The International Sports Scene with Journalist and ASI Contributor David Hein

 Meet David Hein

 Hi, I’m Dave Hein, International Sports Reporter.

What is a sports reporter? The simple definition is someone who goes to sporting events to cover them for one or more media organizations. In my case, a sports reporter is a dream job that I have made happen through loads of hard work and passion for my craft.

Sure, I am not the best writer in the world. But I truly feel honored every time a good friend and colleague in the business calls me “the hardest working man in basketball.” Coming from a blue-collar upbringing in the northwest suburbs of Chicago, I was taught young the value of hard work. Sometimes, my carpenter father would bring me with him to work on weekends to do demolition or clean-up work at a job of his. Those days formed my work ethic and gave me an appreciation of getting a couple of hard-earned dollars for my work on the drive back home.

It still amazes me to this day that people pay me to travel around the world to cover sporting events for them. I get to stay at four and five star hotels and sit at arenas and stadiums and venues for hours and watch sports – AND get paid. Sports has brought me to dozens of different countries and helped me form some of the best friendships I have.

Of course there is the non-sexy side of being a sports reporter. There’s a lot of waiting. Ranging from checking in at airports to waiting for a player to come to talk to the media. Being at sporting events for me also has the downside of being away from my wife, of whom I am so appreciative for letting me have this career.

Sports has also been a huge part of my life, both playing and watching them. The only team I truly root for is the Chicago Cubs baseball club. Spring is eternal and there will forever be the belief that the Cubs could magically finally win a World Series for the first time since 1908 (yes, that is not a typo). I know, it’s a dream that may never come true. But why give up hope? Why stop believing?

Believing is a special thing and something that has enormous power. I firmly believe that if you believe in something that you can make it happen as long as you put in the hard work. It’s happened hundreds of times in front of my own eyes on the courts, fields, pitches, diamonds etc of the sports world. In one game, David can never be counted out against Goliath, even if the big man has a 1,000-game winning streak.

That being said, I was asked to introduce myself to you the great readers. Besides being a baseball freak, I am also a basketball nut, which is beneficial because I cover a lot of basketball in my work. Based in the beautiful Bavarian town of Regensburg in southern Germany, I write for a number of basketball bodies including the world governing body FIBA, the European governing body FIBA Europe, a separate leg of European basketball clubs called the Euroleague as well as the German basketball league. I cover adult men’s basketball – throughout the world but during the season predominantly in Germany as well as senior national team world and European competitions during the summer.

But my specialty is youth basketball – meaning action of players mostly 21 years and under. I regularly attend world and European youth championships in the summer and have a weekly column on youth hoops on FIBA.com. I also am the co-host and producer of the weekly international basketball podcast Taking The Charge.

But basketball is not the only sport in my life. It’s hard being a freelance journalist in Germany without writing about football/soccer. I’ve also been able to cover four FIFA World Cups (two on site), four Winter Olympics on site, ice hockey tennis, golf, boxing and various other sports. In addition, I work as a German-to-English translator, which at times allows me to travel the world in my mind as I translate articles about a variety of issues outside the world of sports.

Variety is the spice of life. And luckily I’ve been able to sprinkle enough of that on my full plate of work. And while I often am very busy, I know that millions of others are just as busy as me – if not even busier. So it really is meaningless to complain. And there’s not really that much to complain about. Working as my own boss about 20 paces from my bedroom without a dress code, I call my own shots. Luckily I can take on whatever work I feel like I want to do and turn down the things that don’t fit into my schedule – or that I just don’t want to do.

In general, I guess I am a sports lover who is lucky enough to have turned his passion into his career and gotten a chance to travel the world and meet great people and see great sporting events. Now, if those Cubs could just win the World Series.