Wishing "good luck" to end an interview: polite or a little unethical? Awkward?

So I guess if I meet the Queen of England, I can call her Lizy? She's not my queen.
Coach is a title. It's perfectly acceptable to use.

 

Concur 100 percent. The coach earned the title and professional respect to be addressed as such. Reminds me of a scene in "A Few Good Men."

Kaffee: I'm not through with my examination. Sit down.

Col. Jessep: Colonel!

Lt. Kaffee: What's that?

Col. Jessep: I would appreciate it if he would address me as "Colonel" or "Sir." I believe I've earned it.

Judge Randolph: Defense counsel will address the witness as "Colonel" or "Sir."

Col. Jessep: [to Judge] I don't know what the hell kind of unit you're running here.

Judge Randolph: And the witness will address this court as "Judge" or "Your Honor." I'm quite certain I've earned it. Take your seat, Colonel.

 

In Michigan, the last four are at the finals site. I made back-to-back nine hour trips to cover the same Class D girls' team that got shellacked in the semifinals both times. So, my stories suck, the interviews are full of tears and I don't even get to do a championship game. To flip the above situation around, I found myself kind of bitter in my mind about them — I went nine hours for this AGAIN?! The good news is that a team from a sister paper was also there and I stuck around an extra night to help cover them. They were playing Detroit Country Day, which had two girls 6-4 and above (this team had no one over 5-9). It was predictably lopsided, but the kids handled themselves with a lot of grace and seemed to be enjoying themselves throughout, which really turned things around.

Of course, this year, another school of mine made it to the semifinals, I drove down there, and they got shellacked again.

Re: Coach. I remember using it one time in particular, when at age 24 or so, I still wasn't able to just call my old HS Algebra 2 teacher by his first name yet when he brought the alma mater's track team into my new town for a meet.

 

It certainly straddles a line. I can appreciate this point of view when the term is used deferentially. Over the years, I have heard writers using "Coach" in a manner that suggests they're elevating glorified P.E. teachers into lesser deities. That's a problem.

On the other hand, if you're using it in an offhand, friendly way -- the same way you'd call a physician "Doc," or a college instructor "Professor," or a lawyer "counselor," etc. -- it's perfectly fine.

The real test is: When he's yelling about something you wrote, do you call him "Coach" or do you use his/her first name? The answer will speak volumes about your relationship with him/her.

 

Does it? What if you say, "Coach, fuck off and shut up. I stand behind my story."

 

On original question, I never liked the "good luck" thing because here I'm interviewing these people all about strategies and work ethic and teamwork and then I boil it down to luck? And it did feel a little homer-ish.

Then I saw a veteran sportswriter in spring training conclude a couple of interviews by saying, "Have a good year" and that seemed OK to me. Think it even works as "Have a good game" or "Have a good one," because we are in the business of covering people who generally achieve goals and all.

On traveling beats, for players and coaches I've interviewed multiple times, I've ended interviews with "Safe travels."

On the coach thing, I learned that a lot of former coaches, especially the older ones, take pride in that title and have no problem at all referrring to them as "Coach." For the active guys, it's more first names.

 

I think you're way overthinking this.

 

That's one possible alternative, sure. Particularly if you put verbal air quotes around the word "Coach."

 

Here's one that's kinda funny.
One of our phone guys always finished his calls by saying "Thanks, coach, good luck in your next game."
So one night, this is what we hear as this guy's taking a call.
"Thanks, coach, good luck in your next game."
(PAUSE)
"Oh, OK ... well, good luck next season."
(PAUSE)
"Oh, OK ... have a good retirement."

 

When I'm covering HS basketball or football finals and covering 16 teams in a weekend, it's "good luck, coach." In a perfect world, I'd be able to use their names, but by the fourth game of the day, I'm not willing to trust myself to get the right one.

 

Nothing wrong with "sir" or "ma'am" either. I never called anyone "coach," but I also didn't play a lot of organized sports. I also kind of got into sports writing without having ever wanted to do it, too, so that may be part of it. Now, addressing cops? Yeah, I'd call a captain "captain." That was his rank. "Thanks, captain. Good luck on your next raid."

 

I use coach when applicable. It's a title that he uses.

This does remind me of a postgame interview in Mike Scioscia's office a few years ago. Some intern with one of the local TV stations decided he was going to ask the first question and called Scioscia "skip." Scioscia was nice enough to let it slide and answer the question but we (the writers) and Scioscia had fun with it after the intern left the room to interview some players. TV guys can be such dweebs.