Quote of your career...

It's not the greatest quote, but the most impactful:

One offseason, the GM of the team I cover was getting tons of flak about not signing a particular expensive player. He noted that 90 percent of the fans understood what he was trying to do with the team and it was only the "lunatic fringe" that was making the most critical noise.

Well, that became a catch phrase that fans (who detest this GM) still call themselves six years later. Many even made up T-shirts and ballcaps with script "Lunatic Fringe" and logos and such and wore them to the park.

What made me feel good was, the quote was the kicker of what I believe was a 40" story about the beleaguered GM. So at least I knew the thing got read in full.

 

Asked an old-school high school baseball coach about something his team had done well.
"That pleases the pee out of me."
Pee?
"I know you can't print piss."
His team actually started a Facebook group to record for posterity all his great sayings. My favorite?
"Y'all go down there and play with a tight ass you gon leave with a bruised one...now put that on your facebook."

 

High school football game, 1981.

Two minutes left, QB comes off the field on the far sideline and obviously jaws at the coach. The coach decks said QB with a right cross. Puts him on the ground.

Two minutes later, I'm coming down from the press box and the coach is trotting toward me.

I think he's coming directly over for the postgame interview, but as he gets to me, he pants, "Sorry shot gotta go they're after me!"

I look past him at the entire west stands chasing the coach as if they had lighted pitchforks.

 

First year as a part timer, about halfway through the high school football season. Home team wins after away team has their QB ejected. Away team coach, with 3-4 reporters standing by, doesn't even wait for the first question to be finished.

"Chicken shit! It was chicken shit! S-H-I-T. Big capital letters. What else do you want to know?"

Two words come out of another reporter's mouth, then he goes into a 3-4 minute rant about the officiating. Haven't had a quote even approaching that in the 13 years since. And, yes, I ran it (using a long dash for the s-bomb)...

 

I wish I could put it here without outing myself. It was very early in my career and my assigning editor told me at the time, "You will never, ever get a better quote than this one..."

He was definitely right. It's a jaw-dropping one.

 

Talking with a guy who had a miserable competition day and was tired, hot, wet, hungry and upset.

"I was more frustrated than two rats fucking in a wool sock."

After I stopped laughing we had to regroup.

 

Can't entirely claim this one for me, but a sister paper was pooling quotes for us from a losing locker room in a state semfinal girls basketball game.

Girl from our area, with very short hair and unparalleled athleticism, had scored 30-something points, including a buzzer-beating shot to send her school to the state championship game.

Girl from losing team, fighting back tears: "First off, she's a boy."

 

Anyone who's ever covered prep football knows how all the guys who graduated one or two years ago and play (or sit) at the local JCs like to come back and walk the sidelines on Friday in their old letterman jackets and try to motivate their alma mater, which usually isn't paying attention to them.

Anyway, I'm covering a game and one such young alumnus is getting fired up about the other team's play during a tight contest. After an opponent levels one of his guys with a semi-late hit, he calls his school's best defender over to him and says, "I'll give you 50 bucks if you knock that cocksucker out of the game."

I took it as the typical BS a reporter hears all the time on the sideline. But sure enough, a few minutes later, the opponent in question is completely blown up on a kickoff return, there's an injury stoppage for five minutes and they eventually help the guy off the field, not to return.

As for the 50 bucks, I couldn't tell you.

 

Well thanks for nothing. That's like saying 'You will never guess who I talked to today.' and then saying 'I can't tell you.'

 

1) On a major beat, a coach was absolutely getting fed up with losing to the same team. In pure frustration after a game, he looked at us and said "We're used to getting one or two good f_ckings a week," in reference to the opponent. Then, almost as if he might have said that in an empty room, he looked up and muttered "Oh sh_t. There goes the ring I just bought my wife."

He had nothing to worry about. The league didn't fine him.

-----

2) The first couple of years, I was handling a call for a HS football preview. The coach, obviously frustrated, said "But this is the nicest team I've ever had. I don't think we've had but one 15-yard penalty all season."

Getting the drift I said "But you don't want nice."

Coach: "No, I don't. Hit somebody. Hit anybody. Hit yourself."

A year later, I was at a road game and a RB for the home team broke off a 30-plus yard run breaking numerous tackles. With perfect comedic timing toward no one in particular, he just looked up and said "Ain't that a b_tch?"

I miss that guy. One of the great personalities and a good, good man to boot.

 

Wake Forest coach Jim Grobe on how recruiting rankings tend to overrate players based on where they sign. "Sometimes, you'll look at a five-star guy and you think he can't play dead in a cowboy movie."

 

I (heart) Jim Grobe. Strikes me as the sort who would laugh at those who follow their schools and their supposed five-star recruiting class.