1. The alternative LEdE

2. With this lead, you get away from a summary:
In the sportswriting business it can be called the optional lead, alternative lead (the updated lead)
It’s a more feature lead. You aren’t leading with numbers or names or plays necessarily.
And it’s definitely not a cliché lead.

3. OptION: The star

4. Options: Describe something

5. Option: Context and analysis

8. Option: An observation

9. Option: Interesting information (but watch being cliché)

10. Option: The comment

11. Option: History

12. Perhaps the greatest optional lead ever written
“Outlined against a blue-gray October sky, the Four Horsemen rode again. In dramatic lore they are known as Famine, Pestilence, Destruction and Death. These are only aliases. Their real names are Stuhldreher, Miller, Crowley and Layden. …”
Grantland Rice, Notre Dame defeats Army, 1920s

13. And in Second place: In 1956, legendary sports writer Shirley Povich on Yankees pitcher Don Larsen, who threw the postseason’s only perfect game and gave New York a 3-2 lead in the World Series.
The million-to-one shot came in. Hell froze over. A month of Sundays hit the calendar. Don Larsen today pitched a no-hit, no-run, no-man-reach-first game in a World Series. On the mound at Yankee Stadium, the same guy who was knocked out in two innings by the Dodgers on Friday, came up today with one for the record books, posting it there in solo grandeur as the only Perfect G With it, the Yankee righthander shattered the Dodgers, 2-0, and beat Sal Maglie, while taking 64,519 suspense-limp fans into his act.ame in World Series history.

14. My friend Ron Blum on that final out when the Cubbies won the World Series
Kris Bryant started to smile even before he fielded the ball. And with his throw to first for the final out, the agonizing wait ’til next year was over at last. No more Billy Goat, no more Bartman, no more black-cat curses. For a legion of fans who waited a lifetime, fly that W: Your Chicago Cubs are World Series champions. Ending more than a century of flops, futility and frustration, the Cubs won their first title since 1908, outlasting the Cleveland Indians 8-7 in 10 innings of a Game 7 thriller early Thursday.

15. Things to remember:
This is the lead to a game story. You must tie your lead to the game.
(For the most part) avoid random statements in the lead that have no attribution (implied or otherwise). Tie them to someone. So it’s not Rebounding is key to success in basketball, but how Painter or a player said that was the key.
We still need the specifics somewhere in these opening paragraphs (score, opponent, etc.). In many instances, that will be your straight AP lede.

16. So we aren’t just saying Purdue has awesome big men
So we aren’t just saying Purdue has awesome big men. We tie it to this particular game.
Here is the AP lede with specifics
Here is where I back up my alternative lead

17. In class: Can you write Alternative leads for These stories?
Purdue-Arizona State: After game quotes and box score and season stats
Purdue-Western Illinois: After game quotes and box score and BoilerNotes