Last year, over Winter Break, I met up with Alex Coffey, the Philadelphia Phillies beat writer for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Coffey is my favorite writer, and has been for many years, so I was thrilled to have the opportunity to speak to her and soak up some of the advice she had to share.
Naturally, it did not take long for our conversation to shift to the topic of being a woman in the male-dominated world of sports journalism. We shared similar anecdotes of being the only woman in the room, often an uncomfortable or awkward feeling. We shared stories of receiving unsolicited feedback from random readers who tried to tear us down or prove they knew more than we did. We discussed all the usual things that come with being a woman in sports.
But then Coffey said something that has stuck with me since. She said that, despite the challenges, there is a strength and advantage to being one of the few women in the room: There was a natural ease the players carried into conversations with Coffey, unafraid to be a little more vulnerable.
A few months later, I was at a panel where the legendary Claire Smith spoke. As the first woman to cover a Major League Baseball beat full-time and a Black woman, Smith undoubtedly faced obstacles in her career. Yet, she, too, said something similar to Coffey. Many told Smith that the wives of the Yankees players would likely hate her because she was constantly around the team. Instead, she was quick to gain favor with them because she knew not to call for an interview during dinner and would ask how players’ kids were doing when a wife answered the phone.
In sports journalism, some of the most basic lessons are to go beyond the game, view the athlete as a person with a story rather than just their stats, find an original spin on a story other people are also reporting and enter an interview with the understanding that the person you are speaking to is the expert.
Being a woman helps many of these things to come naturally to me. I have been raised to put people at ease and make them comfortable while speaking to them, which is key to a successful interview. It also allows me to see beyond just statistics and lends itself to a natural desire to know a person’s story. Being an “outsider” in the boys club means I naturally have a different perspective or spin on things.
Since having these conversations, my perspective on my position has shifted. There are still the usual challenges I have to deal with, and with the hopes of pursuing a full-time career in sports journalism, I expect to have to deal with them for the rest of my life. The random emails and the passive-aggressive comments aren’t going to go away no matter how well-established or credible I may prove myself to be. Neither is the fact that I bring a unique perspective to a field that is so often covered the same way, and that’s exactly what will make me successful and able to stand out as a writer.
