Windy city workforce

This department spotlights a relatively recent addition to the workforce, focusing on the person’s educational or working background, daily responsibilities, challenges, passions, frustrations and outlook for his or her future in the field.

Name: John Crist
Age: 32
Company: Bear Report Magazine and BearReport.com
Title: Publisher and Editor in Chief
College Path: Finance degree from Florida State University

How you ended up here: I worked in the financial industry for about five years and pretty much hated every single day, so I finally realized that I needed to make a major change in my life. During the summer of 2000, I was backpacking around Europe and stopping into an internet café once a week or so to send a mass e-mail to all my friends back home detailing my travels. The response I got was overwhelming, and several people wondered why I wasn’t a journalist because they enjoyed my writing so much. My first actual assignment was covering 12-year-olds in the Florida Little League state tournament for the Tallahassee Democrat. Fast forward several years, and now I’m a member of the Professional Football Writers of America and make my living talking to the likes of Rex Grossman and Brian Urlacher.

How long you’ve been at it: I’ve been a sports writer, at least in a freelance capacity, for about seven years, and this is my second season on the Bears’ beat.

Who you answer to, if anyone: I’m an independent contractor for Scout Media, the largest network of independent sports publications and websites in the country. Although there is a template in place for most everything I do, I have control over every word from cover to cover in the magazine and on the website no matter where the reader clicks. I’m essentially running my own business, which gives me a lot of autonomy to do things my own way and the ability to be as creative as I want.

Hours you expect to be at work: It varies greatly, but this is not a Monday-Friday, 9-5 job by any stretch of the imagination. I’ll work from dawn till dusk when I’m finalizing the next copy of the magazine, but then sometimes I can be done for the day before lunchtime. I drive up to Halas Hall — Bears headquarters in Lake Forest — on Wednesdays and Thursdays during the season for press conferences and locker-room interview sessions, and then Soldier Field is sort of my Sunday office.

Breakdown of what people anticipate from you: Bear Report is the only publication exclusively dedicated to your Chicago Bears. Quite simply, people anticipate the best coverage of the team money can buy. From the first whistle of training camp to the final gun at the Super Bowl and everything in between, I’m expected to be inside the ropes with a notebook in one hand and my digital recorder in the other.

What your friends assume you do all day: Play on the internet in my underwear, and they’re right a lot of the time. But most of them have no idea that covering the Bears is a 12-month job. My subscriptions actually take a dip during the regular season, but I get major spikes in February (NFL combine), March (free agency), April (NFL draft), May (minicamp), June (organized team activities or OTAs) and during the summer (training camp).

Best perk: Free food. The Bears feed us three times a day when we’re down in Bourbonnais for training camp, and then twice on game day in the press box. There are two ways to get rid of sports writers: Stop putting out free food, or start spreading rumors about a place down the road that is putting out free food.

What is one thing most people don’t realize about the life of a professional football player? Even I admit that the press responsibilities are sometimes too much, especially for head coach Lovie Smith. With the explosion of internet media and 24-hour coverage being provided by most everyone, rarely does a football player just get to be a football player. They can be somewhat anonymous when out in public because they wear a helmet on game day and aren’t always recognized, but there is always someone in print, radio, or television wanting to talk to them about something.

Who is generally the nicest Bear to deal with on a weekly basis? Few people are enjoying their life right now as much as kicker Robbie Gould, so he’s always willing to talk. Danieal Manning, who I’m interviewing in that photo, won’t fill your notebook with bulletin-board material, but he is a very nice young man. And although it kills me to say it because he’s a Gator and I’m a Seminole, Alex Brown is simply a delight and even spent some time talking with my girlfriend at the team hotel the night before Super Bowl XLI.

I have trouble dealing with… magazine deadlines. I’m the quintessential procrastinator, which is not a good thing in this line of business. But sometimes I do my best work when the clock is ticking dangerously close to zero hour.

Is there a writer you look up to more than most? It’s hard not to respect Bill Simmons at ESPN.com for using a grassroots approach to develop one of the biggest and most loyal readerships in the country.

Where can you go from here? For the first time in my professional life, I’m doing exactly what I want to do and can see myself doing it for the foreseeable future.

Why you have a smile when you come to work: Because I never wake up to an alarm clock, I can wear pretty much anything I want, and I get paid to write and talk about football all day.

Advice for joining the field: Write, write, and then write some more. I can’t tell you how many podunk publications I wrote for on a pro-bono basis just to get my name out there and work on my craft. Internet media will never be as well respected as print media, but it’s come a long way and is much easier to break into for the first time.

Does the NFL and the media almost feel like a fraternity of sorts? The NFL is one fraternity, and then the media is another. For example, beat writers from competing publications like the Sun-Times and Tribune are usually pretty good friends, sharing notes and interview transcriptions all the time. My job is a little bit different because I don’t work for a classic “daily.”

What might you change if given the chance? I’d eliminate that extra week between Championship Sunday and Super Bowl Sunday. The season is long enough, and there are only so many things you can write about before the big game. Trust me, even I get sick of all the media coverage sometimes.

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