'Read and reflect on writers you admire'

 

“Mywriting improved the more I wrote - and the more I read good writing, fromShakespeare on down.” – Dick Schaap
Born on this date in 1934, sportswriter, broadcaster and author Schaap was oneof my early writing heroes.   I alwaysthought it would be cool to write sports stories like he did and that he musthave been a natural at it from the get-go.
But Schaap said he struggled tolearn the profession just like the rest of us, even though, unlike the “rest”of us, he began his career at the ripe old age of 14 at the New York City-basedNassau Daily Review-Star while working for famed writer and editorJimmy Breslin.  He would later followBreslin to the Long Island Press and New York Herald Tribune.
After earning degrees from Cornelland the Columbia School of Journalism, he was assistant sports editor for Newsweek, and then moved to television,doing both news and sports for NBC, ABC and ESPN and earning 5 Emmys in theprocess.  In between he broke into thebook world co-authoring the wonderful InstantReplay with Green Bay Packer all-pro guard Jerry Kramer (one of my all-timefavorite sports books).  
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As a young sportswriter, I had thechance attend a talk by Schaap and afterward ask him for a bit of writing advice.   
“Read and reflect on writers youadmire,” he told me.  “And then modelyour writing after theirs.  If writingcaptures your attention, then don’t you want to write that way yourself?”