I was a girl.
A chick.
A broad.
Hired to keep the EEOC off his back.
I should have been off writing for Glamour or Modern Bride. Professional sports reporting was no place for girl, at least in Walter’s mind. He’d never say it out loud, of course, because it would get his ass sued off. But I had worked for Walter since getting out of journalism school two years ago. I knew exactly how he felt about women journalists in sports, even good ones like me.
Walter was my editor at Sports Insider Online. He was the guy who assigned stories to writers and decided what went in the magazine, what went online, and what went in the trash.
Walter was an old-school sports guy, always reminiscing about the “good old days” and how things used to be, i.e. when all sports reporters were male. Walter was also a sexist pig who thought that “little girls” like me should be on the sidelines in slutty cheerleader outfits rather than on the field covering the game with the boys.
I sat in the chair across the desk from him and silently fumed for a minute. I’m not sure what I expected when I came in to pitch Walter the idea of me doing an exposé on Sean Donovan, the New York Kings star running back.
Hell, I didn’t even know if there was anything left to expose at this point. Sean Donovan had more dirt floating around the internet than Charlie Sheen, yet the good old boy sports reporters and TV analysts painted him to be a god.
The fans loved him, and who could blame them?
He averaged two touchdowns per game. And in football, that was all anyone cared about. As long as he wasn’t abusing women or kicking puppies, his off-the-field antics were more or less ignored.
Just boys being boys.
Blowing off a little steam.
It helped that he looked like the proverbial All American Hero.
Sean Donovan was six-three, packed with muscles, and could run the 40-yard dash in 4.5 seconds. He had caught more touchdown passes than any other Kings receiver in the past five years and was considered a shoe-in for this year’s Pro Bowl.
Why should anyone care about the testosterone-driven fights with other players on the field, or the drunken bar brawls with fans of other teams? Or the numerous sex videos floating around the internet? Jesus, this guy’s junk was on display more than Michelangelo’s statue of David. And Donovan’s junk was much bigger, if you know what I mean. I’d seen all the videos… for research purposes, of course.
But then there was the other side of Sean Donovan.
The side that donated millions of dollars to charity every year.
And the side that visited children’s hospitals in every city where the team played.
And the side that worked with inner city kids in New York City.
And the side that seems like a genuinely nice guy in TV interviews.
And that was the point of my pitch to Walter.
I wanted to find out which side was the real Sean Donovan.
I wanted to follow him around for a week or two and observe him as he went through his daily and nightly routines. I’d be a fly on the wall. I wanted to shadow him on and off the field, regardless of where that took me.
What made me think Sean Donovan would even agree to such an outrageous idea?
My own desperation, plain and simple.
I was tired of writing puff pieces about women’s tennis and girls’ volleyball.
I was tired of putting in hours of work only to see my stories relegated to the back of the magazine or buried deep in the website.
I was a serious journalist, goddammit.
And I could be great at my job, if only Walter would give me the chance.