Opening day tomorrow! But for now, a piece from one of my classes on Frank Seravalli, the Flyers beat reporter....
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No journalism degree? Well, that’s no problem for Philadelphia Daily News’ Flyers beat reporter Frank Seravalli.
A Penn State graduate and English major, Seravalli spent most of his college years interning and writing for newspapers instead of mastering his craft in the classroom.
“Very little actual journalism training,” Seravalli said. “The whole time I [was in college] I free lanced for a bunch of newspapers. Bucks County Courier Times…Delco Times…All just to get the name out there.”
“Basically made a lot of connections making a decent amount of money doing it. Covering pretty much every sport in high school from bowling to women’s volleyball.”
It may seem strange to Biology and Business majors on campuses across the country, but Seravalli’s story speaks volumes to the necessity of experience and connection in the journalism field. It’s not all about what you know but also whom you meet in the process. In the fall semester of his senior year at Penn State Seravalli was offered an internship at his future home---The Philadelphia Daily News.
There he had opportunities that most interns dream of as they listen to the steady buzz of a coffee maker, like covering Flyers’ games and the 2008 World Series.
After the internship ended Seravalli completed his English degree at Penn State. He was then accepted into Columbia’s graduate journalism program and moved into a new apartment in New York City.
Then the Flyers beat reporter at the time unexpectedly left his job right before the start of training camp.
And the Daily News came calling, again.
“I was lucky I hadn’t paid my tuition for Columbia,” Seravalli said. “We all know how expensive that is.”
It was a dream come true for Seravalli, who grew up playing the sport and calls himself a ‘hockey guy’.
“I was open to covering everything. I covered a lot of sports, just so many different things that Id be open to anything. This just happened to luck out,” Seravalli said.
He has not looked back since, covering the Flyers through its Stanley Cup Finals run last spring and a 2010-2011 season that has had the team at the top of the Eastern Conferences for most of its season.
That doesn’t mean the job comes with difficulties. Seeing a team at every practice, home and road game makes it difficult to find new angles and fresh perspectives.
“More often than not it’s about being creative,” said Seravalli. “After a while those stories can get a little monotonous. If there’s a long stretch of nothing happening you gotta find a new stat [the reader] wouldn’t find anywhere else.”
“There’s a lifestyle part to this job. Always checking twitter and media sites to catch up the news. I really enjoy it. “
Unlike a lot of the sports media Seravalli doesn’t want the use of social media sites and the 24-hour news cycle to overwhelm his first responsibility to the Daily News and his blog at Philly.com, Frequent Flyers.
“It’s not always important to be first, but to be right. So many people go out there and try and get it first and end up messing it up. Ill save info to keep it in the paper to give them a reason to come to philly.com and read the newspaper,” said Seravalli.
Still without an official journalism degree Seravalli covers a professional team in a top-five market.
Columbia is still waiting.
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