In the third installment of Kingdom Interviews, Sam Amick of The Sacramento Bee was gracious enough to answer a host of questions about the Sacramento Kings. The first part of our chat covers the highs and lows of being the team's beat writer, expectations for Tyreke Evans and Kevin Martin, and his encounters with Bonzi Wells and Ron Artest. Also read Part II of the interview.
What made you decide to become a sportswriter, and do you have any advice for anyone aspiring to have a beat writing job?
I loved writing when I was younger and had an easy time with it because it was something that came naturally to me in school. I dabbled in the college paper, but during my first year of school, I didn’t get a rise out of news writing. It took until junior year for the light bulb to go off that I was a crazy sports fan. I went ahead and just cold-walked over to the paper and asked if I could help them.
The smartest thing I ever did was calling The Sacramento Bee during my junior year of school and basically telling them I wanted to get on their radar. I sent them my resume and was hired as a part-time clerk, doing everything from answering phones to taking scores on games and writing whenever they’d let me. After I had my degree, I went down the road to a local paper in Stockton called The Record to have something on my resume. I ended up doing four years of writing to get a full-time gig at The Bee, and then I was covering high school sports and went on to do college, baseball, before eventually hoops.
It’s probably the type of story that won’t happen again because of how things have changed – it’s your classic starting out at the newspaper as a copy boy and sticking around long enough to get a few people in your corner.
How would a typical day compare for you during the offseason as opposed to the regular season?
The offseason is all over the map. You go to practice and get out of there around 1 o’clock after talking to the guys and try to figure out what you have. Then you scurry back to the office and start working on your story. Most of the time I try as hard as I can get done by no later than 7 o’clock to meet the paper deadline and have dinner at home.
Article comments
1 - Matthew T. Sussman
Brad Miller's favorite Willy Wonka character is Violet Beauregarde.
2 - Dexter Fishmore
This is good stuff, Alex. I look forward to part two.
3 - doktakra
Thanks for the kind words, Dexter. Part II, which includes some interesting offseason analysis, is forthcoming.