Quote of your career...

Player walks up for post-practice interview....

"Whoa, all you have is a pen? I don't trust pens."

 

Plus he was trying to play more than one position.

 

Oh gosh, where can I start with memorable quotes in this business.
One summer covering American Legion baseball, I was standing near the dugout and one of the players on the local team we were writing about got so pissed at the umpire that he looked over at me and said, "use this in your story tomorrow and I don't care."
He then yelled out to the ump, "I knew I've seen you some place else. It was at the massage parlor last night."
Everybody screamed.
Nope, didn't use the quote, but I still laugh about it.

 

Covered a high school hockey tournament last week in which Home Team's best player (who had two goals already) had a breakaway in a one-goal game and was stoned at the buzzer.

"When I saw that he had a breakaway, I basically pooped my pants." - visiting goalie

Kind of wished I'd used it.

 

Bump. These are GOLD!

 

Two, from Carolina Panther receiver Steve Smith.

• "You reek what you show."
  
• During the last media session before their Super Bowl against the Patriots, a Houston radio reporter asked Smith if, because of a drive-killing personal foul penalty in a regular season loss to the Texans, he considered the SB a chance for redemption. Smith: "Dude, this ain't no regular season game against the Houston Texans! This is the Super Bowl!" He went on to berate the reporter for a good :30, then ended with "this is the Super Bowl, and your team's not in it!"

 

This wasn't my quote, I only wish it was. It was gathered by my sports editor while covering the local WHL team.
Quote from the coach -- who hapens to be a former Jack Adams award winner as NHL coach of the year -- said after a comeback win during what was really a lost season three years ago.

"It took guts -- like standing on a corner, holding hands with the ugliest girl in ________."

I flubbed it a bit, but that was basically it. We got a few letters about that one. The team's front office was flooded with complaints. The coach was a quote machine.

 

After a World of Outlaws race at Knoxville (Iowa), Joey Saldana goes off on Steve Kinser for blocking him. So I track down Kinser to get his reaction to Saldana's comments. Kinser glares at me and growls, "He sure cries a lot."

One of the better stories I did was about rival race track owners in Washington, Fred Brownfield and Steve Beitler. They used to be best friends before coming bitter enemies. Before they had a chance to patch things up, Fred was killed in 2006. A couple of years later I asked Beitler about his reaction to that news.
"I just lost it. I broke down, just started crying. I said, 'It wasn't supposed to be like this. It wasn't supposed to be this way. Damnit Fred, you're not supposed to die.'"

 

I was interviewing the athletic director at a junior college, where they'd just come up with a trophy for their rivalry game. He was explaining how one of the things that made for a great rivalry was the schools' proximity: "It's like a dog sniffing around. He's wondering 'Is this my hydrant, or someone's else's?'"

 

A high school basketball coach was moaning about his team's poor shooting in a loss. "If basketball didn't involve shooting, we would have won."

It was the last week of the college basketball season. Mid-major rivals met Wednesday at one place and Saturday at the other, battling it out for seventh place in an eight-team conference. The visitor won both games.
I'm interviewing the winning coach after the Saturday game (the last game of the season) and I ask if he had any explanation for the home team losing on both nights. He hemmed and hawed for a few seconds. Then he grabbed the pen out of my hand and said, "The reason is ... BOTH OF THESE TEAMS ARE DOGSHIT. YOU CAN'T WRITE IT, BUT THEY'RE DOGSHIT AND WE'RE DOGSHIT."

 

Wofford basketball coach Mike Young: "I despise turnovers. When I expire, it will be the direct result of a turnover. I can only hope I have a Heineken in my right hand at the time."

 

at my first gig, one of our high school's basketball teams reached the state semi-final. I ask their star point guard what the atmosphere was like around school that week.
"Oh it's great. Even the mean teachers are happy."


or this one from Brett Favre
"Football is like dog years. You got a dog that's ten years old, he's only been around five years. I don't know quite how it works, but football is like that."