14 Things You Need To Know If You Want A Career In Sports Media

Sometimes you WILL get handed a beer...on live TV

With graduation only a few months away, this is the time of year my inbox fills with requests from students (and parents of students) who want help, insight and guidance on landing a job or internship in sports media.

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Truth be told, it's one of the most exciting, challenging and downright fun career paths anyone can choose. You're covering games. You're interviewing All-Stars. You're traveling around the country, many times the world, to attend sporting events. You're doing things stuck-in-their-cubicle 9-to-5ers only wish they could do. Indoor sky diving with the Dallas Cowboys? Flying on a billionaire's private jet to watch his favorite football team play? Touring NBA players' mansions? Done. Done. And done.  It's the coolest of cool jobs.

But it's not all jets, games and glam. A career in sports media requires more than just a passion for your favorite team, reading ESPN and trolling Twitter. It's work. Hard work. It also takes a fair amount of resilience because you will make mistakes, you will get criticized and you will get scooped on a story.

RELATED: 5 Things You Need To Get Out Of Your Sports Media Internship

I have learned a lot during my sports media career which started in 1994 as a media services intern with the Houston Rockets and included stops in Guam, Knoxville, my hometown, Dallas and most recently Los Angeles. From truths about myself and the nature of individuals considered icons to the rhythms of a season and how to pose a question after a terrible loss, sports media is very much a business about people and relationships. To that end, there are certain things you should consider if you want a career in this industry.

Here are 14 things you need to know 
if you want a career in sports media:

Nuxe Rêve de Miel Lip Balm Review: A Gift From The Lip Balm Gods

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I have spent a small fortune on good lip balm. No mas! I finally found a lip balm that hydrates and lasts: Nuxe Rêve de Miel Ultra Nourishing Lip Balm.

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I bought this in Paris last November for about €12 or ($13.23 at the current exchange). It retails for $19 in the US but is worth it, IMO.

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A Brief History Of Fad Diets

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Perhaps it's because I have a tried a slew of fad diets (and failed) but I love diets. I enjoyed learning the history of them, the science behind them, the failure rate behind them. You get the idea. There's even a fun, new book by New York magazine writer Rebecca Harrington chronicling her adventures in celebrity dieting titled "I'll Have What She's Having, My Adventures In Celebrity Dieting". This book is heaven for a diet lover like me.

The History Of Fad Diets
The LA Times had a great feature this weekend on the history of fad diets, starting all the way back in 1825 when French gastronome Jean Brillat-Savarin introduced a low-carb regime called "The Physiology of Taste".

Since then fad diets have included eating all caribou and whale blubber (GAG), bananas and skim milk, food combining, the grapefruit diet and the Drinking Man's Diet (which is exactly what you think it is). They also include more popular ones like the Paleo Diet, the South Beach Diet and the Zone Diet.

The thing is that many of these so-called "fad diets" don't work because it's almost impossible to adopt these habits permanently. Think about it: can you eat only grapefruit forever? Or caribou? Can you go Paleo in perpetuity? Probably not.

You can do almost anything for a few days. That's why many of these fad diets take off initially. You drop a few pounds at the start and start feeling like a million bucks.

Then, reality sets in and you realize you can't eat only skim milk and bananas or diet bars or cabbage soup for the rest of your life. That's why "diets" don't work. 

If you read this blog, you know how I feel about dieting: eat well, mostly real food (produce and lean meats), get moving most days of the week and enjoy it. That's a recipe for success. As for dietary approaches, I love the Mediterranean philosophy which emphasizes plant-based food, replaces butter with healthy fats like olive oil, uses herbs and spices to flavor foods, limits red meat, advocated red wine and dark chocolate in moderation.

Your Fad Diet Experiments
Have you experimented with fad diets? I would love to learn about your crazy diet experiences, what worked and what didn't. Please share your diet disasters and success stories in the comments section. Don't worry. This is a judgement-free zone.

When I was fat, I tried the Zone & Atkins (hated them both).  It wasn't until I made permanent changes, like closing the kitchen after dinner, that I experienced real weight loss. Want to learn how I did it? Get my free guide "The 10 Easiest Diet Tips: Simple Secrets To Help You Lose Weight & Maintain Your Weight Loss For Good". It's yours when you sign up for the The Real Skinny, my weekly newsletter that features simple diet and fitness tips designed for busy people who live in the real world, not fantasy-diet-land.

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Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Rangers Spring Training But Are Too Afraid To Ask

Do you have a trip planned to Surprise, AZ for Rangers Spring Training? Wondering about the Rangers schedule? How to meet players? Where to stay, eat and play?

So many questions! I got your answers.

Check out "Everything You Wanted To Know About Rangers Spring Training But Were Too Afraid To Ask Hangout".

I cover anything and everything Rangers Spring Training.

Press PLAY to watch the Hangout HERE

How To Watch The Hangout
There two ways to watch the hangout:

1. Click THIS link to watch on YouTube. 
2. Simply watch from the video box in the blog post.

Click HERE to download my Rangers Spring Training cheat sheet featured in the video.

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Is Our Breakfast Cereal Is Making Us Fat? Maybe.

There are few things I love more than a huge bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal. Seriously. The cinnamon-y sugar goodness on top of those little squares is better than, well...you know...a lot of things.

The thing is, a bowl of Cinnamon Toast Crunch (or just about any other cereal, for that matter) can do more diet damage than good.

Here are 3 reasons why cereal makes us fat:

1. 1. We don't stick to one serving size. Who does? I don't. A serving of Cinnamon Toast Crunch is only 3/4 of a cup. Really? NO ONE eats only 3/4 of a cup. It's more like two cups. That's serious damage: 325 empty calories and 22 (!) grams of sugar, without even adding the milk. Try eating your cereal with a teaspoon, instead of a tablespoon and out of a coffee cup instead of a bowl to trick your mind you're eating more. (Tweet this).
2. 2. We add too much dried fruit and other crap. Craisins, raisins, dried apricots and the like can all be fat pills. They have barely any water which means they're dense in calories. While nuts are great, don't go too far. Add a few, not a handful. Use fresh fruit to get the benefit of more fiber and water content to help fill you up. Try higher-fiber and lower calorie berries. Half a cup of raspberries, for example, have 4 grams of fiber. 
3. 3. We eat kids cereal. There's a reason I don't keep Cinnamon Toast Crunch in the house: I would eat the whole box. These children's cereals provide a ton of sugar but little nutritional value. Kinda scary, actually. Look for cereals with fewer than 5 grams of sugar. Or make this oatmeal with peanut butter, apples and cinnamon. Delicious. 

Why I Gave Up Breakfast Cereal 
I gave up breakfast cereal about 15 years ago. Not coincidentally, I believe, I lost weight. I have no "off button" when it comes to breakfast cereal. I can't stop eating it, that's why I rarely eat Cinnamon Toast Crunch. Even when I'm trying to be "healthy" and have something like Fiber 1 or Kashi Go Lean, I usually end up eating two bowls of it and, you know what, I'm hungry a few hours later. Cereal is not a satiating food. In my opinion, it's a fat pill (Tweet this).

When you're eating breakfast, get some protein in the mix, whether it's eggs, whey protein powder, nut butter, low-sugar/high-protein yogurt or lean meat. Protein takes longer to digest than carbohydrates and keeps you full longer. 

I love two scrambled eggs with salsa and spinach with a side of berries or a green smoothie with whey protein powder (make it with two handfuls of spinach or kale, half a banana and whatever berries you or other fruit you have on hand). When all else fails, I'll grab a few hard boiled eggs (boil a half dozen of them at the beginning of the week).  If you can't give up your cereal, here are some low-sugar cereal options.

Do you like cereal or are you like me and try to keep out of the house? I'd love to know what your favorite breakfast is. Let me know in the comments section. 

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