Is getting a good quote more on the writer or the athlete?

I'm thinking hockey, with the use of "odd-man rush."

 

I posted this because when I interview, there always is a gem stuffed in the middle of a quote. As people are saying, there needs to be a level of comfort between the athlete and yourself, just like any human relationship in order to open up. You don't go walking down the street and after "how are you doing," someone doesn't respond with "not too bad figuring my dog just died on the way to the vet..."

Athletes take a little warming up before they completely open up. I don't know what it's like on the news side.

 

Do you think athletes/coaches (at any level) sit thinking of a great quote and are just waiting for the right question to spring it?

 

I am sure some coaches like Pat Riley, Phil Jackson or Bob Knight have a plethora of things they want to get out and the right question does spring it out. I doubt it happens with athletes. I doubt Terrell Owens is sitting at home writing down answers to "what were you thinking when you went across the middle and dropped that pass with the game on the line?"

 

I covered a HS girls basketball game where a team was leading through three quarters. They were actually handling the other team very well.
Then in the fourth quarter they just fell apart. They still won the game but they went from looking like 8-3 to 3-8.

I asked the coach what happened and he said "Well we played like a bunch of ruptured ducks in a whirlpool." He had to have planned that or have said it sometime before. Nobody comes up with that off the top of their head.

 

The first, and most important thing, is to fnid a common ground. I don't have much in common with a 16-year-old black high school basketball star. But I do have a few things.

So I'll mention his pass reminded me of a particular player — a Jason Kidd or a Chris Paul. Then I'll casually ask who his favrotie point guard is. Then I'll say, "Oh man, I saw a great Chris Paul highlight video on youtube from college." And he'll realize that I'm a little like him, and we'll have a conversation, not an interview.

2) Once you have them comfortable, don't just ask sports questions. They're ready for sports questions. They don't have to think about sports questions. So they'll fire back typical sports answers.

3) Listen, watch and pay close attention to the scene after a game. I've gotten gems from just hearing people talk in the background.

4) When it comes down to it, it's ALWAYS on the writer.

 

I've always found that the best quotes for me come from conversational interviews much more often rather than straight Q & A type interviews. By that I mean that often, instead of asking a question I would make an observation and let the athlete or coach respond. Unfortunately, one of the teams I covered last year had a coach who simply would not respond to this type of interview. You had to ask a question to get an answer from him. It never got better through the course of the season. I had to give in to the Question format and he rarely delivered a good quote. And sometimes you can get a great quote by asking a "duh" type question where you obviously know the answer but still have to ask the question. It occasionally will set a player off to where he'll give you a great quote, even if he first asks, "What do you think?".

 

Ah, I'm having a tough time explaining this differently.

Two-on-one fast break in basketball, if you will. Player A, on the fast break, streaks up the left side of the court with a Defender between he and Player B. He throws the bounce pass past Defender, Player B catches it, throws the alley-oop up to Player A.

I don't ask Player A, "What happened on that play when Player B caught you streaking up the left side of the court and you had the dunk?" I ask, "What happened there?"

Player A's answer then changes. He doesn't build off your question, which essentially leads to "Yeah, you're right." Instead, he explains the whole thing. It doesn't matter how obvious it is; if you give them a lot of room, they're more likely to take it.

 

Actual conversation with a player or coach is the best. I believe I got the best quote and information just dropping by a coaches office one day to see what was new and exciting and while we both had a coke and talked as if we where in a bar not in his office. BTW everything was on the record.

The Q and A format works ok enough right before or after a game but you always want to see if the coach has some time after maybe in his office to chat for a few min.

 

i saw the first word of your post and wanted to disagree with you ... until i read the rest.


that's a great take on the subject.

 

I have read this and wanted to say that there are many good answers here. Buckweaver and UMDJschool as did bigpern and babs, too. These are all well-informed answers and opinions.

The only thing that I want to add is to emphasize something that has been touched on already. I have found that the more comfortable an athlete is around you, the more likely they are to open up. It's almost as if you need to befriend them.

If you stick a tape recorder in their face and ask them a bunch of questions or even worse just read off a bunch of questions, they are going to feel like they are being interrogated and the interview will likely be crap, especially the younger and less experienced athlete.

What I have found is that if you can find some common ground that you and the athlete each share, say a relative who has does the same job (parents, siblings) or say a relative who has had a similar experience (Life/Death altering) or if you and the athelte have anything in common, especially about any of the subject matter that you intend to write about then the athlete tends to respond better.

So you understand what I'm talking about. A couple of times, I've been interviewing athletes and said "you know the same thing happened to me in college" and proceded to tell them a story. I also once told an athlete about how he had a genetic condition that I had throughout my family. Once I explained some of the situations I had seen through my relatives he knew that I knew what it was like and what I was talking about. In both situations, the athletes opened up like books to me. And, later, I found they were just as easy to interview because we had a common denominator and there was a "friendship" of sorts there so to speak.

Remember, find a way to make an athlete feel comfortable around you. Just shoot the bull with him about anything. Ask him who his favorite pro football team is, then tell him yours and you can rag on his team or maybe you have the same team in common to talk about. If it's about an illness or death in the family or whatever, and you've had a similar experience, tell them about it. You'll be surprised at how they respond and open up.

I think the key is making someone feel comfortable. I know I wouldn't want a tape recorder shoved in my face and somebody rattle off 10 questions and then leave.

 

comfortable subjects give better interviews.


five words.