A lot of my students want to cover sports. Between ESPN and dozens of other cable channels, and the thousands of blogs that have sprouted up, sports journalism is everywhere, and students have seen that it can be an exciting career.

But instead of working their way up the career ladder, many students are only interested in covering - you guessed it - pro sports. The NFL, NBA, NHL and the major leagues are what interests them.

But very few people start out covering the pro teams. Most sportswriters start their careers covering local high school and small college teams.

Still, I get plenty of students who want to write columns about the Eagles (I'm in the Philly area), Phillies, 76ers and Flyers. College sports? Who cares?

The problem is, unless you're a writer with a major news outlet who has press credentials, you're not going to be able to attend press conferences and do interviews with big-time athletes and coaches. They just won't be accessible to you.

So anything you write about pro teams will be based on information you've gotten from other sources - ESPN, your local paper's sports section, and so on. You'll basically just be rehashing what other people have already reported and written. And that's not how you acquire the skills necessary to be a real sportswriter.

But if you're covering local sports you can cover the games yourself, not by watching them on TV. You can conduct your own interviews with the athletes and coaches.

You can do your own reporting, then write stories that will be yours and yours alone. You won't be regurgitating somebody else's work.

What you'll quickly discover is that covering sports on the local level is great experience. Whether you're covering a high school football game, interviewing the star of your college soccer team or doing a profile of the women's volleyball team coach, all those things will prepare you well for the day when you make it to the big leagues.

Along the way you'll also find that covering local sports can also be incredibly fun. Sure, the athletes aren't making astronomical salaries and the teams aren't playing in front of 100,000 fans, but the drama of human competition remains the same.

You'll learn how to write a basic game story, how to bang out sports stories on a tight deadline, and how to avoid dreaded sports cliches. You'll also learn about the different kinds of sports stories, and you'll probably cross paths with experienced sportswriters who can provide advice and mentoring. Who knows, you might even encounter a sportswriting legend along the way.

The best thing is, local sporting events are going on everywhere. Want to learn to cover basketball? Check the website of your local high school for their team's schedule. Interested in soccer? Chances are there's a town league of some sort nearby.

And if you want to get your stories published (and who doesn't?), you can start your own blog or website or work as a freelancer for a local community newspaper. Lots of small-town papers rely on freelancers for much of their sports coverage, and getting your stories published helps you build that all-important clip portfolio.

In other words, there are opportunities all around you to gain valuable experience covering virtually every kind of sport imaginable, from lacrosse to water polo. All you have to do is get started.

But if you're worried about jumping in head-first, check the continuing education department of your local college to see if they offer a sportswriting course. Or contact your local paper and see if they'd let you spend some time talking to someone on their sports staff. Chances are, they'll be glad to help.

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