Beat writers: best coach you've ever worked with/interviewed?

Jim Grobe used to ask us about our golf games. Incredibly nice guy.

I've also found Ron Zook great.

 

From Wikipedia:
"A "notorious agitator of referees, someone known as much for his sideline scowls and profanities as he is for leading the winningest program of this century"[3], Krzyzewski also stirred controversy in 1990 when he berated and allegedly cursed at Duke undergraduate student editors of the school paper, whom Krzyzewski felt had treated his team unjustly in their reporting.[4]

Krzyzewski also was criticized for taking off the majority of the 1994-95 season, which proved to be Duke's worst season in ACC competition not only during his tenure but in Duke's history in the ACC, citing exhaustion and back problems. Krzyzewski then successfully petitioned the NCAA to have the majority of the losses removed from his record and given to assistant coach and acting interim coach Pete Gaudet, who subsequently resigned from the Duke. Krzyzewski was left with the 9-3 overall record from the beginning and usually easier part of the season, resulting in his earning a .750 winning percentage towards his career win results during what would be Duke's worst ACC season in its entire history in the ACC, going back to 1954, as the 1994-95 team of Krzyzewski-recruited players achieved a record of 2-14 in the Atlantic Coast Conference."

Not to mention a Maryland-Duke game at Cameron a few years back – my first run-in with K – and he scolded a scribe for "not watching the game" when the writer asked K why he refused to switch things up inside while his big men were getting hammered play after play. Rubbed me the wrong way. Confirmed what I had heard. I think he's a dickhead.

 

Early this year, Duke had just narrowly beat a Kent State team that had been struggling. After using his bench in the first, he sat all but five players for the second half.

Appgrad05: "Coach, Why did you shorten your bench in the second half."
Coach K: "Because I thought we had a chance to win. Didn't you?"
Appgrad05: "Sure."
Coach K: "Would you have done anything differently."

It's not his answers. It's how he says them. And the fact that everyone in the national media sees a loving Coach K, while the locals get "the rat" (as the UNC fans would say).

 

I've always liked Bo Ryan at Wisconsin. He drives a lot of scribes nuts with his abilty talk for 97 minutes straight without saying a thing, but once you know the tricks ... he's golden. Dick Bennett (and his son) are another class act, as well and Bruce Pearl was a snake oil salesman, but he was great to the media.

 

Like Wikipedia is an authority on Coach K.

That's not a very good example, Appgrad. That's one give-and-take in a long season, after a game it sounds like Duke should have won easily. First, you made a mistake in calling him "Coach." That's not his name; it's Mike. I think that's one reason why you got a condescending answer. I was taught at a very young age in this profession not to call anyone "Coach" (unless he was my coach). It was a great piece of advice: You're putting the source on a pedestal, making him your authority figure, too.

One other thing: You should know coaches don't like being second-guessed. There's a way to second-guess a coach without sounding as if you're, well, second-guessing him. "Shorten the bench" is an unfortunate way of putting it, because you sound as if you're tiptoeing around it. I'd bet you'd have gotten a better answer had you asked him to explain the merits of keeping five guys on the court for the entire second half. Ask your second question first.

I'm not defending Krzyzewski. Maybe he has more patience with me because I don't cover his team all the time. But I don't think one question should be a reason to keep hating the guy. I've heard him explain things about basketball, a sport I don't really like, that blow me away; he's so precise and analytical. The rewards greatly outweigh the drawbacks.

 

Dude, if you want to have the calling coaches "coach" argument, we've been there.

Look up the thread.

 

Nice to see you aboard, coach, eerrrrr, I mean Mike, shit – Ike. You know what, though, the interest rate on my fucking AmEx card is putting me in quite a predicament. Anything you can do about that?

Ike, perhaps your run-ins with K hold more weight than others. Why, I don't know. Possibly because you were taught not to call a man coach, which is what he is. If someone else does, they are beneath you. Are you a TV reporter?

PS – K=Prick. Rat got out-coached last night. Wonder how childish he was last night postgame. Appgrad05. Can you dish any insight?

 

No. 1: Calling someone you deal with on a not-regular basis is called respect. Call it the Old South in me, but calling someone older than you by their first name indicates that they know you by name as well. When you are just a face in the crowd, coach is better than sir.

No. 2: He wasn't nearly as bad as he could have been. I walked in the room as a reporter, I believe from The Chronicle, was asking when Josh McRoberts and DeMarcus Nelson were told they would not start. K's response was that it was several days ago, and did the reporter not get the E-mail Coach K sent out? The reporter laughed it off, but K continued with something about putting the reporter in his "top five" and what his new "name" was.
Other than that, he was just his normal, defensive self.

 

There are plenty of reasons to dislike Coach K. He's sarcastic and has about as much tolerance for dumb questions as Knight. He's not as nasty as Knight, but he has a way of making you feel even stupider.

That said, wikipedia is a pretty weak source to use to justify disliking him, especially considering that most of the stuff in that article is either untrue or not specific to Mike alone.

For example, the bit about "petitioning to get the losses removed from his record" is a blatant lie. The decision to have the team's record ascribed to Pete Gaudet was done at the time when K went out, and it was done by SID Mike Cragg after he called the NCAA and asked what should be done. Generally speaking, if a coach misses one or two games, the usual policy is to leave those games on their record. But if they're out for a longer period, you give it to whoever takes over. Perfect recent example: NC State's women's team and Kay Yow. If you look at the weekly releases, you'll see that assistant Stephanie Glance picked up the wins and losses.

The supposed "reasoning" behind this falsehood was even more foolish--to improve his winning percentage? Who cares? The real goal is the all-time wins mark, which is within his reach when Knight retires.

There's also been a lot of conspiracy theories as to why he took the rest of the '95 season off. It's not exactly a mystery--he had major surgery and tried to come back after just 2 weeks of rest, all while being one of the more open coaches in the business and meeting a LOT of extra demands. That was a stupid decision to make that paid a very real toll on his health. He didn't leave because he thought his team would be bad--they were 9-3 when he left the team and had beaten some good teams along the way.

The result of that was that after he came back, he stopped being accomodating (especially to the local media, almost all of whom loathe him for this reason) to every request, built the infamous office with the elevator that has palm-print recognition, and generally picks and chooses whom he talks to. A lot of writers have tried to make money writing books about Duke, but if K doesn't want to cooperate, you will get frozen out. People like Gregg Doyel then spend the rest of their career finding new ways to write bitter things about him.

Lastly, disliking him because he's foul-mouthed and baits refs would also mean disliking about 95% of all coaches.

When he feels like it, he's one of the best interviews around. He's really funny (in a bust-your-balls kind of way), honest and thoughtful about the game. He has firm opinions and isn't afraid to share them or back them up. But honestly, he saves most of that for the national media these days. I wish the writers here could have dealt with him pre-1995, because he was one of the best coaches to talk to. Now, he's defensive almost to the point of paranoia, which is too bad.

 

are you 100% sure about that? because I thought I had fairly specific memories of that season and I really believed the decision to remove the losses from his record came long after they happened.

I could be wrong, so I just wanted to double-check. do you know FIRST-HAND that the request came from the Duke A.D. and that it came immediately when K went out, or were you told that by someone who had a pro-Duke agenda?

P.S.- another Blue Devil loss tonight. look for K to develop an injury shortly so he can avoid this season on his record too.

 

Nick Saban, anyone?

 

At my shop, the head of the News Research dept. has banned Wikipedia as "source." Look it up there, but confirm it elsewhere.