By NICK MOSCHELLA
The Palm Beach Post

	GENERAL SESSION

For the record, Woody Paige isn't a goofball. He just plays one on TV.

The Cold Pizza commentator and Denver Post columnist is ready to turn down the volume on his high-definition hysterics and devote more time to his passion — writing.

"That's what I love," Paige said. "Television sucks."

Paige wants to be part of a crusade to invigorate writing in newspapers. His allies, veteran scribes who began their careers pounding away on Smith Coronas, are poised to do the same.

That commitment was clear at the APSE Convention, where Paige, Charlotte (Fla.) Sun managing editor Buddy Martin, Sporting News columnist Dave Kindred and Poynter Institute vice president and senior scholar Roy Peter Clark conducted a session titled "Writing Help: Send in the Coach."

"I'm concerned about voices, the writing in the sports pages, getting the message to the next generation," Martin said. "The generation before this one taught me and my peers how to write."

Martin wonders who, if anyone, is teaching this generation of sportswriters.

"Sports editors have so many tasks now," he said. "That leaves the most important thing, writing, at the bottom of the food chain."

Martin knows that in these days of limited staffs and tight budgets, a writing coach would be a luxury. He suggests recruiting a coach from within, finding a writer or editor who "cares about writing."

"Talking about writing is the most important thing," Martin said.

David Manning / David Manning Photography Woody Paige, left, and Buddy Martin make their case for the power of words.

Kindred recalls the time early in his career when he was covering a golf tournament and a high-ranking editor dispatched some advice: "Tell Dave to quit trying so hard."

Kindred believes the trigger to that bulletin was his description of players making high scores. "Something about elephants roller skating on greens," the award-winning author said, shaking his head and wincing at the memory.

"He took 10 seconds to write that note," Kindred said. "That's something you can do — take 10 seconds. Be gentle and guide the writer to the next paragraph."

Clark stressed the importance of storytelling, praising Kindred for that vanishing skill.

"One thing Dave taught me is how to use the notebook as a camera," Clark said. "You report cinematically."

Said Kindred: "Red Smith said to me a long time ago, 'Take the reader on your trip.'"

Dissecting a story is a good way to help a writer improve on the next piece, Clark said.

"I like to put on X-ray glasses," he said. "Look beneath the surface of a story and see what tools and strategies were used. If the writer figures out what worked, he can take those tools to the next story and make that good."

But in a time of shrinking space, short attention spans and surfing the web, is good writing being sacrificed for quick reads and bit-sized information nuggets?

Paige was warming up his laptop for a column at a recent golf tournament when he asked a colleague about his lead in the main story. The harried writer told him that he wouldn't be getting to that critical task for a while.

"He had to get his 'furniture' done,"' Paige said. "Shot of the day, hole of the day, how local guys did ..."

Paige's response to "furniture"?

"I'd rather read a good story than read good statistics," he said.

Paige believes newspapers look better than ever with all the sharp, splashy color and slick graphics. But he's reading too many 8-inch stories.

"Somewhere along the line we lost what's important — writing," he said. "It's like the song says — 'The day the music died.' Somewhere along the line the music died."

That's why Martin is ready to return to an old-school approach and lead the way back to sports pages worth reading.

"Writing is still the Holy Grail of what we do," Martin said. "Let's find the joy again. Keep the passion, have the zeal for the written word."

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