Strat14

 The story I’m using for this exercise is about Gators’ basketball recruit Walter Pitchford by Kevin Brockway of The Gainesville Sun.

The story is being told from Pitchford’s point-of-view as it was his visit to Florida on Feb. 12, that sealed the deal for him to commit to Billy Donovan’s team. The first three grafs are all attributed to Pitchford so it is easy to see where the Brockway’s information is coming from. But I would have liked to have seen phrases like “he” or “the 6-foot-10 forward” more in there as Pitchford’s name was in 18 of 19 paragraphs in this story.

Brockway only uses one other source in this story, ESPN recruiting analyst Dave Telep. It’s a strong and sufficient source because Telep answers the questions readers have on Pitchford: What type of player is he going to be like at Florida? Telep is an expert in his field but Pitchford is a two- to three-star athlete out of a possible five stars, meaning that Telep’s studying on Pitchford is very generalized. Usually analysts don’t give that much attention to such athletes and Telep’s quote in the story shows that.

The story as a whole could use a little more substance, in particular, a quote from Billy Donovan. As a reader, I want to know what Donovan sees in Pitchford that makes him an asset to the Gators basketball team, even though he is prospected to be a two- to three-star athlete. Even a quote from an assistant coach would suffice as well. Besides that, the story holds up as a great intro piece to Florida fans. It lets readers know why he chose Florida, and what he’ll be doing for the team once the seniors move on in their careers. Brockway supports Telep’s assertion of Pitchford as a “rotation guy” with the star rating from Rivals.com. Besides a Florida coach’s input, this story was put together well.