So a coach told me to go F*** myself three times today

First, a little background. Podunk U loses its first three games of the season by a combined score of 117-28, the last game being a 46-0 blowout in which they were demolished. I mean absolutely demolished.

I told to the coach after that game and in the middle of the interview, he blows me off mid-response.

He's done this to me before, so whatever, I do my story.

Problem is, it apparently comes out "negative" in his opinion. (If I wrote it "positive" I wouldn't be doing my job and, in fact, aside from the opening couple of paragraphs where I explain that they beat pretty badly, I'd say it's an even-keel type story).

Today, I'm covering Podunk again. They lose 28-21 but played pretty good.

A rival reporter and I go to talk to the coach, he seems alright. He answers the first question by the rival reporter with no problem. I ask him something to the extent of "your offense played better today" he responds with the following (I'm paraphrasing because I don't have my recorder handy right now)....

"Yeah, we played better than that piece of shit team you wrote about in last week's paper in that crappy article."

I'm taken aback and say "Um..." and before I can even get out another word he rips this out:

"You know what? F*** you. Go f***k yourself"

My response: "Wow, that's really professional."

He then complains that I "used his kid as a prop in my story" because my lead compared an athlete that got injured to how the team played in a 46-0 loss as a whole. I respond "First off, what I wrote was true. Secondly, you stormed off in the middle of the interview. You were unprofessional then and clearly you're being unprofessional again."

He then tells me to go "f**k myself" again and I say "nice example you're setting."

Rival reporter than asks another game related question and the interview progresses as normal.


So, if you were me, how would you respond? I'm going to call the AD Monday and tell him that I don't appreciate being berated for doing my job and frankly, this coach is suppose to be representing his school and I don't think he's setting a very good example.

I plan to cover the team the rest of the way and am going to have my coworker check my articles about them before I go to press with them in the event that this somehow subconsciencly affects the way I write about this team.

As an aside, I was kind of hoping he was going to punch me. It looked like he wanted to. That would have been great.

 

go fuck yourself.

 

That's professional coach TP.

 

Well, personally, I would do what the coach said and fuck myself.

Odds are the coach got it out of his system and next time it will be like nothing happened. You're first in the line of fire. He's coaching a shitty team. Easy to yell at you. At least he's reading the newspaper!

 

He represents the board.

 

I had an old lady give me the finger yesterday because I wouldn't let her make a left turn in front of me while driving through an intersection.

 

You expected anything else?

 

That was you!

 

honestly, my man, stay away from the "setting an example" thing.

i don't like how it comes across on a college beat, and you might be setting yourself up to be targeted later.

but, yeah, talk to the AD and kick the coach in the balls.

 

Call the organization that handles the state's athletics. Normally they would suspend him.

 

Sorry, but I laughed like a fuck at that first response.

Yeah, talk to the AD.

 

i'd stay "in-house" first.