What's the best thing to do when a coach yells at you?

Anyone ever had a coach stay 30 minutes in the locker room as deadline rapidly approached?

 

quit the team and start skateboarding.

 

Nope, that's never happened to anyone.

Never.

 

Oh, and the yelling I can take. I don't like finger pointing.

And Gundy was finger pointing.

That pisses me off.

 

I've had it happen twice to me with high school coaches, both times at small dailies (6K or so) and both back in the mid '90s.

The first time was the opposing coach on a road football game who objected to the headline on our preview (one of the assistants had to drive 120-150 miles one way to buy a copy). His superintendent called on Monday to see if he'd really said that (nah, I just made up the whole fucking thing). I played the tape for the supe, he said he'd deal with it and I never heard from anyone at that school again.

The second time was a high school baseball coach who ran his team into a season-ending double play to complete a winless district schedule. Two pitches before the DP, the ball got away at the plate (like 20 feet away) but he held the tying run at third. I asked what he saw on that and the guy went off about how that was the slowest kid on the team (it was the centerfielder) and he didn't have to keep talking about why the team kept losing, etc., etc., etc.

I took a lot of shit from all the little old ladies in this town who'd watched the coach grow up there and refused to believe he would say that. Some time after that, he suddenly quit his job for "medical reasons." Turned out he'd been forced into alcohol rehab by his family.

Of course, I've been called a heartless bastard too many times to count by people who think the newpaper should be fellating every team and athlete in town. That's just the way I am.

 

Thought so

 

Usually I would say, just continue to do your job and be professional...

Once I got called out at a press conference and I just sat there and took it. Then, after the press conference I walked up to the coach, asked to talk to him privately and we went into his office and got into a shouting match. Five minutes later we were both laughing and he never dreamed of calling me out like that again...

I guarantee you that won't work all the time or even most of the time, but sometimes you've gotta have balls...

Pat Forde shouting back at Bob Knight is one of my favorite stories I've heard since I've been in journalism...

 

Tell him his wife was right when she told you during pillow talk last night what an ass he can be and how tired she is of telling him that size really doesn't matter.

 

1. With a prep coach, take it like a man and walk away knowing, with full confidence, that if he wasn't in coaching, he'd be asking you if you wanted your value meal super-sized.
2. With a college or pro coach, take the high road, let him have his little dictatorial moments and take the attitude of fuck him. You don't work for him. If it got really extreme, I'd take it to the AD and pose this questions: "Would you tolerate your coach screaming at his secretary or the building janitor that way?'

Then I'd cut his ass zero slack.

 

In my experience, I found the best thing to do is not be there, have the coach confuse you with someone else on the beat, and then have the coach yell at the other reporter while he records it all, waiting for the coach to stop before he tells him he's yelling at the wrong guy.

Matt Solinsky, if you're lurking, please tell me you still have that tape.

 

I've been yelled at a couple times when a player thought I was a different reporter and I've had other reporters yelled at because the players thought they were me...

I have a strange habit of wanting to know who I'm talking to before I start yelling at them, but that's just me...

 

Some folks are so mad, though, that they'll take it out on the first reporter they see.