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

ya know, my first experience with Knight was covering NCAA Regionals, and I'd heard so many horror stories about the guy. all the veteran writers were just blasting him when I got there and I expected the worst. and it was funny -- we get into his presser the day before the tourney and he was great. thoughtful, funny a few times, gave everybody good answers -- although not that many people asked questions and I got the sense a lot of guys were intimidated by his reputation and maybe afraid he'd ream 'em out if he didn't like their questions. but he was terrific. then, when it was over, all the veteran writers just started blasting him again. fuckers. I can't defend a lot of the crap he's done, but with me, he was fine.

 

I second Donovan.

Also can't believe Tony Dungy hasn't been mentioned. All of the syrupy words that will be written/said about him this week are the truth.

 

Forgot a couple:

Jim Hanifan and Foge Fazio, both of whom were quote machines, great storytellers and all-around wild men when I covered them as assistants. And Joe Bugel was always a great guy, too.

And my favorite memory of the early Cremins. After every game, we'd go to his office for his ``press conference'' -- three or four reporters at most, usually -- and before he started talking, he'd call his parents. ``Hi, Ma. Yeah, we won. The kids played good. Listen, Ma, I gotta go, the press is here. OK, talk to you later ... Hi, Pop. Yeah, we won ...''

It was priceless.

 

Ditto, write then. At an NCAA sub-regional, last time Indiana won a national title, I thought for a minute at presser and asked Knight: "face it, you're pretty much a perfectionist---what's the closest any of your etams have come to playing a perfect game?"

Without hesitating, Knight launched into a game one of his teams had played against West Virginia years earlier, and his recap of the game, to include a specific stretch of the game, complete with succinct analysis, incredible detail without being boring and explanation just blew me away. He looked me in the eye the whole time talking to me and I could tell he relaly enjoyed the quesiton. Not patting myself on the back, just saying that if you take the time to ask the guy a decent question, you'll get a terrific answer.

 

P.S. "etams" = teams

 

You should have been at the Big 12 tournament last year, when he stalked out of the room without a statement because the press had the audacity to go six seconds without asking a question. Or at the event when Knight was introduced at Texas Tech, when he told the fans to stay for the press conference and encouraged them to heckle the reporters.

Knight's a bitter, nasty dick.

 

Sorry, forgot smug and arrogant.

 

I get small doses of lots of college football guys.

Some of my favs _
Tuberville and Bobby Bowden because they like to talk and generally like others to know what's on their mind. Can't beat that.

Rich Rodriguez still has a small-school attitude. Very likeable and gives you good stuff.

Surprised no one said Pete Carroll. One good question can get him going for 10 minutes. Pretty open when talking about himself.

For pure quotability, Spurrier is golden and should be cloned.

Ed Orgeron was cool because I met him face-to-face for three minutes at Rose Bowl media day and he remembered exactly who I was months later when he called me back for an interview _ and gave me his cell number.

Greg Schiano has been a great to deal with and quite accessible.

For pure accessibility _ Barry Switzer. Guy always returns a phone call within 10 minutes. Tuberville is good on that, too.

And I spoke with Jim Grobe for the first time this year, a phoner for AP coach of the year story. He was an absolute pleasure. He seemed humble and truly honored to win the award. He apologized to me for not being available earlier in the week.

I'm sure I've missed some, but that's a good list.

 

Billick has a journalism degree/background, understands the interplay. He's a lot of things, but stupid isn't one of them. You always wondered whether his responses were fashioned more because his Maryland-sized ego persuaded him to want to sound smart all the time, but he is bright and most always gives good answers. And he's not nearly the horse's ass he used to be.

 

Hubie Brown and Rudy Tomjanovich were the two best I dealt with in the NBA. Hubie was just like he is on TV, just a stream of consciousness on any subject. I had been asked to do a feature on the sudden death of Lorenzen Wright's child, a tough subject, and I mentioned it to the Memphis PR guy. Hubie came out and pulled me aside so we could talk privately on that before joining the pregame scrum. He even said before we were finished, "I appreciate that you're taking the time to write about this." Then the scrum lasted close to 45 minutes.

Rudy T had a similarly long pregame chat covering all sorts of subjects. It happened to be, ironically, the day that Jeff Van Gundy resigned from the Knicks, so Rudy talked a lot about the pressures on an NBA coach and how someone would want to just walk away.

The thing that impressed me most about both was that their quotes didn't sound like quotes. They were expressing how they really felt about things.

DJ

 

With 96 responses, I take it the term "beat writer" is being used rather loosely here.
I can't say I was ever a beat writer for a particular team.
Had lots of familiar people I mingled with on many a gameday, but never was crowned with the actual term "beat writer".
So I won't comment on coaches I most enjoyed dealing with.

 

I don't know this first-hand, but a friend who used to cover Duke when Spurrier was there said Spurrier would call him at home at 7 a.m. to bitch about a story he didn't like in that day's paper.

I've only had one coach/manager do that to me -- Bobby Cox.