most bizarre post-game encounter?

That happens quite a bit... One of my first assignments ever was to track a team from the beginning of the state playoffs as far as they went... They lost in the state finals and as I was interviewing one of them they just hugged me and started sobbing into my shoulder... I was holding my hands over my head to show everyone that I wasn't doing anything. I was only 21 or 22 at the time and was about as uncomfortable as you can get. There's really nothing you can do in those situations without looking like a heartless prick.

 

Opening week of football this year, I had been covering this team for about two years and had a real good rapport with coach and kids. They beat the No. 4 team in the state with their QB playing game of his life. I find coach after talking to bunch of kids and he looks at me and says "I'm really pissed off at your right now. Well, not you but your paper." Apparently there was an article in the news side the day before he was pissed about and I got the 15-minute lecture on why it was wrong. Mind you, it's already about 10:20. Coach says he's no longer talking to me or my paper and he's not letting the kids talk to me anymore, "but I'll talk to you tonight since you didn't know about it."

I was thinking it was a pretty ballsy thing to do for a guy with a sub-.500 career record.

 

Covering a prep football game, running up and down the sidelines with my clipboard, in a pack with the two or three other reporters covering the game, kid from the school paper and a couple of stat girls. We'd all talk after every play -- are we going with three yards or four yards for that run?

As soon as the game ended, the reporters headed toward the coach, but I never got there. Some huge kid--clearly a lineman--comes over and blindsides me with a better block than any he had made in the game. Knocks me on my ass, all my stuff goes flying. Turns out he was the boyfriend of one of the stat girls and, by glancing over at the sideline a couple times during the game, had decided I must have been hitting on her.

She apologized. He did not.

 

I had that happen too. I just grabbed her ass and told her everything was going to be okay, daddy was here.

i did actually have a girl after winning the 800 in a regional meet, lean against me and groan while I interviewed her. That was weird.
Luckily her mom was right there. So I just leaned against her Crying athletes are the worst.

And screwball, I so would have kicked either filed charges against the kid or made sure he got kicked off the team, or at least suspended for a few games. A good ass kicking is more well deserved.

 

Hate to break it to you, MU, but in the court of public opinion most coaches do get away with this shit. No one gives a rip about our problems. I'm not saying you don't report it necessarily, but it still needs to pass muster of the reader's need to know.

Anyway, my most bizarro postgame situation was at my first job. Like a lot of small papers, we had a weekly pick 'em for prep football games. One of our schools had an unlikely run to the state semifinals, and I had picked against them (I wasn't one of the many morans who go homer with their picks) for most of their run. I was assigned to cover their semifinal game.

I knew I was in for a bizarro night during the game. It was a rare time I worked the sideline, and the local team was driving for a touchdown (or the other team was driving, I forget) and a JV-ish player taps my shoulder and asks me, "Why do you keep picking against us in the paper?" I chuckled and asked him why he was worried about that in the middle of a tight game. He just shrugged his shoulders.

Anyhow, my local team wins to earn a state championship game berth. There's about four reporters waiting around and the coach, who was straight out of erascible high school coach central casting, singles me out and has me go in the locker room alone. Once inside, his team gave me a standing ovation and starting patting me on the back. He said, "Thanks Bubbler. Your picks against us in the paper really motivated us. We know you didn't mean it, thanks a lot."

Yeah ... right. Fuck you, coach.

Just to piss them off, I picked them to win the state championship game. I think they got smoked 72-10 or something.

It's amazing how seriously people take that stuff. Later ... during their opening basketball game, their radio guy shoved a mike in my face without warning and asked if I was going to keep picking against them in basketball too. I had to fight every fiber of my being not to tell him to fuck off on air.

 

Think you were suprised by a wrestler hugging you?
One of our guys was at a girls basketball tournament game and the reporter from the competitor hugged a player after the loss. Yes, the guy hugged the girl. Our guy said she looked freaked out, but gave him a half-hug anyway.

Also at a boys basketball tournament game, a coach refused to address the media (about 5 guys, I think) until a reporter from the competitor left the room.
"He hasn't talked to me all year even though he's quoted me twice." He added that he knew the quotes were made up, not taken from another story/outlet.

 

Unless you were at the press conference when Cliff Ellis resigned as Clemson's coach and stood at the door hugging every reporter as we left. Fortunately, I was able to slip past while he was hugging someone else.

 

I won't classify this as bizarre but it fits into the theme of this thread.
Our metro competition has a wise ass columnist, who thinks he's funny when all you do is groan at some of his shit.
Anyways, one of our local HS football teams is playing for the state title and a few days before the game, this columnist pens a piece about a former HS player who is tearing it up as a freshman at a big-time college. In the column, he writes, "last year, xxx was running over small, sorry schools such as xxx, and our local school."
So after our team wins the title in a thriller, the prep reporter from the metro goes up to the coach to get quotes.
The coach says, "I'm not happy with what xxx said about our team, we have a lot of pride and xxx ran over EVERY team he faced."
I give the writer credit, he took it well, told the coach, I know where you're coming from.
If the columnist wasn't trying to go for the big laugh, taking shots at small schools he's never going to cover, I don't blame the coach for sticking up for his program.
He did it in a normal voice, didn't freeze anyone out and didn't screw up anyone's deadlines.

 

Kip Wells spit tobacco at my feet once.

 

I had a distance runner puke on my shoes once while interviewing her. Then she started apologizing profusely and made me take them off so she could wipe them off. It was very strange.

I've also had the high school male athlete hug me before, it is so weird.

Probably the strangest though was last year after a local small school won a state title in the 400-meter relay and I'm interviewing a couple of the runners. When I am wrapping my interview up with the last one, she says, "I just want you to know that you have really pretty eyes. That's all." I just stood there, like "OK. That was weird." And got the hell out of there.

 

And called her, right? ...

 

Despite the fact she was a high schooler, it was more uncomfortable because she was a sophomore.