Ever had anything stolen from a press box?

It's only a matter of time before someone puts Hitler, Stalin or Mao in their avatar. Won't be me, but someone will.

 

Pah! Amateurs.

 

My all-time favorite military surplus jacket, stoken from sidelines at a Western Kentucky game in 1982 or so ... other than that, not really.

Some poor bastard had his laptop stolen from the main room at the MPC in Atlanta when I was on duty as night manager in '96 ... sucks, but there wasn't much I could do about it. Probably, Richard Jewell stole it. He was an ass, even before the park bombing.

 

Someone decided they liked all the stuff in my wife's car after a game one Friday night. I was back at the paper, writing the story when I heard a helluva clatter outside. I ran out to find a guy jumping into a truck. When he went around the building, he hit the side and scraped all the way down.

Lost about 100 CDs, wife's new jacket, cell phone, radio, camera.

 

I've had two incidents of theft from PGA Tour media centers. Binocs, and a bag containing books, notes, notebooks and personal phone directory.

About 12 years ago, a laptop was stolen from Augusta National, which is sort of like breaking in and out of Fort Knox.

 

pride? who needs that?

 

Stolen, you ask?

Like, maybe a laptop from the press box while you're on the field doing post-game interviews?

Certainly.

Pretty weird feeling, actually. It takes you a second or two to figure out what's wrong. I mean, how many times have you walked out of the press box for interviews and walked back in and found everything just the way you left it? Hundreds, right? Well, imagine coming back in and finding a big square hole amongst the mountain of accumulated paperwork on the table where you had been sitting. It takes a second for it to register.

But I got the last laugh. That was one serious piece of shit laptop the dickhead got away with.

 

Maybe this guy:

 

Not the press box at Legion Field, but had a stylish London Fog trench coat (not beltless!) swiped from the post-game interview tent there following the inaugural SEC Championship Game in 1992.

A former co-worker had a laptop stolen from the media center at the Atlanta Olympics in '96. It was stolen the morning after the Centennial Park bombing while he was at a press briefing the Atlanta Police and FBI were conducting.

 

Back in my student days I had a brand new Canon 10D get up and walk out of the photo room of a bowl game. Weird thing was that in the photo room there was security at the door and I was in the room the whole time (albeit the other side on the phone). I came back and just that sick, sick feeling of theft crept over me. To this day I wonder which one of the 50 photogs in that room decided he needed that camera more than me.

That's the worst part, it wasn't some random Joe Fan that picked it up off a bench. Another photog ganked it.

 

I had a laptop stolen out of the pressbox at the Wool Bowl in Roswell, N.M., back in 1997. I swore to myself that if I ever have to go back there, I'm going to burn the fucking place to the ground.

Oh, if it ever does burn down, I was here all night.

 

I've been fortunate enough to have never fallen victim to theft, major or minor, while on assignment. (In the office, well, that's another story. While at my old shop, my editor and I both had sandwiches, Hot Pockets and drinks lifted from the break room refrigerator.) This thread has reenforced my new policy to keep my valuables with me at all times.