Gomer said:
Thanks for the help gang. I called the Star last night anyhow and will hopefully hear back from their beat writer, but will try the e-mail route to the PR dep't in the meantime.
"Screw the NFL" isn't an option in this case because this is the first kid EVER from our city to be on a roster. It's a pretty big deal so I need to play nice for now and get my 1-on-1's with him.
But yeah, his parents are doing the "we don't want to hurt little Johnny's chances" thing by treating the PR instructions as gospel.
Craig Kelley runs the show there, and by running the show, I mean he runs interference to make sure your job is difficult to do. In my estimation, one of the worst teams to deal with. I don't seem to have his cell phone # anywhere. Oddly I have his home phone #. I won't post it. His direct line at work is 317-808-5112.
Vern Cheek works under him. Much nicer guy (at least he has a personality), and may be able to get more feet on the ground stuff done for you, but won't go out of his way to do anything but the bare minimum for you. It's an organizational thing. His direct line is 317-808-5113. I also have 317-716-8960 for him. Not sure if that is his cell or his home phone.
A few years ago, we did a photo shoot with Peyton Manning that I had worked hard to set up. Manning wanted to do it, so I arranged it completely through him, although we used the Colts facility for it. I don't know if the not going through them ticked them off (it was completely unecessary) or if they are just the PR types who see it as their jobs to shield players rather than act as a bridge to good access (I think it is this, based on other dealings), but Kelley was kind of a prick that day. We had agreed with Manning to work efficiently and had done dozens of shoots like this one. We were actually working quicker than most shoots of that quality and breadth normally take. We were well prepared. Set up in advance with a stand in. Were ready to go when Peyton was. We had it down to a science.
And there was Kelley was hovering over us like a vulture, virtually counting out the shots with the implied threat that he was going to pull the plug when he felt we had gotten enough. Manning didn't seem to want him doing it, but didn't stop him. In situations like that you need to ignore the duke and keep working and just push the limits as far as you can. You don't even acknowledge his "let's wrap this up" crap--we had not even come close to abusing our time compared to the time we would typically get from players on the same level as Manning. You just keep working. But if Kelley had actually stuck his nose in any farther, I would have chopped it off.
