DFZ INTERVIEWS MATT GILES: PART 1
Duke Fan Zone was fortunate enough to be able to interview the lead writer of BALL DURHAM, MATT GILES!! Matt is a sports reporter for both Ball Durham and the (Utah Jazz) J-Notes. DFZ is going to post a series, showing 1-3 questions per post. If you haven't checked out his website yet, you need to check it out. I guess you could say Duke Fan Zone has a little mini-sponsorship with Ball Durham... Just the deal doesn't involve money! 🤣 Anyway- we might as well start with question #1!! Scroll down to see it!
1. Can you tell me a little bit about writing for Ball Durham and the J Notes and how you were able to get so good at writing about sports?
Thank you for the "so good" compliment. I'm never as good as I want to be. And that's what I love most about my profession. I'm constantly looking to improve, whether it be by building my vocabulary, mixing up my sentences, learning from admired writers, or altering my overall style and approach.
Nowadays, by doing my best to build both Ball Durham and The J-Notes, I'm pretty much doing exactly what I had hoped to do when I was your age. So I can't complain.
Like you, as the son of a Duke grad, I grew up an avid Blue Devil fan. So the Ball Durham opportunity was a natural fit when I just randomly happened upon it in 2018. I have the freedom to write anything related to Duke sports. And I have the freedom to take a few days off, which comes in handy anytime other things come up or when my writing mind simply won't turn on all day long.
Yet the road to get here wasn't often as clear and simple as what I had envisioned as a kid. See, after briefly studying engineering at Duke (1999-2000) then majoring in journalism at Tennessee and eventually becoming the sports editor of the student newspaper there in 2004, I spent about 15 years working in a few different professions -- none of which involved sports writing. In other words, I'd say it's beneficial to embrace the outlook that you never know what tomorrow may bring.
When it comes to covering the Utah Jazz at The J-Notes, in late February, I noticed the site had been dormant for almost a year. I jumped at the chance to expand my role for FanSided while trying to expand my hoops expertise.
Why the Jazz? Well, when I was a teen in the late 1990s, they represented my best hope to prevent former Tar Heel Michael Jordan from winning so many titles with the Chicago Bulls; although the Jazz didn't win their battles in back-to-back NBA Finals (1997, 1998), their duo of John Stockton and Karl Malone was fun to watch. And then former Duke champ Carlos Boozer, whom I named a dog after, became a two-time All-Star with Utah (2007, 2008), which further drew my attention. Now, the head coach is Quin Snyder, who just so happened to be Duke's starting point guard when I first became a huge Blue Devil fan back in the 1987-88 season. So even though my Jazz knowledge isn't up to par with the Duke encyclopedia in my head, Snyder and his bunch are easy to like, and I like learning as I go while taking on a new challenge.