Quote of your career...

I covered two local rivals in a mid-major basketball conference. One year, they were the two worst teams in the conference.
They played each other twice the same week late in the season trying to avoid last place. On Thursday, Team A won at Team B's gym. On Saturday, Team B won at Team A's gym.
So I ask coach of Team B: "How does it happen that the road team won both of these games two days apart?"
He said: "You want the truth?"
I said: "Of course."
He grabs the pen out of my hand and shouts: "Give me that fucking pen, this is off the record. Both of these teams are HORSESHIT ... FUCKING HORSESHIT. THEY'RE HORSESHIT AND WE'RE HORSESHIT."

 

I will haul this out again.

1990 NCAA baseball regional in Waterbury, Conn.

UConn loses to Georgia, 7-2.

Captain Todd Rosenthal comments that there were pitches he could have hit.

"One was right down the cock," he said.

OK, then.

Of course, I put the quote into my story, thinking "well, it's baseball slang, like "right down the pipe."

My editor, an excellent sportswriter but not into jargon, says "Billy, you can't write that."

We go on for a minute, and he says, "Billy, what does that really mean."

I got it and said, OK . . .

The next day, Rosenthal apologized, and the press room laughed it off until I said, "It's OK Rosey, they're not going to fire me after all."

Big laughs.

 

Upper Midwest, a couple of decades ago.

 

About 15 years ago, HS football team I was covering loses a key region game by the thrilling score of 2-0. (Truthfully, it was a helluva game.)
I'm about to talk to the offensive coordinator afterward as a mounted police officer trots by and his trusty steed does what a horse can and will do as it's on the move, leaving us some fresh fertilizer in its wake.
The OC looks at the fresh horseshit on the ground, looks at me and goes, "That's appropriate for the way we played tonight."
Another great quote from a coach I once covered was passed on to me by a colleague. Said coach, one of the winningest all time in the state, was kind of an outcast and a renegade, but loved being that too. During a timeout against a team that eventually won the state title, he turned to his talented yet mild-mannered center, a 6-9 lefty who didn't know how to be aggressive. The other team had a lightning quick point guard.
Coach: "(Center), the next time No. 4 comes through the lane, I want him eating tomorrow's breakfast through a fucking straw!"

 

Well ... he's done that, too. ;D

 

Why hide it? All it take is Gregg Doyel and 5 minutes of google searching to find out

 

I was working at a 30-40K daily in my hometown and we had a prep football coach who was about to retire after 40 years or so at his school. I went up to see him to do my big last game takeout on him and thought I'd ask him to talk about how different the kids he worked with were now than they'd been when he first started.
He starts telling me the story of how he came to school one Friday morning and found out his star quarterback wasn't there. You have to be at school Friday to play Friday night and this week's game was a big one. So Coach went to the kid's house to get his butt to school. Knocked on the door and the prettiest girl in the school, who also happened to be the QB's girlfriend, answered the door wrapped in a sheet.
As he finished the story, he paused and smiled.
"That," he said, "happened in 1958."

 

That's a pretty fitting 69th post, Pooleo.

 

I don't have a quote exactly, but I was sent to a one-on-one interview with Don Shula once shortly after arriving for a new job at a local paper, and after I sat down in his office, he basically ripped the shit out of the first question I asked him for a specific feature -- and then proceeded to give me exactly what I was looking for for about 20 minutes. A good memory.

 

From an MMA fighter in regard to a comeback fight he was having.

"His family's from the same place as mine. I probably know some of them. Hell, I probably fucked his mom. That's probably why he's such a good wrestler."


Then the guy who said it got hurt in training two days before this was going to go to print and it got scrapped.

 

It came from a particularly loud-mouth small-town mayor about 10 years ago. After a council meeting at which they couldn't settle a particularly important matter (I forget what it was, now), I asked the mayor why they couldn't get it done.

In front of the crowd that was still milling around in the room, "Because (one of the councilmen)'s a cocksucker. That's why."

 

Most shocking I ever read was from a priest at a Catholic high school in Philadelphia talking about a fellow priest (the athletic director) after a popular basketball coach was fired.

I don't remember the exact quote, but it went something like this: "He's basically evil. I would kill him if I could."

This was from around 20 years ago by a writer who was well respected and is still going strong.