Tips for writing The Comparison Contrast Lead of your article

Compare two athletes, two coaches with different coaching philosophies, or two teams with different training styles and you pull your reader into your story:

• Which athlete is better?

• Which coach has the better technique?

• Which team should win and why?

Here John Jeansonne of Newsday uses this technique lead to compare two ice skating teams in the Lillehammer Olympics: Gordeeva and Grinkov and Mishkutenok and Dmitriev. This article was run on the wires February 15, 1994, during the Lillehammer Olympics.

HAMAR, Norway-Gordeeva and Grinkov were formal, Mishkutenok and Dmitriev industrial. The first couple seemed to be at a royal ball, the second in some Russian factory. Actually, they all were in the middle of the best Olympic pair’s figure-skating final anyone could remember.

Gordeeva and Grinkov were precision, taking traditional pairs skating-with him as the quiet straight man and her as the smiling, graceful butterfly-shining it up and putting it on display the way it rarely can be seen. Mishkutenok and Dmitriev were passion, beginning with their costumes already slashed open at the thighs and arms, working as equal partners in an effort of creativity bordering on anger.

Mark Woods of the Gannett News Service uses a comparison of Shaquille O’Neal and David Robinson to begin a story about an April 30, 1993 game between the Orlando Magic and the San Antonio Spurs. Note that Woods uses the key word contrasts in the first paragraph.

ORLANDO, Fla.-the first meeting of the All-Star centers turned into a study of contrasts. Shaquille O’Neal was youth, relying on muscle and anxious energy. David Robinson was experience, turning to patience and the flick of a sore wrist.

And, at least this time, the flick won. Robinson, still hampered by a sprained thumb on his shooting hand, scored 23 points and grabbed 16 rebounds Sunday to lead the San Antonio Spurs out of a slump and to a 94-90 victory over the Orlando Magic. ¹

With my hand the way it was,” Robinson said, “I didn’t want to try and get it slapped a lot. So I really tried to isolate (O’Neal) on the floor. I think the key was that I made him work.” Rich Hoffman, writing for the Philadelphia Daily News, compares Duke’s Grant Hill and Purdue’s Glenn Robinson in the southeast regional NCAA basketball tournament, late in March 1994: KNOXVILLE, Tenn.-Two dunks. We will begin there.

Duke’s Grant Hill takes the ball somewhere near Nashville and begins his drive. He leaps; he flies. The poor fellow between him and the basket is Marquette’s Jim Mcllvaine, all 7-1 of him. Hill ends up dunking the ball, fiercely. Mcllvaine ends up in a heap. Hill stands over him, and then ends up woofing-at his teammates. “I was excited,” he said. “I just wanted to share the emotion.”

Next game in the NCAA Southeast Regional. Purdue’s Glenn Robinson is down at the same end of the Arena. His victim is Greg Ostertag, a 7-2 guy from Kansas. Robinson annihilated him. After the dunk, Robinson just stood over the body. He stared Ostertag down, until Ostertag reacted in the perfect way. He shook Robinson’s hand. Congratulations.

Hill and Robinson. Make that Robinson and Hill. They are the two best players left in this NCAA Tournament. Jalen Rose and Juwan Howard of a Michigan will make a lot of money in the NBA, as will Connecticut’s Donyell Marshall. But Robinson is best and Hill is next. After today, only [one] will be left.

The life of two University of Michigan basketball players is compared in a story by Detroit Free Press writer Greg Stoda. He clearly uses a comparison-contrast lead in his article about Bobby Crawford and Dugan Fife. This article was run in early December 1993.

ANN ARBOR, Mich.-one sat on the bench, and sometimes played. The other sat in the living room, and sometimes dreamed. A year ago, the distances from the bright lights of Michigan basketball were vastly different, but in another way much the same for Bobby Crawford and Dugan Fife.

Life on the fringe. Fife was then a Michigan freshman. He arrived in Ann Arbor with a reputation as a big scorer after averaging 27.7 points as a senior at Clarkston (Mich.) High, where he threw in a 49-point outing along the way.

And promptly made not a single field goal in his first season as a Wolverine. “That was the hardest thing-not shooting,” said Fife, who took only nine shots last season. “That was an adjustment.”

So Crawford, then a high-scoring senior at Houston Eisenhower who had signed with Michigan, saw little of Fife when he tuned in Michigan games on the family television. After five games as a freshman this season, Crawford hasn’t experienced the scoring frustrations Fife did, but there have been troubling moments.

“It was tougher than I thought it would be coming in,” Crawford said. “An open shot is an open shot, but you have to do so much more to get one.” Alan Truex, sports writer for the Houston Chronicle, clearly uses a comparison lead in a story about Art Howe, fired manager of the Houston Astros and his replacement, Terry Collins.

This article was run under a headline “On Top and Nonstop,” and subhead “Collins’ revved-up style will give Astros a new look” and was published in the Chronicle on December 24, 1993.

There are obvious contrasts between Terry Collins, the Astros’ new manager, and his predecessor, Art Howe. Howe is tall-6-1. Collins is short-5-8.

Howe is bald. Collins can be hair-raising. Howe seemed incapable of anger. Even when he stalked an umpire, it seemed he was operating out of a sense of obligation rather than conviction. Howe was stoic, imperturbable, and laid-back. Collins is animated, intense, involved.

Pausing for an interview after a recent whirlwind day at the Astrodome, Collins said: “I’m not like Art. I have a temper. I won’t kick any water coolers, but I might swear on the bench.” And in the clubhouse, (p. CI)