Press box horror stories

Glad I'm not the only one who thought that.

 

Doing visiting radio at a women's D1 basketball game on the west coast, with a very small in-house crowd. Two of the 20 or so people in the stands were women seated directly behind me, using the foulest language possible at high volume.

I got an emergency call from the studio asking me if I knew that the words bitch, fat c**t, and stupid f^%k had gone out over the air in the past minute. Uhhh, yes, of course. How could I not?

The administrator in charge finally hauled the pair out after I waved her over, and then thanked me. Turns out the duo were notorious PITA's, and also among the program's biggest donors.

 

Covering a Falcons game at the old Atlanta Stadium (that's right, I said it -- forget that Fulton County BS) for the now-defunct Gwinnett Daily News. We're all back upstairs from the locker room. I'm in the front row, cranking away, when out of the corner of my eye, I sort of see something flashing past in front of me. It takes me, and the guy next to me, a split second to realize what it was, and at the same instant, we look at each other and ask, "Was that a body?"

Turns out it was. Some guy fell from the top deck, just above us, past the open-air press box and crashed onto the seats below.

While most of us were slow on the uptake, the GDN columnist, an ex-Marine/ex-war correspondent named J. Edwin Smith, figured the situation out instantly. While we were asking each other what we saw, Jedwin was already out of his seat and racing toward the press box door. He was one of the first on the scene, along with the cleaning crew.

Turned out the guy was stinking drunk (yeah, I know, go figure) and wound up with only minor injuries, probably because he was stinking drunk. I remember being pretty shaken and having trouble writing the rest of my stuff that evening. Jedwin was completely unruffled.

 

Not a horror story, but I had a weird streak where I had to sit behind Michael Katz at a series of big fights. I defy anyone to see past that giant head, accompanied by hat, beard, and neck brace. It was like sitting behind Mr. Met.

A stage play could have been done about the old Expos press box. Filled with smoke and the steam from a kettle of hot dogs, with the most awesome collection of characters you could ever imagine. I loved covering Expos games, just so I could watch reporters scream at each other in Franglais while I tucked into a plate of steamies.

 

I have worked mainly desk in my career but I have occasionally covered a few prep games. I covered one several weeks back, a 5A school (the second highest classification, in case your state labels them differently) no less, with no rosters, no stats and no wifi. I kept my own stats (no big deal, we've all done it) but I had to get the roster from the state's athletic association website on my cell phone. None of the names for the stars matched (and I don't mean outlandish nicknames, or Bob for Robert. I'm talking the star QB's name was Joseph but he went by Cameron.) Doesn't help when there are multiple offensive players with the same number.

I ended up getting my quotes and then going to an assistant coach to double check my stats.

 

Back in my cub reporting days, I covered the Rich Kotite-era Philadelphia Eagles at the old Vet for my small daily. Was seated in the back row of Press Box A, which meant I had to lean down (chin on table) to see what was going on on the opposite side of the field. At halftime there would be a mad dash to the bathroom and being in the back I was lucky enough to get one of the urinals before there was a line. As I'm leaving the sports anchor for one of the Philly TV stations comes into the bathroom and rips a huge fart that had an echo.

That same season the Eagles made it a policy that you could be thrown out of the press box for making "wisecracks." So the Birds are stinking it up against the Bears early in October and it's pretty quiet. Suddenly, Fred Sprunk from the Harrisburg Patriot-News shouts "WHERE THE HELL ARE THE SINGING CATS???" The whole place cracks up and draws a couple media relations staff from the adjoining Press Box B wondering what was going on.

(The "singing cats" reference, BTW, came from David Letterman's debut episode on CBS that ran a few weeks before that game.)

 

I was sitting in a press box when a writer was struck in the throat by a foul ball. He was fine, but it was pretty scary. The way he went down, it look like he was killed, but they took him to the hospital and he was back the next day. The guy was a gamer...

 

Not a shot at you Keystone, but I've always found it strange that people think it's poor form to fart in a men's room. Where the else are you supposed to do it?

 

Funniest women's BB story. Not a large crowd in the gym that day, so you could hear everyone plainly. One guy behind press row keeps heckling the refs, including the infamous "Hey, watch number 30, she's a hooker". Everyone turns around and stares at the guy. Long pause before he yells "Well, you know what I mean."

 

So many stories but here's one that stands out and I will not use names. A Knicks beat writer had a knack for copying information verbatim off of other reporter's terminals during games. The unsuspecting reporter might get up and say go to the rest room, and that Knicks writer would go to town copying information.

 

Not a horror story, but ...

The men's bathroom in the Microville Tech press box is very small. The women's bathroom is larger, and almost never used. One time before a game the line to the men's WC was long. One of the security guys, who I knew from many years on the job, told me and the guy next to me to use the women's bathroom (he'd knocked to make sure it was empty). So I and the guy next to me, who just happend to be a Heisman Trophy winner, went into adjoining stalls in the the women's WC and took a leak.

I've always have laughed to myself about the day I took a leak in a women's bathroom with a Heisman winner in the next stall.

I also remember seeing the late Alan Mallamud in the press box at the LA Coliseum on a Saturday and thinking, "He looks like absolute hell." I think he died that night or the next day from a heart attack.

 

I've seen guys do that one before... Lowest form of life...