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

I did a project for SportsPageMagazine.com in October.

I was covering the Big East on Men's Media Day and Women's Media Day.

Most coaches there were really good overall.

Jay Wright is simply awesome. Great guy and a great quote. He was very friendly. He did a great job telling me about Randy Foye, who plays for the Timberwolves. I am a Wolves fan and I wanted to get so much info on Foye from him. He was kinda stunned when I bashed the Wolves as an organization. He got a good laugh out of it as I kept venting.

Boeheim is funny. It was honor to meet him and chat with him.

John Belein is great too.

Fred Hill Jr. will take the time to talk to anyone.

For the women's team, I really was starstruck talking to C. Vivian Stringer. She is a writer's dream. She treated me with lot of class. I have lot of love for her even before I met her, but now I gained more respect. Doug Bruno of Depaul was great too. Terri Williams of Georgetown was solid.

As for the Northeast Conference coaches, I really enjoyed talking to Quinnipiac's Joe Desantis.

 

C. Vivian Stringer is a magnificent interview. She's hard to track down, but she is terrific -- a great, great story-teller. I wonder what it must have been like at Cheyney State when she and John Chaney (another one of my favorites) coached there.

 

You are not kidding about how hard she is to track down. She did the TV interviews first, Ike. It took her like 30 minutes to be done. Bridget Wentworth, J.P. Pelzman, and I were so frustrated at the long wait. I could not wait for her so I decided to interview the other Big East coaches since that was my assignment. I don't think my editor at SportsPageMagazine would have been thrilled to not get the interviews from the coaches and players so I had to move on. I caught Stringer once she was done talking to everyone and she was nice to chat with me for 10 minutes. Like I said, I was blown away. She is a great coach and a great human being. I really hope she wins a championship before she retires. I love her.

She has nothing but respect for John Chaney. She loves the guy. I definitely asked about her friendship with him off the record once I finished the interview.

 

Good thread, but the shock of it for me is that Bob Hill was mentioned 3 weeks before Jay Wright. Bob Hill? The guy who slept in the dorms for a week and talked about his players urinating in the showers and wearing underoos? That guy was a nut.

 

Sorry to bring this thread from the dead, but saw it and wanted to chime in.
Good:Kirk Ferentz (not a lot of access, but great when you can get him), Tommy Bowden (incredible access), Mark Gottfried, Jim Boeheim (not a lot of experience, but liked what I saw), Roy Williams, Tommy Tuberville.
Pricks: Mike Shula (I'm sure a lot of Alabama beat writers are glad he's gone), Steve Alford, Al Groh, Coach K, Chuck Amato, Phil Fulmer, Dennis Franchione (bold-faced liar and serial job-hopper).

 

Tommy Bowden was the first coach I ever interviewed, probably the second or third story I ever wrote for my college paper. He was in his first year at Tulane and I left a message for him one morning and fell asleep on the couch waiting for a callback. When he called, he guessed that I'd been sleeping when I groggily answered the phone...started busting my balls about sleeping in the middle of the afternoon and was very funny. He was great for the whole interview and very patient. I've liked the guy ever since, although I haven't interviewed him since then.

Mark Richt is a very nice, genuinely good man. That impression he gives off isn't a put-on. I think he's a little too overprotective, but he never loses his cool. I've never heard him raise his voice at a reporter, even when he's pissed off by a question. Met Beamer for the first time at a luncheon before the Peach Bowl and was struck by how decent he seemed to be. In fact, all his VT coaches that I met seemed like good folks.

 

Oh, and I've never interviewed him face-to-face, only over the phone, but I really like Rich Brooks. Seems like the nice granddad type and he's a pretty good quote.