The Super Bowl may have come and gone, but there was no shortage of football talk in one Whitman classroom last week.

Football writer and parent David Elfin spoke about his career at the Washington Times and AOL Fanhouse to  students in the introduction to journalism class Feb. 25. Elfin also came to the class Feb. 23 to help students learn the mechanics of sports journalism.

He began the period by explaining how he first got into sports reporting.

“I fell in love at the age of seven,” he said. “Not with a girl, but with sports.”

For Elfin, his profession combines his interest in sports with his passion for writing. He emphasized how sports reporting is unique, not a “toy department” like some people think. But there are often challenges in the process, like writing on a short deadline after games finish and having to interview naked, emotional athletes in a sweat-filled locker room, Elfin said.

Although his career mostly involved sports reporting, Elfin also spoke about  the future of journalism.

Elfin, who now only writes online, talked about how the freedom of posting content on the internet, especially on blogs, has negatively impacted the quality of  news.

“The problem with journalism today in general is that there’s now a gray area between opinion and the truth,” he said. “No one knows what’s real and not.”

Elfin also aided the journalism class on multiple occasions last year.