Adam Kilgore Recap
On Thursday, Feb. 25, the University of Maryland Sports Business Society welcomed esteemed sports journalist Adam Kilgore to the College Park campus. Kilgore, a Syracuse grad, has had two stints with the Washington Post: the first came in the form of an internship where he covered primarily college sports. He then joined the staff at the Boston Globe to cover the Boston Red Sox and returned to D.C. in 2010 to be the Post’s primary beat writer for the Washington Nationals.
Kilgore joined a group of UMD students to discuss how to be a successful sports journalist. Kilgore said that you have to understand all aspects of the sports industry to be able to write about it intelligently. He also stressed honesty and accuracy and reminded the students in attendance, many of whom are journalism majors, that “just because you have information, doesn’t mean that you have to publish it.”
Kilgore attested that the sports industry is all about relationships, and if a person wants to be successful in that industry they need to not only understand those relationships, but build relationships of their own. He said when first entering a Major League club house, he was surprised to see how the success of the team is dependent of the relationships that players have with managers, GMs, owners and each other. He also said that forming relationships was even essential to conversing with players every day and even joked that “there were weeks when [Jayson Werth] wouldn’t talk to be, but we got over that.”
Kilgore also admits that covering the same team for more than 160 games can be a challenge, and that there’s not going to be a breaking story every single game. Instead, he approaches each season like it is a book. “The season is a book and there are 162 chapters. You have to explain why that chapter is different and interesting from the other 161 chapters,” he said.
After covering two different teams for a number of years, Kilgore knows the league, players and ballparks inside and out. Despite spending time with the Green Monster at Fenway Park, at what many people consider to be baseball’s most historic ballpark, Kilgore lists his two favorite road teams to visit as the San Francisco Giants at AT&T Park and the Pittsburgh Pirates at PNC Park. And after interviewing dozens and dozens of major league players, Kilgore’s three favorites have all donned the Nationals jersey: Ryan Zimmerman, Ian Desmond and Jayson Werth.
Kilgore encourage students who want to pursue a career in journalism to jump of the opportunity to intern with any paper and, “say yes to any assignment.”
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