Game stories can be difficult to handle because of the pressure to meet a deadline and because of the essential similarity of the stories—one team wins, the other loses. The reporter copes with deadlines with careful preparations. This may mean arriving at a high school gym well ahead of the game to find a telephone that will be available late in the evening so that the story can be called in to the sports desk.

"With starting times constantly being pushed back—all World Series games are now played at night, for example—and deadlines always being moved forward, you simply can't have too much in your notebook too soon," says Ron Rapoport, deputy sports editor of the Chicago Sun-Times.

"As for post-game interviews in the locker room," says Rapoport, "the two worst things a reporter can do are (a) not have a line of inquiry or some questions prepared, and (b) not deviate from this preplanning when circumstances dictate. This may sound easy, but sometimes the hardest thing to do is to abandon the idea you worked so hard to formulate when something better suddenly comes along."

When she covered high school games out of town, Hands would trade information with local reporters. The exchange turned up nicknames, personal information about the players and the detail that gives a game story an individual touch.