jacklydon.com Website Review by Jared Polin

I have been watching his You Tube channel for years now. I respect his talent and his opinions. It’s not like he did me a personal favor. He does for anyone who asks (and pays him a modest sum). Early this year, Jared Polin, a You Tuber, photographer, content creator, etc., reviewed my website on video and let me have it.

My website has been basically the same since I started it about four and a half years ago, December 2017. I started publishing my photos and stories in the Center Square Journal about ten years ago. That local new website became Chicago Bulldog Media. I posted my photos on its website and Facebook page but unfortunately that paper went under too. Then the PublicLeague.com. It went under too. Then IL Preps Insider. Luke Druze gave that up a year or so ago. I don’t have good luck with publishers. I tend to kill them off.

Now I write for Inside Publications and mostly publish my photos on this website. Inside has been around for a while. It is a proper print publication and will undoubtedly survive, even with me on board.

My website has been the same for far too long. I played around with changes several times but I always liked what I had better. Late last year I saw that Jared Polin was offering critiques of photos and websites so I signed up. He actually did this critique about eight months ago. In typical fashion, I am just now getting around to posting it and changing the website now.

The video is posted here. I thought I would leave the website as is so my readers could look at it after watching the video and judge for themselves. My plan is to changer the website not look after the video is released. so you can decide for yourselves is the changes were beneficial. Let me know what you think. Let me know what you think of Jared’s critique and let me know what you think of the changes I will make.

Should I continuing writing?

Sun-Times writer Mike Clark came to the DePaul Prep stadium opener to cover the Marian Catholic game for his main job as preps editor for the Northwest Indiana Times. It’s always great to see Mike. He is such a great guy and so much fun to talk to about prep sports. Just so much knowledge.

He asked me how I liked writing.

“Sports writing is hard,” I told him.

I like to think of myself as a competent writer. Most of what I do is technical writing. I concentrate on clarity and brevity. That should translate to sports writing I thought. I was not looking to win any Pulizer prizes. Just say what happened and publish a photo. Four or five weeks into writing pieces for Inside Publications, such as they are, I am not so sure it’s a good idea. My writing hasn’t been good. And by that I mean, it’s “bad.”

Ten years ago, I started covering sports and politics for Patrick Boylan’s Center Square Journal. It was hard and time consuming. I gave it up to concentrate on photography. I love the photography. I have gotten pretty good at it. It’s opened doors for me.

I knew all this when I approached Inside about writing a prep sports column. My thinking was I don’t have to write well. Who really cares? I didn’t want to be so proud that if I can’t do it as well as real sports writers, I won’t do it at all. There is so little coverage of high school sports that people will just be glad to have more. The Inside publisher loved the idea. He didn’t seem concerned with my amateur status.

As I was talking to Mike outside the DePaul Prep stadium, he clearly had read my articles although he graciously never said as much.

“You are telling a story. Nobody wants to hear too much of the game action,” he said. “Just figure out what the story is and write about it.”

Mike is so right. His gentle advise affirmed my thinking. He inspired me to keep going. He pointed me in the right direction on how to be a good sports writer.

Thanks Mike.