High School coaches blowing you off

Local Coach X - a noted pain in the ass - once told me after a loss to Non-Local Team Y, "Talk to them; they won the game."

So that's the quote I used in the paper the next day. He's never blown me off since.

 

At a different paper, a football coach refused to talk to me after I wrote a column on some very ugly sportsmanship I saw out of parents of his players. I happened to cover the school's next game after the column came out, and he wouldn't say anything to me except "You think I'm gonna talk to you after you wrote that shit?"

I tried talking to a few of the players, but they wouldn't talk either. So, I turned the story in with no quotes and went to my folks house for the weekend (my hometown was holding its big festival it holds every year, and I went back home for a few days). One of the ladies I worked with called the coach and got a couple of comments to put in the recap.

I always dreaded going to that school after all that happened, but the other coaches -- none of whom coached on the football team -- were always great, and the athletes who played on the football team were good for the most part.

Also, a few years ago I went out to a team's wrestling practice to interview a kid for a feature. The team was doing nothing but joking around and goofing off during practice, and the assistant coach kicked me out of practice because he thought I was one of the problems. All I was doing was sitting there watching practice and talking to the head coach whenever he wasn't working with the team.

Assistant coach later apologized, saying he was pissed off at his team and not me.

 

I don't ever ask coaches for permission to talk to players after a game. I don't see any need to. If the coach has an issue with it, then what's the worst that happens? He cuts me off mid-interview with a player? Fine by me. I'll just use whatever mushmouth quote the kid said before you cut me off.

I say that, though, because it's not an issue around these parts. I'll just grab a kid as he's heading to the locker room or the bus and, with so many parents out there joyriding around anyway, there are kids all over talking to people.

 

on the rare occasions this has happened, I say something along the lines of 'Cmon coach, I've got to have a comment from you about the game. What was the difference?" and, invariably, the coach will give me an answer. even a one-liner, that's all I need if he isn't in the talking mood.

 

and, I always ask to talk to a player. Again, nearly every time the coach says ok, except for the rare coach who never allows. Fortunately, there's only 2 in all sports in my area with this policy and one retired in 2010.

 

I've never really had a coach intentionally blow me off. There have been times when a coach here or there doesn't respond to phone calls or voice mails left, but they've never held grudges. I don't like how most of the coaches I deal with have an inflated view of themselves, but for the most part, they're OK to work with.

 

Had one coach about 10 years ago refuse to speak to me in depth because our staffer often picked against them in her weekly picks. He thought he was being cute by giving one- and two-word answers, then walking away. I had better things to do.

One coach in another venue about 15 years ago threatened to get in a fist-fight with one of our competitors for interviewing players. This coach was really old school and — according to many — a drunk, and he never gave me an issue, but it was pretty low rent.

As far as not speaking to kids after a loss and exploitation, does that mean you also can’t run photos of players crying after losing a postseason game? That’s more exploitative, and it usually ends up being lede art on A1.

 

Not touching that one with a 10-foot pole.

Back on the subject, the policy of "no talking to the kids" is ridiculous. I always try to seek out the kids following a loss or a win.

I had a state-title softball game go into extra innings once. Those portable fences were set up on a field and a poor girl all of five feet tall literally crashed through the fence trying to go after what turned out to be the opponent's game-winning homer. She wanted that ball badly. Oh, she was crying afterward, but she talked.

If that policy had been in place at my paper, there would have gone a great story. My current boss would have been like "WHY DIDN'T YOU TALK TO THE PLAYER?" Screw the rules.

 

Quotes in a high school story are often meaningless, useless and add nothing because they are mostly ridiculous and cliche-filled shit like "nobody thought we could do this" (really, you mean there was enough people paying attention to give two shits about who should win this game?) so I am not sure why the need to talk to high school coaches after games, especially since the guy who started this thread had quotes from the other coach.

Secondly, the policy of not talking to players after a loss sounds like a policy that was written in RickStain. I mean, my God - if you can't talk to players from a losing team, you shouldn't be covering the game.

Third, if a high school coach tells you that you can't talk to his players you need to tell him it is America and you can talk to whoever the hell you want to talk to.

 

I never ask to talk to players. I tell the coach who I want and almost always get it. Most coaches are very good about giving us access and understand what we're doing. In fact, most of them appreciate what we do.

 

Yeah, that's my unofficial policy too. But my other unofficial policy is that I don't have to follow that if I don't feel like it or if I think there's a good story to be had from the loss.

 

I believe, after the second time, I wouldn't be so quick to accept the guy's apology. The third time? I'd answer the phone with "Hello, what the fuck do you want?"