Want to be a sportswriter? Want to win a trip to All-Star Weekend? Check this out

Our friends over at SportsBlog.com have started quite the contest.

Naturally, the first thing you’ll want to know about is the prize — an all-expenses paid trip to New Orleans for All-Star Weekend, along with access to all events sponsored by the National Basketball Retired Players Association. 

Which retired players will be there? I’d give you a list of names, but one of the rules of life (and journalism) is this: Don’t write it unless you are absolutely, positively sure about it, and as we sit here on Dec. 4, the list of confirmed attendees is not yet complete.

But rest assured, I have been to nearly two dozen All-Star weekends, and the retired players flock to it like geese migrating south for the winter. Now, does that mean Allen Iverson is going to be attending? Again, I can’t say for sure just yet. But there will be a very large assortment of very large men, of that I can assure you.

Now, the qualifications ….

Can anyone enter? No.

Sort of.

Anyone who writes a basketball blog can enter, and if you’ve always wanted to be a basketball writer, TheSportsBlog will hook you up. It is what they do — help writers create Web sites, and link those Web sites to a mothership so that your articles are available through an established distribution network.

Yes, brilliance personified.

For more information, including all contest rules and what you’ll need to do if you’d like to start a basketball blog, click over to the contest home page.

Good luck, and a word to the wise from a dinosaur who has trained dozens, if not hundreds, of young journalists: Know how to use an apostrophe. (It is my pet peeve, and my sister, a Harvard graduate and school principal, says it is not the fault of the young folks. According to her, too many teachers don’t know how to use an apostrophe correctly, which is why the problem is trickling down.)

Again, good to all. May the best blogger win!