The Best Quotes You Couldn't Use

My two quotes were never used.

 

Eating dinner after a state basketball tourney with the radio pxp guy, who was also the county's district attorney. Conversation turned to a girls' basketball coach who married one of his former players.

D.A. - "I wonder how you explain that one when he comes by the house. 'Mom, Dad, we're going to go have sex now.'"

Best one I did use (minus profanity) was a boys' basketball coach ticked at the lack of calls in a state quarterfinal loss. "Nobody came here to see a damn WWF match."

 

That reminds me of my days covering a women's team (not saying which sport) for my college paper. The team would take me along on the drive trips on weekends.

After one particularly ugly loss, the head coach couldn't even bring herself to talk to the team and stayed behind at the gym while the rest of us went on the bus to get lunch.

Her assistant coach says aloud (and he knew I was right there). "That's the most unprofessional fucking behavior I've ever seen."

Of course, this guy was (and is) married to a player he had coached, and he once took half the team, some of whom were underage, out to one of the campus bars.

 

High school baseball coach has a kid who might be drafted. Said kid is not very smart at all. Here's a few gems as I'm writing stuff down in front of him so he knows it's on the record.

"He's a good kid, but really just socially retarded. College isn't even an option for that kid. I don't even think he'll graduate from high school."

"He's had a rough life - his parents are in the state pen for dealing crack. If he doesn't do something in sports he'll probably end up in the pen, too. That's just the truth."

Same high school coach after a game looks like he's about to throw up. I ask if he's feeling OK.
He says: "No, I feel like a bag full of assholes."

 

High school coach regarding one of his cross country runners and her excruciating workout regimen: "She always sore from the waist down."

Bigtime college coach looking directly at one of his players who doesn't look like the brightest bulb in the bunch at a campus rally before the Elite Eight: "You wouldn't want any of these guys performing brain surgery on you, but they can play basketball."

 

I got the last one in a phoner and it just didn't make the three-paragraph limit. Otherwise, it was headed for print.

 

Racism aside, I don't even get that. Can anyone explain?

 

Veteran high school football coach gave me the "We played like old people fuck" quote one time.

By the way, did anyone catch the comment about one of the golfers on ABC's broadcast of the John Deere Classic _ "He was in a threesome with Michelle Wie the first two days."

 

This one just happened this week.

Local legion coach is a buddy of mine from way back. He's got two catchers, one who's pretty on-again, off-again about showing up.

They have six games scheduled for last week in the ridiculous heat, and I wanted to put a note in about the one kid catching all six games.

So I ask the coach where Johnny Joint has been all week.

"He and a couple other kids took a camping trip out west somewhere to smoke dope and fuck some freshman girls," he said.

"Uhh, coach, how would you like me to word that in the paper?" I said.

"Church camp," he said.

 

Got this third-hand. When FSU was going through their first wave of horseshit kickers in the early 1990s, one of them, Dan Mowrey, announced he was going to see a sports psychologist. One of the hacks asked Bowden how coaches "30 or 40 years ago" dealt with kickers who couldn't make extra points, backs who fumbled, receivers who dropped balls and quarterbacks who couldn't hit water from a boat, since there was no such thing as a sports psychologist back then.
His reply: "30 or 40 years ago, you could hit 'em."
Quote got cut or never made it in the papers because the P.C. police on the desk thought Bowden -- everyone's favorite old Grand-Dad -- was advocating abusing players.

I had this one cut from my copy. Covering an LPGA event in the 90s. Val Skinner was a pretty good player for a few years back then, and very funny (she reminded you of a barmaid in a redneck dive). Anyway, on the last two holes of one round, she double-bogeyed a par-3, then eagled a par-5. She started talking about how she was maturing as a player, and I asked: "Does that mean there was a time in your career when you wouldn't have responded that well to a double-bogey?"
Her reply: "Actually, there's a time every month I don't respond well to a double-bogey."
I wrote it. Got cut. What's more, I was called by the desk and told it was cut by a female M.E. because the quote "was degrading to women."
When I reminded them a woman said it, I was met with silence. No one had a good P.C. explanation for that one.
But the quote never made it.

 

I couldn't resist just one more.
Juco hoops coach gets his team to the national tourney for the first time, and he's quite excited. Guy is a quote machine anyway. So, he's in the pre-tourney press conference and no coach has said anything remotely interesting. All the "proud to be here" and "all the teams are so impressive on film" quotes.

He gets up there and does his vaudeville act.
First question is about how it's their first time at the national tourney.
"Yeah, we're like virgins in a whorehouse. Happy as hell to be here, but scared to death."
Got cut.
He also got asked about his team leading the nation in 3-pointers attempted and made. "We have a standing policy. If it feels like leather, shoot it." That stayed in the story.

One other from this coach.
After a game, I'm waiting in his office with his wife. They usually let me in the locker room but didn't for this game.
He storms in and continues his tirade.
Finally, he looks at his wife and says, "And, honey, I was so made at them tonight, I used the fuck word."
Wife replies, "Honey, either say f-word or fuck. Saying fuck-word just sounds stupid!"

 

Good stories, hondo. This is what is one thing that is really wrong with newspapers. We are editing the life out of them.