The Ed Ching and Sports Writing Love Affair

By Myke Miravite, Ignite Academic Training

Ching: This [Adventurer In The
Huddle] is going to be good... this
is unprecedented, and this is our
way of sharing our knowledge to
you, the future of sports writing. 

Been dreaming of seeing a Filipino in the big league? Well, Edison Ching has the big idea to make your dreams come true.

If you happen to pass by people in the street talking about Chris Tiu making it to the NBA, nine out of ten chances, they read it from Ed Ching’s blog. His blog, draftchristiu.wordpress.com, has been making waves in the sports online community. He justifies there what’s it gonna take for the NBA to draft the National Team starting guard and Filipino Ken Doll, Chris Tiu. As a BS Sports Communications graduate of International Academy of Management and Economics in Makati and Ca’ Foscari Formazione I Ricerica Venezia in Italy, Sir Ed is much more than a reliable source. He is a walking sports trivia book. And Adventurer In The Huddle National Sports Writing Congress takes pride in including him as one of the speakers who will enlighten our participants in November.

Sir Ed has been one of the speakers of last year’s successful first edition of In The Huddle. He was instrumental in Quezon City’s dominance in the field of campus sports journalism in the DepEd-sanctioned press conferences and contests. As he likes to put it, it was nothing but his love for sports that became his motivation in sharing the gospel of sports writing.

“As a student there wasn’t a lot of learning opportunity specifically for sports writing. To me, it is my way of giving back,” said Ching who is also the blogger behind DumbGenius.net. “Although I never took up journalism, I took up sports communications (which is close enough, I guess) and I see some areas where we can all improve just a little bit.”

As of May 2010, he has more than 28,500 Twitter followers and his Facebook Draftchristiu page reached 13,500 fans. Not bad and that’s because of sports writing.

When asked what our participants could expect in his talk, he said it will be a great opportunity for them to learn something that been sort of ignored by mainstream school subjects.

Though the idea of Chris Tiu dribbling along with the best basketball players in the world has not materialized in the latest draft, sir Ed’s hopes are still high and he said he would want to pass on the idea that stirred the internet world for the past months to our aspiring writers in the Adventurer-ITH 2010. “Pwede pa naman, he [Chris Tiu] is only 24,” Ching quipped.

Sir Ed has always been generous in sharing his knowledge of sports writing. As one of the speakers of Adventurer In The Huddle, he is looking forward to meet the future of sports writing in our country. “This is going to be good. For the first time ever an assortment of sports communication specialists will come together to help teach you. This is unprecedented, and this is our way of sharing our knowledge to you, the future of sportswriting."