aside from the people I met and the players I saw, my writing and interviewing also improved just by doing it more and more. Words of wisdom and my own reflection by being alone and away from home were intricate parts to my success and increased motivation too.

Through talking with people in the business, I’ve come to learn that half the game is your writing, the other half is your name. And even though it’s only your name that appears in the byline, you have to put a face with it in order to earn credibility and get the necessary information that elevates you above the rest. There are also other parts to building yourself as writer as well, like where you do it.

I got paid nothing all summer for the 20 some articles I did, but counteracting that was that I was placed in one of the media capitals of the country and doing what I loved. I had it fixed in my mind that I wasn’t going out there to necessarily have fun, but I was going to do work that would benefit me in the long run. And by doing so, I had numerous people tell me they admired the moves I was making and that it already has set me apart from others.

My parents, uncle and Professor Levin made it all happen for me, and I think this past summer is one that I will be talking about for years to come, perhaps to students such as me now when I am in the business.

If you have questions for Patrick, you can e-mail him.