Ever get threatened by a coach?

i had a high school girls basketball coach -- an ex-marine -- once tell me something off the record and, just to be sure, threatened to break my wrists if i wrote it. i don't think he was joking either.

 

I haven't had the pleasure of being threatend by coach's yet.. but well... parents... that's a different story... and I saw a coach get threatend by a parent, which isn't uncommon at all.. but funny as hell.
I cover HS sports, so I expect some anger, but the extent to which I've gotten where I am at is insane... I have players who won't talk to me becuase their parent's don't like me...but in your situation, I would follow exactly what everyone else has said.. keep printing that 'THEY' refuse to comment and eventually they'll figure out that they are the ones who look bad. NOT YOU.

 

Yes.

By a couple NFL players, but more memorably, by a high school coach on the border.

The big, burly coach watched his team get its ass kicked by the 3A South Texas power my paper covered. His players got a little out of control late. There were a couple ejections.

I asked him about it. We're about the same size, and he starts snorting and almost foams at the mouth. He says, "You're supposed to ask me positive questions."

I kinda smirked and let it go.

Then he goes, "Don't you ever come back here." The place had emptied pretty fast.

I said, "What are you gonna do, kick my ass?"

He said, "Possibly."

I laughed and said something about him and what army. Got in my car.

Five minutes later a Texas state trooper pulled me over. Got a speeding ticket.

Had a nice little feud going for several months. The paper sort of had my back. But I figured I'd follow Seth Maxwell's advice and "rise above it." Extended my hand to bury the hatchet at a track meet.

I did get a decent lead, though. "The stadium lights went out as El Presidente High coach Dennis Castro trudged through the parking lot."

Cheap shot, callin' the man like that.

 

had something like this happen, once, and wrote a column about the whole incident the following week ... wasn't very nice when describing the incident, either. thinking back on it, i pretty much hung said coach out to dry (thanks to his own actions).

guy and his staff hated me the rest of my stay at that shop, but they always answered my questions, even if it was through clenched teeth. i really didn't care, though, because they were going to hate me either way.

ink may as well be free to you and i my friend.

 

Sirs, Madames,

Marc Crawford, '97. In fairness, he threatened me and I threatened him back. The pen is a weapon--I was actually mulling over using it for an eye gouge while the testosterone rose. A few days later it was smoothed, but when the 'lanche crashed and burned that spring (remember Crow's bug-eyed staredown with Bowman) Crawford's press conference lasted one question: mine. I used the bug eyes and his own words to chase him off the stage. "Marc, you said that your team had to act accountably and responsibly to win this series--what did you learn yourself about acting accountably and responsibly?"

He might not have been born an asshole--but after the '96 Cup he became one fast. Consider: He took issue with me for a column I wrote that said he was the only choice for Canadian Olympic coach.

YHS, etc

 

It's too bad this happened at a university, where there's often nobody to check and balance the dickhead football or basketball coach because the dickhead runs the place. If it happened in a pro league you could raise all sorts of hell with the league PR dept and probably assure yourself the same access you had before.

I'm just thinking off the top of my head, but if they actually go thru with shutting you out, I'd try to find a sympathetic booster. Maybe the school you cover has a famous author who happens to contribute a crapload of money? Perhaps the athletic department will suddenly pay attention to your plight if he threatens to yank his support.

Or maybe, if this coach is as sucky as you've said, the booster wants to make him sweat.

 

During the minor league playoffs one season lo those many years ago, the coach of the opposing team found me after the next game (I think I was going to him to get a quick quote) and he basically tried to intimidate me because I had used a quote given to the reporter which covers his team. I tried to explain to him that sometimes reporters have to share quotes because we can't get to both locker rooms, but he definitely was "threatening" me. And this future NHL coach had an intimiading presence as is.

The good news is, he calmed down and gave me my interview ... and even the next year he made some joking comment when he saw me. Hell, I was just happy someone was reading my stories.

 

In college I was told by the sports information office that it would be in my best interests to not dig any deeper on why several athletes had mysteriously been suspeneded (it was hazing). He told me to drop it, and didn't think I could get anyone to talk to me. Found four sources to go on the record, got a bunch of no comments from the athletic department higher ups, ran the story on the top of the front page. The SID didn't anticipate having to back his talk up and never raised the issue again.

 

I had a coach and some players get all mad at me and refuse to talk to me when I picked our school's football team to lose in the student paper. No real threats, just a lot of "Why should I talk to you" stuff. They, of course, went on to kick the other team's ass and made me look dumb. The look on the coach's face the next week was great. He wasn't mad anymore, just happy that he and his team made me look dumb.

 

Sconnie,
same thing here except I was right. I chose 'our' team to lose their homecoming game to a much much better and higher ranked team.... I had kids pissed for weeks... coaches weren't at all.. in fact.. we do a 'pig skin picks' in our paper and people turn it in to win $$ and some of the coaches even picked against their team... let me tell you how awesome it is to have that haning out in my back pocket, whenever someone freaks on me! haha

 

I covered a DI team during an 0-12 season... the coach's first at this school.

Had the coach, AD and university president at different points of the season call my editor about me not being supportive enough ... "he only writes about the gloom and doom" or "we're glass half full kinda guys, he's obviously not" or the "how is his writing about our losing a benefit to the readers?". My editor, not a very sports savvy one, unfortunately, wasn't always supportive of me, either. But I leaned on the support and advice of some of the older, more tenured sports journalists around the state for their advice on how to handle the situation and asked for brutally honest opinions on whether I was in the wrong in how I was covering the winless season. I was confident I was doing it the right way. And, although I pushed my editor on the matter about as hard as I could with out going overboard on the workplace boss/employee dynamic, I basically never backed down from the coach and continued to report game stories as it happened and didn't do the sugar coating over a winless season the school wanted me to.

Thing I'm most proud of, I was threatened (not physically, just with access and even by the university president about an audit of my transcripts... I'm a grad of the school long before he was pres. there) but never missed a press conference, practice or any other obligation despite how uncomfortable it was made on me. This season, there is 100 percent more respect from all three -- coach, AD and pres. -- after they saw I was always the one there asking the questions, good or bad. The working relationship is much better.

I'm not experienced enough for my advice to mean much, but the best I can say is show up to practice the day you write something perceived to be bad and face the coaches. Show them whatever was written didn't mean as much to you as it did to them... it was just part of the job and today is another day on the job. Keep asking the questions you need to ask.