The Wolverine: Covering University of Michigan Football and Sports
Issue link: https://comanpub.uberflip.com/i/362774
lax. Football season is chaotic at The Wolverine as we produce a twice-weekly newsletter, work on that month's 80- to 100-page magazine, offer eight to 12 daily features on TheWolverine.com and interact with our subscribers on The Fort message board. Thanks to clever planning, hard work and technology, we can load three to five stories to go "live" on the site Saturday while we recharge with friends. We're committed to providing our subscribers a thorough game-day experi- ence, however, so we spend the 90 minutes before kickoff interacting with the message board — posting the latest injury news or impressions from pregame warm-ups on the website. We hold a pregame chat 30 minutes before kickoff and we make ourselves available to The Fort during the entirety of the game. During the game, we're keenly observing players, position groups, coaching decisions and more so we can offer thorough analysis after it has ended. We may take notes, research stats, tweet items of interest, post opinions on the message board, and may even start writing a story or two, to get a jump on the editorial content. When the game ends, you'll find us scurrying down the stairs, around the concourse and into the media room. Michigan makes head coach Brady Hoke available for 15 to 20 minutes, and U-M also brings eight players — in groups of two — out to the podium for five to 10 minutes per duo. We almost always see at least two players on both sides of the ball, and the players are chosen by either their performance or as leadership representatives for the whole team (the players the coaches trust with a microphone after a difficult loss). With four attendees at each home game, The Wolverine generally sends at least one reporter to the visiting media room to collect quotes. A 3:30 game ends sometimes between 6:30 and 7 p.m., and we're back in the press box an hour after it ends to begin transcribing, writing game stories, features, columns, conducting podcasts and interacting on the message board. Most days, we tack a four- to five-hour window onto the end of the game as our finishing point, so for a 3:30 start time, our workday concludes around 11 p.m. For Michigan's two night games at The Big House against Notre Dame (in 2011 and 2013), the press box was still going strong at 4 a.m. Now you under- stand why sportswriters are not as thrilled by night games as the fans are. After a long day, it's time to retire (unless there is a top-20 evening contest on television, which as college football fans ourselves, we will invariably find the energy to watch). Sunday morning brings more features, analysis, message board conversation, and a review of both the Michigan game film and next week's opponent. Football season produces an additional 20 hours or more of work per week, but the best job in the world never really feels like work. — Michael Spath