In the Daily News and Philadelphia Inquirer offices on 8th and Market Streets, David Murphy, ’05, and Mike Sielski, ’97, are in a small room prepping for their weekly Not Another Philly Sports Talk Show podcast. The topic, like it usually is in the realm of Philadelphia sports journalism, is the Eagles.

Today is a crucial four days, both past and future. It’s four days since the Eagles shipped their assumed starting quarterback, Sam Bradford, to the Minnesota Vikings and four days from the season’s opening kickoff. In the process, number two draft pick Carson Wentz’ status changed from spectator to starter.

Murphy and Sielski’s first guest for the podcast is a Cleveland Brown’s beat writer who weighs in on the upcoming matchup.

He delves into reasons why the Browns themselves passed on Wentz and traded their pick to the Eagles. Next, Inquirer columnist Bob Brookover, reports on the day’s happenings at the Eagles practice facility. Like the first guest, Wentz is the topic within thirty seconds.

Sielski and Murphy are surrounded by technology that wasn’t there when they broke into the business. They have the ability to Skype with a reporter in another city. They can produce a weekly podcast. They can tweet when Wentz sails one too high or Jordan Matthews drops another pass. Murphy had a column on Philly.com within two hours of the Bradford trade.

Both are active on Twitter. But what they put into 140 characters isn’t the reason Sielski and Murphy were named two of Associated Press’ Top 10 Sports Columnists.

Sielski finds the story. The story that might otherwise go unnoticed but one you should hear. Examples include his three-part feature on Jairo Munoz, a pitching prospect from the Dominican Republic. A piece on Michael Brooks, ’80, who was chosen to captain the 1980 USA Olympic Basketball team, but was forced to watch from afar as his nation boycotted those games in Moscow.

Sielski wanted to do a column before the Rio Olympics about Brooks being an Olympian who wasn’t. He thought it would be a “run-of-the-mill story.”

“It turned into this Howard Hughes type thing. He [Brooks] hasn’t been in touch with anyone from the city or La Salle for years and we don’t know why. You write the stuff you like to read. I like digging for the texture or the quote or slant no one else has,” commented Sielski. Brooks passed away in Switzerland of a massive stroke about six weeks after Sielski’s story.

David Murphy’s gift lies in turning sports journalism into a sonnet. When he crafts an article about the maladies of the Philadelphia sports teams – the Sixers’ Process, the Chip Kelly experiment, the farewell to the remains of the ’08 Phillies – his words ease the pain like a steady drip of morphine. Some of his stories are more stat focused than the back of a baseball card but serve to strengthen his point.

“I’m a logical thinker. That’s what I liked most about baseball. You can quantify everything,” said Murphy who began at the Daily News as a beat writer for the Phillies in their World Series winning 2008 season.

Both men realized their calling to sports writing at La Salle. During his sophomore year in 1995, Sielski covered women’s basketball for The Collegian. The team, which featured many of his friends, defeated visiting and ranked Notre Dame. Sielski recalled the desire to write the story well because he wanted to relay the gravity of the victory.

“When I got the feedback from the players and the community that made it click, I liked the payoff at the end of the process,” said Sielski. Murphy escorted acclaimed Sports Illustrated writer Gary Smith, ’75, around campus during a visit. It was also his first meeting with Sielski.

Murphy admired the way both Sielski and Smith told stories. In a creative writing course at La Salle, he further developed his own skill. “It creeps in ways you don’t expect,” said Murphy about his La Salle education. “I learned how to think differently. It’s always with you. You become a different person at college. I couldn’t picture myself if I didn’t go to La Salle.”

With Carson Wentz, like any athlete who arrives in the city to tremendous expectations, someone is going to be right and someone is going to be wrong. It’s the nature of sports. There is a winner and a loser.

The joy and the pain of watching it unfold is the soul of the story. Instead of quickly thumbing to the next page in a can’t-put-it-down novel, you have to wait until tomorrow for details, next week for the plot to pick up, and next season for the continuation.

The story of Philadelphia sports teams have similar endings. It doesn’t stop the fan base from hoping that this drama with this new ginger-haired hero will be different. The only guarantee is that it will have two dedicated, expert storytellers.