Charles Apple

Patrick Garvin of The Florida Times-Union posted an interesting sports graphic the other day in his NewsPageDesigner portfolio, commemorating the Jacksonville Jaguars’ running back Fred Taylor. Taylor passed the career 10,000-yard mark the previous weekend.

Patrick Garvin. Photo by
Bob Self/Florida Times-Union.
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When I asked him about it, Pat told me the paper presented Taylor with a framed copy of the graphic and that he even got a chance to meet the NFL star.

Patrick agreed to answer a few questions for us…

Q. How did that Fred Taylor piece come about?

A. AME for Visuals Denise M. Reagan approached me before the season started, saying that we should start thinking about how we’d cover Fred’s 10,000 yards.

We had a couple ideas of things we might want to do, but nothing definite. As the season started and progressed, some editors and writers started compiling the things they definitely wanted: Fred’s 5 best seasons, the 5 seasons where he was ranked highest in the AFC and how Fred compares to the 20 players who have rushed 10,000 or more yards.

Once we had those, Denise and I discussed how to visualize 10,000 yards. Do we show 100 football fields? Do we use footballs? Do we try to show how he rushed all those yards? Who his opponents were?

All of that led us to ask, “Can we break down the yards season by season, game by game?” This is his 10th season, so it’s not like the numbers would get too unwieldy. The challenge was to present the numbers in a way that was quick to read and that would visually indicate his best and worst seasons.

Creating a bar for each game of each season was tough because it was hard to compare, so Denise came up with the concept of doing a large bar for each season, breaking it down, game by game, within the bar. The resulting icicle effect allows you to see which seasons were his best and worst.

Patrick’s Fred Taylor page. Click on the
thumbnail below for a larger view.

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The sports editor had sent us data for Fred’s best seasons, and so we got the data for all the seasons, showing his rank and who the AFC leader was, etc.

Graphics editor Steve Nelson helped us narrow down the information, which helped immensely as there were so many directions that this could go. Steve ended up doing another graphic that showed the number of wins and losses for games in which Fred rushed fewer than 100 yards compared to wins and losses for which Fred rushed for more than 100 yards compared to wins and losses for games in which Fred didn’t play at all.

That ran the day after Fred rushed 10,000 yards, and the big one ran the day after that.

Click on the thumbnail to see
a close-up of the bar chart
across the top of the big graphic.
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The top part of the big graphic shows the number of yards that Fred rushed compared to the other 20 people who have rushed 10,000 yards or more. That part was done by University of North Florida student Ace Stryker, who’s been spending time in each department this semester. It was the first time Ace had made a graphic and the first time he used Illustrator, but he did it with speed, ease and efficiency.

Q. You said something about having it prepared in advance. How long before it ran did you initially draw it? Did you have to update it from time to time?

We had the ideas mid-October and my computer tells me that my first file was created October 18. We edited and massaged it, and we were ready to run it around the Oct. 28 game.

Graphics editor Steve Nelson, graphic artist Anna Berken and I all proofed it and checked numbers against stats. So we were ready.

Thing is, he didn’t break 10,000 that day. So we updated the info and waited for the next game. We updated for that game and waited till the next.

Q. Those are actually mugs of him from each year? Where the hell did you track those down?

Photo editor M. Jack Luedke is the man.

Denise came up with the idea of showing Fred throughout the years and so we pitched it to our photo editors. The official press guide photos don’t always have a new mug, but rather the same mug with a different background. So Jack set to digging.

One day, I came to work and there was a stack of Fred photos on my desk. Not only that, but Jack had included two or three options for some years. So all I had to do was pull them out of our system after Jack had found them for me.

I must reiterate: M. Jack Luedke is the man.

Q. You said the paper framed the graphic and presented it to Taylor. Did you get to meet him? Did he like the piece? Did he find some nitpicky error that made you want to climb into a hole?

The day that the graphic ran, there was also a poster showing the frame-by-frame breakdown of the play in which Fred rushed his 10,000th yard. The T-U had both the graphic and poster printed on nice paper (the actual stock or fancy name I don’t know) and then had them framed.

Additionally, the T-U had asked fans to leave Fred messages on the Web site and then those congratulations were put into a book for Fred. And then the photo department put together a slide show and photos on a DVD.

Kevin Basarab of Jacksonville.com presented all that to him, Tracy Collins got it on video and T-U photographer Bob Self got the photos. I was there trying to stand out of the way and take in the experience.

Photos by Bob Self/Florida Times-Union
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Fred was humble and personable. His teammates were gathered to pat him on the back and wish him well, and he was very grateful. Tracy walked me over to him and introduced me to him. He kept saying “Thank you,” and I kept saying, “Thank you.”

I was pretty jittery the rest of the day.

So, there was no desire to climb into a hole. This was, instead, very rewarding and fulfilling.

This was not a graphic that was difficult to execute, but it was still intensive in terms of data, color-coding, labeling, numbers, etc. I intentionally avoided it the day it ran because I didn’t want to start checking the numbers in my head. I tend to take my source info home with me so that if I start to doubt something, I can break out the calculator and double-check the numbers. It’s a compulsion that serves me on these types of things but it also can be exhaustive. So to get to be part of the presentation to Fred was so rewarding in a way that I can’t put into words.

Here’s a link to the video.

Q: You’ve been in JAX two years, right? You’ve not been tempted to move on to The New York Times or to National Geographic yet? You must really like Jacksonville. Tell me about the place.

A: I got to Jacksonville at the end of March 2006. I felt an instant connection with Denise, and one of my best friends from high school had moved here when I had first moved to Myrtle Beach. So even on my first day of work, I felt at home.

The newsroom is very welcoming to new people and Denise has a great tradition of getting people cakes to celebrate them starting their jobs. The reporters tell me about graphics they saw in other papers and ask me how to execute them. I’ve gotten to research and report a bunch of graphics. Our department has theme songs. I could ramble on and on.

As for Jacksonville, there’s a BYOB karaoke joint that lets you have your own room. I can’t think of a dance club I’ve been to yet that hasn’t played David Bowie and Queen’s “Under Pressure.” There’s a deli-ish beer place down the street from me that has happy hour from 2 to 7. Every day.

The architecture and roads in some spots are very reminiscent of St. Louis (my hometown). My brother is only two hours away in Savannah. Again, I could ramble on and on. This is just my place, and these are my people.

Q: Are you still doing comedy? Or do you not have time for that anymore?

A: My last stand-up show was the day after my last day on the job in Myrtle Beach.

That whole thing was a dream how it started. My paper had a talent show to raise money for the paper in Biloxi and it just happened to be at a comedy club. The owners invited me to do guest spots and they graciously let me do some.

I’ve been to a comedy club here in town but I’ve never inquired about doing any shows here. I continue to write stand-up but I’ve never done much with it. I’ve watched enough stand-up to know what kind of things I’d like to be talking about, and in Myrtle Beach, a lot of my topics wouldn’t (and didn’t) fly. A lot of those comics had to cut their teeth using fart jokes and puns.

I feel like I’ve been able to put a lot of humor into my work here, so I don’t necessarily need an outlet for it anymore. I miss the stand-up, though, so maybe a return engagement might have to be in order. There’s certainly no shortage for material.

Patrick Garvin is a 2004 graduate of the University of Missouri. He spent a couple of years at The Sun News of Myrtle Beach, S.C. before moving to Jacksonville. Check out more of his work at NewsPageDesigner.

Sounds like you’re having a ball in Florida, Patrick. Thanks for taking the time to tell us about your pal Fred!

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 20th, 2007 at 8:20 am and is filed under Graphics, News design, Newspapers, VizEds Blog. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.