Last September, a female reporter from Mexico named Ines Sainz showed up at the training camp of the New York Jets dressed, some said later, “inappropriately.” This allegedly occasioned some unsavory remarks from the lads in green because, as we know, women are required to dress at all times in such a way as to prevent misbehavior on the part of arrested adolescents who’ve been thinking with their libidos since junior high and see no reason to stop now.
dansolomon.com
i give that shit the finger
Interview tricks in action! →
How do you feel this situation is different than what Eli was facing when he came up?
Well, every situation is different. I’ve read a little bit, with people speculating, “Would they do that?” That was the situation a long, long time that involved the Colts and involved the Elways. When Eli came along, there were a lot of circumstances there. I’m not very comfortable talking about. I wasn’t then. I got beat up about it. It’s gone.I think the great thing is that San Diego has a great quarterback there. They’ve had outstanding teams, and Eli is very happy where he wound up. He loves being the quarterback of the New York Giants.
You’re involved with the College Football Coach of the Year Award. Who have you been most impressed with, from a college coaching standpoint?
I think so many people do a great job. I’ve been involved with Liberty Mutual and the Coach of the Year, and we’re down to 25 finalists. Liberty Mutual rewards coaches in four different divisions for Coach of the Year. We’re down to 10 finalists in the Football Bowl Subdivision, and this is like a who’s who: Mike Gundy, Brady Hoke, what a job he did at Michigan, Mark Hudspeth, Mike London, who did one of the best coaching jobs of the country at the University of Virginia. We know about Les Miles and Nick Saban, who are both playing for a national championship. Bobby Petrino at Arkansas. I’m not sure Arkansas isn’t the third-best team in the country. Mark Richt lost two games, won 10 in a row at Georgia. Bill Snyder, I saw him last night. What a great story that is — what he did at Kansas State, getting them on the map and then coming back to coach them again to a great year. Dabo Swinney’s got his Clemson team going to the Orange Bowl. Pretty impressive group with five finalists in three other divisions.
This interview with Archie Manning from Grantland isn’t particularly interesting, but I love this bit for an absolutely textbook example of an interviewer realizing that the person that he’s talking to is done with the topic and is shutting down, and so asks a softball about something boring to 99% of his readers, but about which his subject is passionate. I know that bit well — anytime I’m doing a celebrity/musician/athlete interview and I want to push on something, I try to keep a “let’s talk about your charity work/side project/dream to direct!”-type question in my pocket for when I start to sense that they’re not going to talk to me anymore if I keep pushing.
5 months ago | 4 notes | Reblog | | Comments
interviews, archie manning, grantland, football, journalism,
interviews, archie manning, grantland, football, journalism,
[T]ry to imagine Tebow as a jerk. Let’s say his performance on the field was unchanged, but his off-the-field personality was totally different. Let’s say he was alleged to have sexually assaulted a few coeds and electrocuted a few dogs and fired an unlicensed handgun in a nightclub. If all this were true, he would not be polarizing; he would just be unpopular, particularly with the people who currently adore him. Sales of his jerseys would fall through the floor. But what would happen after he guts out an ugly 17-13 win against the Jets? What would be the perception? The perception would be that his victory was due to his toughness. That’s how the media would explain it. It wouldn’t necessarily be true, but it would immediately make sense to people: We are comfortable with the idea that extra-bad people possess something intangible that helps them win football games. There is a long history of this, especially in places like Oakland. But it’s less comfortable to think that extra-good people possess such qualities, because that suggests they’re being helped by virtuous forces outside of corporeal reality. And that’s too much to handle/accept/consider, unless (of course) you already accept that premise unconditionally in every day of your life.
Right now, whenever Broncos vice president of football operations John Elway gets asked about Tebow, he effectively says, “We have no choice but to play him. He wins games.” It’s not really a compliment. It’s almost a criticism. But if Tebow did all this with a prison record, Elway would say the same thing in reverse order: “He wins games. We have no choice but to play him.” Which is similar, but not the same.
