The Good, Bad And Ugly Of Athlete Interviews

Pre-Social Media, reporters were the main conduits between athletes and the public. It wasn't always easy.

This week I ran across article that sent me back to smelly locker rooms, raucous gymnasiums and humid football fields. It made me feel angsty and nervous. Call it interviewing PTSD.

Sports journalist Erin Andrews was asked on a podcast if she had ever cried on the job. First of all, I don’t like that question because it assumes that women are prone to crying. I worked with many amazing female journalists. Also, what’s wrong with crying?

Stepping off my soapbox and back to the question.

Her answer was, “A particular player was so nasty to me,” Andrews recalled. “He physically turned his back away from me in the middle of his scrum. He also told me to go back, rehearse my question, and come back when I was ready. I was mortified.”  

It was when she was around 19 or 20 working as a freelancer covering the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Looking at her birthdate I deduced she was likely there at the same time I was covering them in the late 90s.

And I have a very solid guess at which player was so stone-cold. He’s a Hall of Famer. He played defensive line. He was a larger-than-life presence both on the field and in the locker room.

I’m supposing it’s one Warren Sapp. Only because I know he was incredibly difficult to cover. Sometimes.

Warren was at odds with the media likely from his pre-draft coverage where he was painted as a problematic person with a drug history. It caused him to drop to 12 in the draft and likely cost him millions of dollars. That’s enough to hold a grudge.

In a few short years Warren became a star. He was a reason the Buccaneers were now contenders. He had a fantastic feud with quarterback Brett Favre.

When Warren was on, he was a quote machine. When he was running cool, he wouldn’t entertain any questions.

I recall one week when the Packers were coming to town and Warren was in the news for something non-football related. It was a news story, but he took it out on the sportswriters.

We were all waiting for him at his locker on a media day. He came in with about two minutes left and one of our writers said to him, “It’s Green Bay week,” to try to break the ice.

“Yes it is,” he responded. Then he picked up his shoes and walked out of the locker room.

Then he went out and had a monster game against the Packers. In the locker room after the game he was ready to talk.

At the time the locker room in Raymond James Stadium was really tight, so we were forced to crowd in front of players.

Warren would have none of that. His seat was right by the showers. So players were walking back and forth in various stages of undress. He was wearing only a big towel across his waist. He put another towel on the floor in front of him. He scooped a big chunk of Skoal or something similar and put it into his mouth. Then he spit the juice on the towel in front of him.

It kept all of us at bay. It was a genius idea. It was also really disgusting.

Later in her article, Andrews admitted that the comment brought her to tears.

“I instantly started having tears come down my face, and two players in particular, Derrick Brooks and John Lynch, saw it, pulled me over, and said, ‘What do you need?’”

This, however, did not surprise me in the least.

Brooks and Lynch were two of the nicest players I had the fortune to cover. Both are Hall of Famers as well.

I interviewed Brooks many times but the most memorable one was on a Monday after a game. I was covering him for the Buccaneer Magazine and wanted to do a feature. He invited me to the facility on Monday. I checked in and walked to the locker room.

He sat there alone in his corner locker. I pulled up a chair right in front of him and we talked for 90 minutes.

Lynch was another courteous professional. I had set him up for a feature but he had to do some television interviews for Fox sports. He asked for my cell number and assured me he’d call later.

“Sure,” I thought. He didn’t call that night, but when I was driving to the office the next morning my phone started ringing. It was an apologetic Lynch. I did the interview driving to Tampa with my recorder in my lap.

Dana Caldwell, who worked with me at the Tribune also mentioned Lynch as well as coach Tony Dungy as being two people you could always go to for answers.

But his favorite player was Drew Brees. Dana was covering his sophomore season when Brees was fighting for the Heisman.

“A legitimate Heisman hopeful, Brees did weekly press conferences on campus for us local and those national reporters. Week after week, they were the same generic questions. He grinned and cracked jokes during them, always super patient.

He was great after practice and even during the Outback Bowl outings we bothered them during.

Brees’ parents usually were on hand on postgame press conference back rows as was his high school sweetheart, now his wife.

No matter the outcome, Brees bravely faced tough questions.

That was never more evident than after the 2000 Outback Bowl in Tampa, where the Boilermakers blew a 24-point lead in a 25-24 loss against Georgia.

Not only did Brees take the podium, but he hung around in his filthy jersey, patiently answering lots more questions while most of his teammates were scrubbed and on the team charter bus.”

When I asked Dana who was the worst, the answer was easy but not surprising: former Indiana University coach Bobby Knight.

“This is easy. I covered Bob Knight’s last season at IU.

Knight was a trip. He loved, of course, to mess with reporters. That’s why the Assembly media room at IU had no drinks in its massive cooler and that still is the only team I’ve ever covered that didn’t serve food to reporters who worked through lunch or dinner. ¹

We sat at old-school desks like the type we used in junior high while Knight pontificated from a riser.

He relished putting players who had not played at all into postgame interviews. His locker rooms always were closed, of course.”

Dana had a list of other terrible things Knight was responsible for. But in the end, one of his favorite things he got to cover was when the coach was fired.

I reached out to another former colleague, Andrew Bell, who worked at the Tribune after I did.

One of his favorite stories involved Hall of Fame Dolphins quarterback Dan Marino. Like me having the chance to cover my favorite team, Andrew revered Marino so he planned out what he was going to say. He waited for the other reporters to clear out and then took his shot.

“Hey Dan, do you mind if I ask you a few questions?" He got up from his chair, put his arm around me and replied, "I'd love to, but my family is waiting for me to get dinner. Next time, speak to me earlier, and I will answer any question you have." Maybe it was his honesty. Maybe it was seeing his human side. But that entire moment resonated with me. True to his word, I made sure to ask my questions earlier from then on. And Dan always answered them graciously, even at his retirement press conference.”

Andrew also had a great experience with Hall of Fame running back Edgerrin James, whom he covered for the University of Miami student newspaper while they were both in school. James apparently didn’t forget him.

“During his rookie year, I covered Dolphins-Colts. As I was about to enter the Dolphins press conference room, I was met in the tunnel by Edge. I stopped him to catch up. He remembered me and we talked for a few minutes. He asked how I was doing. I responded, "We must both be doing well if you're starring in the NFL and I'm reporting the game!"

Andrew and I both had great experiences interviewing Hall of Fame basketball player Rick Barry. He was non-pretentious and very kind.

As you can tell, interviewing is a hit or miss exercise.

Being interviewed is hard.

Many of these athletes have been interviewed hundreds if not thousands of times. A lot of times the questions repeat. Can you imagine being asked about the same thing over and over again. Any reasonable person would snap. This is the professional aspect in sports that is often taken for granted.

Interviewing people is hard.

Sometimes you have to ask incredibly difficult questions. Often times the emotions are high or low. Being in a losing locker room after a big game is one of the most depressing places on earth. But we still had to do our job and the players had to try to answer our questions.

Ironically, Andrew had a poor experience with Brooks, but it may have been the fact he was asking about the team’s terrible record on the road in cold playoff games. For the record, Lynch bailed him out. Nobody's perfect.

NBA Hall of Famer Karl Malone gave me a harsh rebuke when I bum rushed him after practice to answer a question. I had planned a feature around his comments about free throw shooting routines. I had set up this moment in my mind for two months. It was pretty crushing.

But sometimes people can surprise you.

I recall interviewing quarterback Peter Tom Willis, a star at Florida State, while he was playing in the Arena league. It was the championship game and he threw a handful of interceptions that cost them the title. It was likely his last football game and he was tearing off the tape on his wrists when I went to interview him. We had built a good rapport.

I approached him cautiously and offered an apology for the tough game and the fact that I had to ask him questions. He nodded that it was okay and we continued on.

The landscape has dramatically tilted thanks to social media. Players are no longer as mysterious as they once were. Many of them have embraced interacting directly with fans. We know so much more about the athletes and in turn they have opened up more about injuries, mental health issues and the inner workings of teams and organizations.

But the one thing they have to still work on are those smelly locker rooms.

1. Ask any sports reporter and they will tell you this is sacrilege.