By BUDDY MARTIN
Charlotte (Fla.) Sun

Today's sports editors are morphing into bureaucrats who perhaps have confused activity with achievement.

In our business, it's still all about the power of the words.

So who's minding the store? You know — the store where they keep all those family jewels called words, sentences and paragraphs?

In most cases, it's not the sports editor or executive sports editor.

Lately, that bothers me a lot. As a former sports editor and columnist now masquerading as a managing editor, I fear the legacy passed down to my generation by dedicated, gifted writers and editors has gone the way of the typewriter.

The generation before me had conviction about the words, as evidenced by the fact that many sports editors were the best writers in the department and, therefore, designated well-constructed stories as their priority. They not only sweated over their own columns and stories, but nurtured other writers as well.

Before anybody surmises that this is a nostalgic yearning for the Good Ol' Days, let me say I think today's sports sections are better than ever — more complete, timelier, better designed and, in some cases, better written. So why the concern?

Writing used to be the holy grail of sports. You almost never hear writers and editors talking about writing anymore. And you never hear writers leaving a press box, discussing their leads.

Even if they did need some counsel, where would the writers go for help? Mostly, the criteria for good work by a reporter or columnist these days is:

• Did it make deadline?

• Did it fit the hole?

• Was it factual and not libelous?

All good questions, but hardly a good mantra.

Good writing should be exalted, celebrated.

Today, sports editors who edit, assign and coach writers anymore are a rarity. Maybe it's not their fault that the emphasis on writing has shifted and perhaps diminished, because so much of their day is filled with busywork. However, it's still their responsibility to keep words from sliding too far down the food chain.

Raise your hand if you did any of the following things this week:

Made out a work schedule, attended multiple news meetings, dealt with the human resource department about an employee, held a staff meeting, barked at your assistant editors about missing deadlines, answered e-mails from readers, took calls from readers, signed off on travel plans, okayed expense reports, talked to your spouse about dinner plans, met with your boss about the new ethics guidelines, interviewed prospective staffers, picked up your kids from soccer, called your mechanic about the squeak in your brakes, picked out art for the section cover or asked your managing editor about that pending raise.

Oh yes, and did you talk to a writer about his or her story?

Odds are you did some of the former, but not the latter.

Given this trend, somebody needs to step in and fill the void.

But who?

And how?

This was a topic of conversation over lunch recently with my friend Dr. Roy Peter Clark, a former St. Petersburg Times colleague and now a renowned writing coach/instructor and Poynter Institute vice president.

Recently I was a member of Clark's faculty at Poynter on coaching other writing coaches. It was there I had the revelation that writing coaches could actually take up the slack in departments where editors weren't attending to writers nearly as much anymore — especially sports.

We talked about starting a "high summit" on sports writing, possibly at Poynter, at which we would discuss the issue of hands-on coaching by non-editors.

At the Super Bowl in Jacksonville, I encountered Van McKenzie of the Orlando Sentinel and Dave Kindred of Sporting News/Golf Digest, both of whom shared my concern about those sports editors who were derelict in their word duties. I told them about the idea of holding the "high summit" at the Poynter Institute.

Kindred echoed the need to reemphasize the importance of writing and coaching in a public forum. We began to brainstorm the idea of gathering a group of writers to talk about their needs, concerns and suggestions on how to pay more attention to the family jewels.

We all liked the idea of a high summit.

"But why don't you do it at the APSE convention in June?" asked McKenzie.

A few e-mails later, we had a green light from Jerry Micco of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette for an APSE program, and then put together a panel called "Writing Help: Send In The Coach."

On Friday, June 24 at 8:30 a.m. in the Ritz-Carlton Grande Lakes Hotel in Orlando, four noted writers and Dr. Clark will address this issue before the APSE conventioneers.

In addition to Clark and Kindred, the group includes Washington Post columnist/author Sally Jenkins, Kansas City Star columnist/radio show host Jason Whitlock and Denver Post columnist/ESPN Cold Pizza host Woody Paige.

Hopefully, this panel discussion will turn out to be more of an achievement than an activity.

Buddy Martin is managing editor of the Charlotte (Fla.) Sun, a Pulitzer finalist for Breaking News in 2005. He is the former sports editor of Florida Today, The St. Petersburg Times, New York Daily News and Denver Post.

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