most bizarre post-game encounter?

Well, she asked something along the lines of "Are you old enough to be interviewing me? How old are you?" So, I told her how old I was. Didn't feel dirty at all.

I often get asked - by coaches mainly - if I work for a school paper because they think I am 18 or something. My bad for having a babyface Junkie.

 

Ugh. I know that since I am rapidly approaching 30 I should thank my lucky stars for this, but after seven years I'm pretty sick of getting asked if I'm with the (high) school paper.

I also get really uncomfortable if a athlete or player tries to touch me in any way. Hell, shaking hands with a sweaty athlete makes me run for the hand sanitizer.

The only time I ever touched a player was in my second year of reporting. Kid was starting to cry his shit off in a post-game interview, so I patted him on the shoulder and thanked him for the interview. He still had his pads on so it wasn't weird.

 

For old time's sake, I did a Google search of the girl's name. She now works for a television station in Colorado. Not bad for a girl who went to a small rural school in the South.

 

Seriously, you ignored that? They are yelling at the coach, why not include it or at least ask about it?

 

Covered a high school girls' basketball team that kept winning in the playoffs after a so-so year. They had one really great player -- a 6-footer who could do everything, a coach who was just a baby sitter and 5-6 other players who were just awful.

So it was a one-woman show. She would try to pass to teammates and they ball would go right through their hands. A middle school team would be better.

But she carried them, bringing the ball upcourt and scoring 40-50 points a game until they lost one game away from going to state. I found her outside curled up in a ball crying. I interviewed her while she sat their crying outside the gym door.

 

I asked Tommy Lasorda about Dave Kingman once...

 

Soccer coach hugged me after his team won the state title. And he also hugged several other reporters waiting for an interview.

 

Coincidentally, none of them could find their wallets afterward.

 

Double-A pro.

 

Not so much the weird category but here's a couple from this prep soccer season:

1) One bad big-school team (Big City High) vs. one decent small-school team (Podunkville). PHS should have easily won this one, but the result comes in as BCH 1-0. I find out PHS sent it's JV. Contest is listed as a varsity contest so in our highlights I write something like, "BCH's Johnny Studmuffin scored in the 78th minute to beat PHS, which played mostly JV players."
Next day I have an e-mail from both coaches. PHS coach says it's not a varsity contest because the schools agreed to play a varsity contest. BCH says it's a varsity contest (knowing full well PHS would make that claim) but wonders why we needed to mention the JV part.
First time I'd pissed off both coaches with only one sentence.


2) Same PHS school is playing in the sectional semifinals, two wins from the state quarterfinals. PHS losses in a game it dominates. Walk up to the coach afterwards and he says, "You probably don't want to talk to me right now." I ask him about the opportunities in the second half ... he starts with, "I know this is going in the paper, but ..." Proceeds to rant on the officials for 90 seconds before saying something like, "We had all the chances in the world in the second half and couldn't put one in. And that's a said thing because that team is not very good."

Last quote was damn near the only thing he gave me to work with, so I put it in. Next day I have an e-mail requesting a retraction/clarification because what he said was in the heat of the moment and he's had threats against his family since that was in the paper. He wrote, "This is what I meant to say ..."
I replied that there would be no retraction, but he was more than willing to submit a letter to the editor. A couple days later I'm at the same school covering the sectional finals. AD for host school comes up to me and asks for a minute of my time ... he says, "Do you have that quote from coach on tape?"
"Yep."
"That's all I need to know."

I later find out the coach had been saying I misquoted him and that he never said it (I know, that's a contradiction) ... never did see a letter to the editor from him though.

 

After all, those kids on the bench worked just as hard.

Sorry, had to.

But really, if parents think they can solicit coverage like that ... ugh. Glad you got out of there, Spartakate.

 

I'm serious. There is a difference between players being on the bench and being benched.

Also, in my experience, parents are scared to confront coaches head on so if they are yelling about their kids being benched, it could be something at least worth asking about.