Gearing up for sports hacks' roasty hell

LockerRoom: Sometimes you're in. Sometimes you're out. The in-crowd are hard to read that way. You know you're out though when the Sports Editor calls you into his austere, book-lined office, stokes up his big cigar and tells you that in the middle of the greatest GAA season ever he's deporting you to the Olympics. He says that any place where there's a realistic terrorist threat, well, that's where he'd like you to be.

In such circumstances are you out with the in-crowd? Of course you are. In the language of the Games, out senor LockerRoom! Correct-o-mundo, amigo! The Olympics are that special roasty hell reserved for sports hacks. You know it. The Sports Editor knows it. The dogs in the street give you condescending smiles.

With a little grin the Sports Editor unfolds the big plan.

"You're staying in a hotel in, shall we say, the Balbriggan of Athens."

"How many stars?"

"Dunno. For stars, I'd say look out the window when it's dark. Also, you're covering the rowing, which is in, say, the Longford of Greece."

"Oh."

"And it begins at 7 a.m. Which is, say, the 5 a.m. of Ireland. So by the time we all get into the office at 11 you'll have that one done and dusted and you'll be ready to cover all the other stuff we're looking at on the TV, which is over there in the corner beside the nice whirring fan and the water cooler. You'll be able to work to deadline time, which is 10 p.m. or, say, the midnight of Greece."

You do the decent thing. You wrap your arms tightly around the Sports Editor's lower leg. You sob. You call him Sir. You offer him cheap, dirty sex. Again.

Then you abandon the pretence at dignity. You explain to the Sports Editor that with your laptop, your tape recorder, your Complete Guide to The Olympics, your Complete Guide to The Olympic City, your Greek for Big Fat Idiots phrasebook, your Olympic pharmaceutical primer, your batteries, your adapters, your biros and the three novels you must bring for reading while stuck in shuttle buses, with all that plus your sandwiches, well, you'll be toting more stuff through the midday heat than a non-unionised, steroid-crazy, pack mule could manage. And then you have to work.

"I'll die," you whimper.

"Could well happen," he says, "but let's get back to that pack mule thing."

He has a plan. The Editor. Not the mule.

"Sit down. I want to talk to you. Man to man. Mano a mano," he says suavely. "You're a mug," he says.

"Have you not seen how the younger guys are passing you out? They write more and they write longer. Tougher intros. Great metaphors. Punchy paragraphs. No whining about laptops. They have that attitude."

"What attitude?"

"Bring it on! Give me more! Pay me less! That attitude."

"Yeah?"

"Well, I want you to start writing smart. I want to see some of that from you."

"Yeah?"

"I want you to think about going on the gear."

"The gear?"

"The breakfast of champions. The speed in the read. Some herbs for your verbs. A little hammer for your grammar."

"Well, I'm not quite sure what you're talking about."

"The dope. The needle. The smarties. The va-va-voom! A few steroids to beef up the flaccid prose. Some EPO, just to get you through the long pieces. You'll write better, you'll write further, you'll write stronger. Sonny, it's still not to late for you to be a real sports journalist. C'mon, whaddya say?"

"I say I'm scared."

"Course you are. And the good news about you being scared? It puts you right ahead of the curve on the side effects. Your nuts are like shrunken raisins to begin with. You've always clung to that acned look. Be smart. You're either in the game or you're not. Don't be a schmuck. You're getting left behind, my friend. They're laughing at you."

"Who? The readers?"

"Absolutely not."

And then he drops the name of a well-known sports journalist.

"Sudden unexplained improvement in his stuff isn't there? He wasn't coming out with opinions like that nine months ago? He's using bloody adverbs now. And sentences with clauses. He's into simile. When was the last time you tried simile?

"You're getting old son, you're pushing on. You want to stay in this game you've to appreciate what's going on out there. Look at you. You can't write a milk note without using two cliches. You're typing has slowed. Your fingers are getting chubby. You used to have the best fingers in this business. Those fingers and that brown nosing got you this job. Now look at you."

He goes to his drawer. Brings out some old pieces. From when you were young. Back in the day.

"Look at the pace of that opening paragraph. Bang! The gun goes and you're off. Jesus, this is only nine years ago. You were doing this stuff that was only half a sentence behind the rest of them. Look! You've got an exclamation mark in the first line. Sure, the best guys now are doing three exclamation marks in the opening paragraph, three exclamation marks and an oblique but learned reference in some cases but you had nerve back then.

"What are you giving me now? Game of two halves? Losers looked gutted? Christ, there's guys in the Indo using irony these days. They'll be trying nuance next."

"But what if I get caught? My family. The shame. What if people notice that just as the Olympic Games come around my stuff gets suspiciously better? Won't there be innuendo? Won't there be talk in the media centre? Is there a chance of winning a prize?"

He leans back in his chair. He tilts his great granite chunk of a head back and gazes at the ceiling. He begins to laugh. His whole body shakes. Granite on top. Jelly below. Shaking and jiggling.

"You poor dumb sap. You poor innocent little gobshite. You're the fool whom other fools call El Presidente. You're idiot enough for three villages."

"Your point?"

"Look at this."

He flicks a button on his desktop. He begins reading out lists of ESB journalism award winners. After each name he makes reference to their drug of choice.

"So and So. Says he was writing at altitude. He's been sucking down the EPO since he was in DCU. Your man. Claims he picked up the bitter attitude passing the Sunday Independent offices. Doing roids since he was a freelance. Never looked back. His style has roid rage written all over it. Your wan? Andro in the morning. A little clenbuterol coming up to deadline time. She's hell on wheels."

"Japers!" you say. "Be the holy. Does the Union know?"

"The Union is in on it. The Union loves it. Go to the meetings. All those productivity deals. The name of the game is that everyone's hopped up on something."

"Back to my original point. I could die?"

"You could. You could die a slow and painfully shameful death, which is what your column often does. Or you could get with it. Give yourself a chance. Within a week you could be using three-syllable words in connection with beach volleyball."

And he holds aloft the golden syringe. Excalibur. Excelsior.

You offer your tired, saggy old backside. Close your eyes. Shout the magic words.

"Just Do It!"