Story by Ashley Moore
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| Photo by @ChrisBHaynesNBA |
At the time, Haynes had two jobs; one as a Portland Trailblazers reporter and the other as a security guard, only bringing home one paycheck. Haynes is far from where he'd once imagined.
Haynes now covers the 2016 NBA Champion Cleveland Cavaliers for the Cleveland Plain Dealer newspaper. He has a degree in kinesiology and originally wanted to be a P.E. coach, but quickly changed his mind after taking a writing class his junior year in college.
"I started to send stories out, little stories that I would write at home, send them to Slam magazine, Dime magazine and they were like ‘Okay this is pretty cool, this is decent, we would love to bring you on, but we can’t pay you anything,'" he said in a telephone interview.
He caught his first big break when Comcast Sports Network hired him to be a Trailblazers beat reporter on payroll. So how did he go from Portland to Cleveland? Relationships. Haynes says he hustled to establish relationships throughout the league to set himself apart from other reporters. Instead of just sticking to his beat, Haynes broke news from all over the NBA which helped him gain notoriety.
"Early on I was breaking stories through a lot of players because I had a relationship with them. I came up with the same upbringing as a lot of the players so I was able to establish that early on and from there, I started building up my contacts, breaking stories," Haynes said.
He has been a reporter for six-and-a-half years, covered two NBA teams, an NBA championship, and doesn't plan on slowing down any time soon. He attributes his impressive portfolio to his work ethic.
"Hustle. Stay on the grind," he said. "If you can find a way to separate yourself from the pack, go outside of what everyone else is doing, do what’s required and then some, I think it’ll be very difficult for an employer to let you go."
Chris Haynes Interview
Q. First we can start off by you giving a quick background
of who you are and what it is that you do?
A. Chris Haynes, I
cover the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA for the Cleveland Plain Dealer
newspaper. I’ve been doing this for 2 years now. Well I’ve been covering this
team for two years now. I got the job with LeBron. Shortly after LeBron announced
he was returning home. Before that, for four-and-a-half years I was the Portland
Trailblazers beat reporter for Comcast sports network southwest. So overall,
I’ve been covering the NBA for six-and-a-half years. That’s basically the genesis of where
I’ve been.
Q. So you said you’ve been covering the NBA, before
Cleveland you said you were with Portland for four-and-a-falf years, what would you say made you make that big switch from Portland to this NBA Champion
prospective team?
A. Good question, what I did was this. Like if you follow
me, I break news on not just the Cavs but league wide news. I started doing
that in Portland. And in a small market like Portland, it’s very hard or it’s
difficult to get notoriety or to be even on the radar so I started off breaking
news, not just Portland news but breaking news league wide. Other teams, other
players, transactions, trades, free agency signing and things of that matter so
that kind of put me on the map right there. So people were like ‘Man what’s up
with this dude all the way in Portland, how is he breaking news all the way in Chicago.’
Or New York or wherever? Because I knew that even though I loved what I was
doing, and I still do, I knew that probably all in all likelihood, Portland
wasn’t going to be my first and final stop and in order for me to try to move
up the ranks, I had to try to do stuff to kind of separate myself from the
pack, so that’s what I started doing in Portland and it helped me earn some
attention, a name nationally and so when the Cleveland Cavaliers beat job did
open up, I applied and I had people vouching for me, In the league, some of my
colleagues as well because I was known. And that’s what I would encourage. It
doesn’t have to be breaking news but I would encourage people, whatever
position you are doing to try to separate yourself from the pack in some way
because there’s a lot of people doing our jobs and there’s a lot of people in
our profession, that are being let go, that are being bought out. I can
imagine, there’s a ton of people that I admire and respect that have been laid
off in the last 5 years because of cut-backs and that’s just the nature of our
business. But if you can find a way to separate yourself from the pack, go
outside of what everyone else is doing, do what’s required and then some, I
think it’ll be very difficult for an employer to let you go. And then also,
I think it’ll have a huge benefit for your career moving down the line. So I
think that’s how I was able to flip my position covering the Portland Trailblazers, probably an obscure team, compared to other big market teams, but
that’s how I was about to flip that into this.
Q. You talked about setting yourself a part and how
you did it by breaking news everywhere, I figure that you can break news
because you have good connections within the industry. How would you say is,
how did you establish these connections across the NBA?
A. Well the thing, well in Portland it’s hard. Well I won’t
say very hard, I did it. You don’t have, well there’s not a lot of people based
there. In Chicago you have a lot agents based out there. You have a lot of
agents based in New York and a lot based in L.A. So if you’re in those markets,
it’s good for you to develop a sound relationship. What I did was, obviously I
looked up, you gotta know all the agents that represent the players that you’re
covering but also do your research and see who else the agents represent and
then what I did was I looked them up, got their numbers somehow and asking
here, looking up, researching online has a lot of the agents’ information,
emails and phone numbers. I did that and then while I was traveling, covering
the Portland Trailblazers, I would call some of these agents saying ‘hey man,
I’ll be in town, dinner on me. I’d like to meet blah blah blah,’ do stuff like
that. But also a lot of the
relationships that I built, probably even most of them, I built basically off
of a telephone conversation. Texting back and forth, phone conversations. And
another thing to is that a way to make these relationships strong is that you
can’t just call and be asking for something all the time, ask ask. Same with
executives, I do the same with executives. General Managers and people like that;
you can’t just be asking asking asking. It has to be some type of trade off. I
learned that early on from a bunch of veteran reporters, is that you have to
show them that you’re worth something as well so I do that sometimes. I’ll call
agents and executives and see what’s a good story I should be chasing or
whatever or have them point me in the right direction. And I look out for them,
any news I hear, I’ll call them and say ‘hey, I’m hearing this, blah blah blah’
and that helps develop a sound relationship so you’re not just always asking
asking asking because you have a whole bunch of reporters, constantly asking
asking asking and they never get any information. So it’s important to make
sure that, you know, you contribute in the relationship of some form or
fashion. So that was basically how I was able to try to help and solidify my
relationships.
Q. Alright so back to Portland, how did you get into the
sports realm? What made you become a sports writer?
A. You know what? I didn’t get a degree in this, my degree
is in kinesiology. I planned on being a physical education teacher. I took a
writing course, an African American writing course, my junior year in college
and I had no aspirations of being a writer whatsoever, a reporter, never even
knew I liked writing. As matter of fact, I thought I hated writing. But I took
this course, African American, I love history and we had to write a lot about
African American history and I did it and I found out like ‘man, I like this, I
can do this, I like this.’ And so what happened was I was like 'man let me see
if I can turn this into sports, if this is transferrable.' As far as my appeal
for it and I did that and I started liking it. And what I did was, before I
moved to Portland. I’m from Fresno, California, never really lived outside of
Fresno. I started to send stories out, little stories that I would write at
home, send them to Slam magazine, Dime magazine and they were like ‘Okay this
is pretty cool, this is decent, we would love to bring you on, but we can’t pay
you anything but we can get you credentialed, we can get you in the arena for
practices and games’ and I’m like cool. To make a long story short, I moved to
Portland and for about a year, maybe a little over a year, I worked at, I
graduated and worked as a security guard in a couple of apartment complexes,
minimum wage and you know I got a wife and four kids so obviously you know that
ain’t taking care of the bills but somehow we managed. But at night, I would go
to Blazer games and immediately I started breaking stories. Early on I was
breaking stories through a lot of players because I had a relationship with
them. I came up with the same upbringing as a lot of the players so I was able
to establish that early on and from there, I started building up my contacts,
breaking stories. So that whole year, I did that and made a name for myself in
Portland and I wasn’t getting paid a dime for it. and fortunately for me,
Comcast Sports Network opened up a beat position, to cover the team, travel to
every game, so when the position opened up, I took it and that’s how I got my,
essentially how I got my start to be where I am right now.
Q. Wow that was very inspiring, quick question, where do you
go to college?
A. Fresno State
Q. Fresno State and you’re from Fresno. Now let’s talk about
the Cleveland Cavaliers. Clearly the big team around the block, NBA champions.
Now when it comes to covering such a huge team, media wise and you have all the
national media people and everything like that, how is it that you find a way
to make a connection with these players when everyone else, outside of
Cleveland is constantly coming in their ears.
A. Well if you have a relationship, then you have it, it
doesn’t matter who’s trying to come. One thing like the playoffs, the further a
team goes the more coverage it gets. Like okay, say like the first round, you
got 16 different teams in the field so you have a whole bunch of different
media covering 16 different teams and then it dwindles down and it keeps
dwindling as the rounds go on. And then you get more and more people covering
your team and that’s fine, that’s more competition, that’s good. That’s okay,
but the relationships you establish, that’s one thing that helps you. You are
the beat reporter, you’re with the players all the time, so a lot of times
you’ll see LeBron, he’ll do his press conferences and right after the press
conferences, he’ll give me or somebody else some time 1on1 as we’re walking off
to, as they’re walking to their cars. And he’ll give you time just based off of
that relationship. Anytime you get 1on1 interviews, coverage, that’s something
that nobody else has so instead of writing about what happened in the press
conference in the “scrum” is what they call it, where all the reporters are
around the one player. Instead of you just getting your stuff from there, now
you have your own exclusive content. And if it’s big enough then people have to
refer to you, people have to come to your content or link to you, link back to
you. So that’s how, that’s basically how it’s done and it doesn’t matter who
all comes in and how many people get there in their ear, they’re gonna go to
who they’re familiar with and who they’re comfortable with and that’s based off
of how strong your relationship is.
Q I’m guessing you were a sports fan before you
became a sports reporter. With your knowledge in sports and what not, what is
it like, separating your reporter from your fan side? What is it like covering
one of the best players in the NBA?
A. It’s surreal, I’m not gonna lie, it’s surreal. I look at
it as I’m blessed and forced to cover, basically this is my Michael Jordan. I
wasn’t, I’m 33, I wasn’t, I was too young to know what it was like to cover
Jordan but I imagine this is, this is similar. You know, it’s great; it’s great
to cover a league that you’ve been watching, grew up watching, grew up trying
to get there yourself. But in a lot ways, I don’t mean to be a kill joy but in
a lot of ways, the fan hood for me has been kind of taken in this business.
Because you see a lot of things that go on behind the scenes and a lot of
things that you can’t really report on and it just, it took my fan hood away. I
love the game, I love the game of basketball, I love watching it, I love
watching players play at a high level and I get to see that almost every day so
I’m very blessed and fortunate in that regard. But as far as the fan hood, that
kind of went out the window once I started seeing the ends and outs of this
business and how things can be portrayed out there for the fans. Fans don’t get
to see all of it; they don’t hear all of it. They hear what the players said on
record and blah blah blah but I know what players say on and off the record, I
know what management says on and off the record so it’s not what’s perceived
out there. And so I think the best reporters are the ones that can accurately
give their fans, their followers the real, keep it 100. And a lot of times,
you’re not gonna be popular, I’m not popular, you’re not going to be well
receive because fans just don’t understand. So in that regard, that has changed
me since I’ve been in the business. Not a bad thing, I’m just being realistic
in telling it and trying to tell everybody ‘hey, it’s a business.’ And it’s not
just the NBA; it’s the NFL, Major League Baseball, any major sport. It’s always
this, there’s always something that’s not quite accurate all the time and it’s
portrayed as if it is. So that’s just the nature of the beast.
Q. Okay, One last question before you go. What advice would
you give to a young, aspiring sports reporter?
A. Hustle. Stay on the grind, especially; you’ve got to make
sure you separate yourself from the pack. Whatever job that is. I don’t care,
whatever job you’re doing, big or small that you start off in this field, go
above and beyond the call of duty because
it’s the only way you’re gonna get a look. The only way you’re gonna get
recognized, you have to come in here with that work ethic. And another thing is
this; it hurts a lot of relationships. My marriage isn’t the best, but this job is
not a 9 to 5, it’s not. I don’t care what field you’re in, it’s not. I don’t
care if you’re a TV reporter, sideline reporter, whatever. If you’re some type
of reporter, it’s not a job you can cut off at 5 o’clock. Because news is
happening constantly and then with social media, it’s certainly happening
constantly. So you just have to be aware of that, be willing to sacrifice and
hopefully you can reach the pinnacle of your desired field. But that’s it, just
know that you have to come in and work. It’s not that you can just clock in and
clock out at clear cut times each and every day.
Ashley: Okay well thank you so much for agreeing to let me
interview you.
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