Your first star interview

[Flash]

Jarome Iginla ... his rookie year.

He said, 'You drove all the way down to Vancouver just to interview me? Wow.'

Indeed.

I never got "wows," dammit!

I wasn't even wearing anything low-cut. That's just the way Iginla is. Humble to the core.

 

[RossLT]

I got Reggie Bush when I was on staff at the University of Washington Daily. The Trojans came to UW for a game and I was outside the Sc locker room and their SID asked if I wanted anyone for one-on-one (this was way after all the others had left) and I said Reggie and Leinart. Reggie was a cool dude, Leinart was kind of an ass.

 

[gandhithegreat]

Greg Norman at Colonial, like '94 or '95. F-cker was uptight with the media. Was when I came to the realization that sometimes athletes don't get it, or in his case, couldn't care less to get it.

I was fairly young, like 22 or something and remember thinking that maybe I had crossed the line by peppering him with so many questions trying to draw something useful out. Wrote this story about his fatherly responsibilities that he was trying to loosen up at home and keep his schedule to a minimum, yada, yada, yada. His persona was quite intimidating. The senior and regular beat writer told me not to worry that he was impressed Sharkie spent so much time talking to me because he had never been able to get that kind of time.

I would find out years later that the Shark was a bit of a cocksman. According to the cart kids at my club, Norman (fairly recently) got caught getting a sloppy oral once-over from a member's wife near the bag room. Other sources claim much more recently that he had Chrissy Evert's ankles up by her ears on his yacht in Florida, when his wife brought her regular weekday dinner party for some kind of evening cruise. Thus, the recent divorce.

Needless to say, Norman's a little more down to earth in my book now.

 

[cranberry]

Curt Gowdy for a magazine piece on AFC-NFC rivalry in '79. He returned my call from a pay phone at an airport and, as I recall, my mom answered the telephone in our kitchen (the only one in our house) and my sister kept badgering me to get off the phone as she was expecting a call. Curt, as you would expect, was awesome and told some great stories. Then I went to our basement and typed the story on my Olympia portable.

 

[In Exile]

I interviewed Ted Williams at an Old Timer's Day, the first day I ever set foot in a locker room, and the first time I ever interviewed any pro athlete in person. Here I am, hair down to my ass, and since none of the other writers seemed like they wanted to talk to him (probably due to fear), I strolled right up to him as he was signing baseballs and yelling at Jim Rice about how he couldn't play tennis. I told him who I was and started asking questions. He looked me up and down, and had to be wondering how the heck somebody who looked like me got into the locker room in the first place, but he talked to me for ten minutes, nice as could be, and answered everything.

 

[CanuckReporter]

it's all about the arena.. not enough capacity to jump to junior b and make the coin to try and survive in that world.. at least that is the excuse I get from the owner/gm.
so I think they are thrilled to do their thing in Junior C and have the success they had.
the past few years a few kids have had success. Bret Nasby is a defender in the Panthers system and Steve Mason was stellar as a 16 y/o, and quickly grabbed attention in the oHl (and of the BlueJackets, who drafted him)

Was Bieksa ever a Grimsby Peach King?

Ah, the Peach Kings... thanks for getting me going on a rant Huggy. How a town of 30,000 nestled between St. Catharines and Hamilton can still be classed as a Jr. C squad I'll never know. I give them credit though, other teams with similar benefits haven't had half the success they have.

Anyway, back on topic, the first big interview for me - or the one I remember, anyway - was Brian Kilrea, the HHOF member and legendary Ottawa 67's coach. I met him just after a practice to do a feature on his longtime assistant coach Bert O'Brien, and I must say he was quite intimidating for a 70 year old. He just had a presence - a readiness and a way of staring at you, making you hope you weren't asking a question that would waste his time. Probably one of the toughest interviews then.

He was good enough to stay and answer all of the questions, no matter how obvious, and he's still a good guy to work with. Earlier this year, I needed something about a really late-round draft pick of his. He called back within five minutes and gave me far more than I thought. Class act all the way.

 

[hanging_curveball]

Brooks Robinson, about 10 years ago. He couldn't have been nicer.

 

[ServeItUp]

Dave Scott, Scott Molina, Scott Tinley in one interview before a triathlon in West Texas. The three of them won Hawaii nine times between them and were a walking, drinking, breathing history book of the sport. They were my heroes growing up and to find them to be so down-to-earth and accessible was the perfect scenario for the beginning of the end of my "gee-whiz" mentality toward the people I covered.