Quote of your career...

From a high school football coach after his very talented team won a close game on the road: "Don't talk to me, talk to my players. I'm the dumb sonuvabitch that went for it on fourth down from our own 45."

 

Was reminded of this one only recently cause I saw him on TV ...

Drew Stanton, who currently plays for the Red Sox, was a member of the Baylor baseball team in 2004. The Bears played a crucial series to end the regular season at Texas Tech with the winner of the series securing third place in the conference.

Texas Tech took the Friday night game 4-3 and Stanton was involved in a crucial play. Sutton led off the seventh with a single and stole second. Josh Ford then singled to left center, a play that should have scored Sutton. But instead of watching his base coach, Sutton was watching the ball, and therefore drifted too far toward the bag at third and up the foul line to take the proper baserunning path.

Tech got the ball in quickly as Sutton took the long way around third and threw him out at the plate. After the game, Steve Smith gave me this gem:

"Hopefully our guys won't kill (Sutton) tonight but I wouldn't bet against that. I think the biggest challenge I have tonight is to keep them from beating Drew Sutton to death."

I still remind Smith of that sometimes.

 

Rather tall senior girl from County School A talking about short middle schooler from County School B after a 2003 cross country race in town:

"She did exactly what her coach told her to do. I could feel her breathing down my butt. I would say neck, but she's not tall enough."

 

I still have three quotes in my desk (not appropriate for public view) from former NMJC and current New Mexico baseball coach Ray Birmingham. Those who have interviewed him know he's quotation gold. This one is the most public friendly. Can PM you the other two if you really want to hear them.

"We sent a message to (rival team). All of their big oil money and all of that doesn't mean a dang thing to us. They can kiss my backside. ... We beat their asses. They can call it whatever they want, but when they play the T-Birds, they got their asses kicked." - on avoiding a tiebreaker for first

 

I have a few good ones that deserve to be on this list.

While covering an open city council meeting one of the city commissioners gets his time to talk about what he sees as a problem in his area..."I don't know about all you folks, but I am really tired of all the sp--- moving into my neighborhood."

I actually dropped my pen I was taking notes with and just looked up at him, I could not believe he said it. Yes the quote ran, but with some dashes in some places and (hispanics) in its place.

From Jack Nicklaus after playing his final round at the Masters. It was the 2005 Masters and because of rain, he teed off on the back-nine first Saturday morning for his second round. On the ninth hole he hit a good drive, then hit a perfect high cut six-iron to about 12-feet below the cup. He missed the birdie putt.

"I was pretty emotional out there, but I know if I had finished on 18 I would have made that putt."

This one was from the nicest old lady at a WEGA (Women's Eastern Golf Association) tournament. These tournaments were excuses for most of these ladies to get out and have a trip with the girls, and I had to cover it every year when they came to town. When I asked the winner what she though of winning I got this from the 60-year old.

"I am not very good, I have no idea how I actually won, I guess all the other girls just drank too much or got laid last night."
That quote didn't run, I asked if that was really what she wanted to say.

Another quote that never ran comes from the 2004 Peach Jam traveling basketball tournament. I was sitting behind three Division I basketball coaches who were all sitting and talking during halftime about the finals of the tournament.
Two of the coaches were white and one was black, and the black coach says...."If I see one more of these players act like a N-----, I am going to walk out there and jerk a knot in his ass. The only kid out there that is playing basketball is the short, slow, white kid, all the rest are just playground players, on days like this I really hate my job."

That one didn't run either because they didn't know I was a reporter.

 

The most brilliant screenwriter would not come up with something like this. So brilliantly harsh. Wow. From Ted Williams.

 

Gary Darnell was named interim football coach at the University of Florida in 1989 after Galen Hall was fired for breaking a number of NCAA rules, including payments to players and coaches. When asked about the task ahead of him, Darnell's quote, which I cannot claim as an exclusive but I was there to hear it, was:

"Hey, Daddy got drunk and went to jail. The rest of us in the family have to pull together and help each other out."

Shortly after that season was over, Emmitt Smith decided to go pro. I learned he had an agent. Caught up with him outside a classroom that afternoon. His response: "Save your breath for your deathbed, because that's when you'll need it. Just get a front-row seat tomorrow." Two hours later, UF called a news conference for the morning for "a major announcement about the future of our football program."

It's a damn shame I can't remember anything better during the 22 years since. The closest thing I can come up with was the time in 2005 when I interviewed actor William H. Macy for a story about the annual Sarasota Film Festival. I started off with a softball question -- what are your thoughts about the festival? -- and he followed with a 10-minute soliloquy. Every word was golden -- salient, pithy, informative, witty. I was very tempted to transcribe the tape, put an open quote mark at the beginning and a close quote mark at the end, and file it under my byline. It was that perfect.

 

Covered a media day for a short-season Cardinals team in 2004. Asked Miguel Aguero (who, when you read the quote please remember that he was Venezuela) what it meant for him to pitch the season opener.

"Its OK, I like it." End of quote.

I was scolded by Joe Paterno when I asked him about three out-of-this-world catches by Mickey Shuler Jr. after a game against Oregon State in 2008.

"It looked as if he played well. I don't see things. Everything that you guys see. You're probably from Harrisburg Area. I can't just watch for some things that are happening in the game and stick my two cents in there once in a while." I'm nowhere near Harrisburg and asked because I was going to write my notebook with Shuler as the lead.

 

Julian Tavarez, who was shockingly optioned to AAA to get himself together after being in the majors for about 4 years:

What are going to work on down there?

"I'm going to eat and fart all day."

Still makes me laugh.

http://articles.sfgate.com/1999-08-17/sports/28604766_1

 

I think it only stands out to me because of how completely dumb the coach was ...

First NCAA women's basketball game I covered as a sophomore in college, the opposing team won big and took advantage of wide opens three's, swinging the ball around the perimeter, sucking in the zone defense, then a big pass from the corner of the base line to the wing. The PG was wide open every time and would always drain it.

After the game I said, "Coach, seems like they really took advantage of your zone defense tonight, is that something you're going to work on now that the season is underway?"

Her response: "No, I know you're new, but I'm going to have to disagree with you there. I think our defense played extremely well tonight, they just made shots. Our offense needs to get it going."

Well, coach, that was against a D-II team in exhibition, literally every team you played all season attacked you the same way, you won 2 games all year for the worst record in school history and they canned ya once the season was over.

 

"I tried to punch him and drive the bone of his nose back into his brain." -- Mike Tyson after he wiped out Jesse Ferguson in a non-title heavyweight fight. My paper declined to use the quote, thought it was too graphic for a family newspaper.

 

If it makes you feel any better, Joe was a jerk to reporters when Mickey Shuler Sr. was playing.