Quote of your career...

I was doing a story about a construction project and the project manager, who was very smart and accomplished but also wonderfully unaware, ended the interview by saying, "Now we just sit back and wait for the erection!" I had nowhere to go from there.

 

Also, when I was in high school, our basketball coach told us, "You should be a bunch of racehorses, but instead you're a bunch of jackasses."

 

"I can't believe we scored 32 points here. I've been here for 20 years and we've always struggled here. Usually, I'm looking up at the top of the pressbox, waiting for the Roadrunner to come out and drop an anvil on top of my head."

My favorite is probably when a kid got a key rebound in a high school basketball game with just a few seconds left.

"He went up for that rebound with every inch of his manhood...uh, that sounded gay. You're not going to use that are you? Please don't use that."

I've made sure to save these files on two different flash drives for posterity.

 

After the local high school football team finished its season with one win and nine or so losses, the coach rounded up the returning players and kicked the seniors out of the circle and back to the locker room.

The coach talked to them for about 10 minutes and then came over to where myself and another reporter were waiting to talk to him. The other reporter points at the group and said, "Is the foundation set for next year?"

"Yeah, if the foundation is made out of paper that's been sitting in the bottom of the ocean for about a month."

I guess we'll find out how strong that foundation is at the end of the month.

 

Doing a basketball preview capsules for this one team that had a really short bench (was only going to have a 7-man rotation). When asked about the rest of the roster, he referred to them as (paraphrasing) "30-30-30 guys. You'll only see them when up 30, down 30 with 30 seconds left."

Also, in a high school football playoff game the hometown team won like 41-7 thanks to about 300 yards a game, one of the RBs was asked about his O-Line's performance and replied "I'm going have to go buy them Wendy's or something."

 

Years ago I had a well-known college basketball coach tell me: "My team's like a three-inch dick. It's OK at home, but take it on the road and no one's impressed."

That one obviously never saw the light of day, and I couldn't figure out a way to clean it up enough to even have a shot at getting it in.

 

I've got a couple:
One came when I was in college and I was interviewing a girl for a school story so quote never saw the light of day: "I'll never forget the day I was watching the news and saw that my dad was arrested for murder."

And the other was at the end of the an interview off a throwaway question of a prominent local business owner, "What brought you to NM?"

"Two federal marshals. I was arrested for selling marijuana."

 

The basketball coach for a very successful mid-major was having a bad season. The point guard tore up his knee in December and missed the season. Couple of others were hurt.
The coach was about 5-foot-9 and a bit stocky. His wife about 5-2 and very slender.
So because of the injuries, the coach's son wound up as the starting point guard.
Lamenting the season, the coach said, "Twenty years ago, if you would have told me my son would be the point guard on my team, I would have cut off my own dick."

 

I once had a very animated coach tell me, "We are just taking it one game at a time."

Game, set, match.

 

Shit. Too many to remember them all, but here are a few faves from 1-on-1 interviews ...

DENNIS RODMAN told me in '97 that he and Michael Jordan needed a nice long walk on the beach together to work through their difficulties. I asked: "Hand in hand?" And he responded: "Nah, Michael would never go for that."

OZZIE GUILLEN, as the White Sox almost blew a huge division lead down the stretch in 2005: "It makes me sad when they boo me. Sometimes I think they don't appreciate me. ... If I win here, if I help the White Sox do this, it will give me a chance to walk away if I want to. I will think about it. I will think about it twice. The way I'm thinking right now, I will tell Kenny Williams to get another manager and I'll get the fuck out of here. I'll make more money signing autographs instead of dealing with this shit. ... Every time we lose, I feel sick. I puke sometimes. I get mad. I throw things in my office. It makes me crazy."

BILL MUSSELMAN, on the likelihood of Timberwolves president Bob Stein firing him in 1991: "(The) guy hates my guts. I've never seen anything in the world like it. This team sure as hell isn't underachieving, and we play to a full house. What do they want?"

KEVIN O'NEILL, explaining why he preferred coaching pros to college kids: "I hated always having to lie to some teenager's mother."

And a few faves from press conference or locker room situations:

JERRY BURNS, after being told coach-turned-commentator Hank Stram said the Vikings lacked killer instinct: "Fuck Hank Stram. And fuck my next-door neighbor, too; he's got all the answers." (I probably could come up with dozens of Burns quotes, by the way. He was amazing, especially early in his tenure as Vikings coach and especially when talking only to small groups or individuals.)

CURTIS ENIS, after an exchange about religion led to him finding out I'm Jewish: "Well, I have no problem being Jewish. I like to get money and make things happen."

SAMMY SOSA, asked during spring training 2001 if he thought his contract demands might alienate the average fan: "You cannot compare an average person with a professional athlete. It's a big, big, big difference. A lot of people want to complain, but if they really had my shoe, they probably would be doing the same thing that I do. Maybe worse."

LOU PINIELLA, upon seeing Erin Andrews in a skimpy outfit before a 2008 Cubs-Brewers game: "Hey, hey, hey! Look at this! Are you doing a baseball game today or a modeling assignment?"

DUSTY BAKER, after being told he had a reputation as a morale-builder but not a strategist: "Hey, I'm the strategizingest dude around."

ROD BECK: "My weight isn't a problem; I've never seen anyone on the disabled list with pulled fat."

And this from former AP colleague JIMMY GOLEN, who noticed that I was numbering the columns I saved in a scrapbook from my Minnesota days. When I said I wanted to get to 511 so I could match Cy Young, Jimmy cracked: "Uh, Mike ... his 511 were wins."

 

Here's one I forgot:

For those of you who have seen The Blind Side and remember the part with Houston Nutt pitching Arkansas to Mike Oher, he explains how there's lions and tigers and bears, but only one Razorback.

I sat in Nutt's office in Fayetteville in 2006 for a one-on-one. I asked him how he's able to stay so positive about the university when there's so much negativity from the fans despite how well the team is playing.

He gave me that same recruiting pitch, verbatim.

 

I got a great one, but I didn't use a recorder and can't read my shorthand.

Damn.