Columnist hangs beat writer out to dry

Respect isn't a zero-sum game.

Coach is an honorific general noun. It's also a foolproof way to address a skipper you never met, or who uses initials as a name, or who's name you might have forgotten, or who you are on good terms with or for any number of other perfectly valid reasons.

I coach youth high school hockey, and parents of little kids in the program will see me around town and say "Hi, coach." I generally assume it's because they forgot my name but noticed my team coat or simply remember my face from the rink.

Nothing wrong with that, and nothing wrong with a reporter using it either. Once you've been introduced, and you're comfortable, nothing wrong with first names either.

But to suggest that one is automatically ceding power by using the word is asinine. It assumes a set of hard and fast rules to personal dynamics that don't exist. Would some of you frown on the use of Mr. So-and-so for a coach (or player) who is older than the reporter? Doesn't coach fall into the same category of honorifics that you extend to anyone in such a position?

 

Six pages on whether or not calling someone "coach" is unnecessarily deifying him or her? Cripes. Coach. It's a nice fallback when you see an assistant coach and for whatever reason you forget his first name. Happens sometimes. Hi coach. No, I will not run six lines and do 30 push-ups.

 

I think a better, more common example would be if you're calling his office. Do say is Jim there? If you aren't friendly with him I think that's a little odd. If he were to return a call to my office, I'd expect him to say 'Is Boobie Miles there.' Not 'hey is boobie there.'

 

You want respect? Write well, get your facts straight, be fair and ask smart questions. No one will give a shit whether or not you say coach if you do those things. You'll get great interviews.

 

Well, sure, jag, there's the easy answer...

 

Yes, because it's the eight-pagers about reality shows and posters' dating interests that are what's truly edifying around here.

 

It works both ways, the person calling the other person by the title can cause the other person to cede control to them.
For example, when my wife says to me, "Why don't you come her and play with me stud?" I cede control to her and anything she wants to do!

 

Gee, so why doesn't Calhoun get the same bad press as Sir Robert in Lubbock?

 

are you attempting to say because a person doesn't choke, hit and slap players, throw chairs across the floor, make rape sound like "fun" or get fired for being an unbridled sonofabitch, that said person still can't be an asshole? is that what you're insinuating?

 

I laughed out loud at that...

 

I think Knight's a great coach. So injecting my bias, I'll say one asshole to the media is no real difference from another asshole to the media. We all have assholes in our coverage area and most of us handle all of them with a dose of chagrin, a desire not to do any special favors for, and a pen ready to rip them, given the chance by their actions.

 

i get your journalistic point, although i think your approach was non traditional.

as far was knight being a great coach ... well, i guess you also believe herb dealers also make great role models.