In recent years sideline reporters have increasingly pushed the boundaries when it comes to interviewing coaches during games. It seemed to start a few years ago in college football when sideline reporters like ESPN's Erin Andrews would catch up with coaches on the trailing teams halfway to the locker rooms, just before they were about to ream their teams for blowing a two-touchdown lead before halftime.
"Coach, what went wrong? Can you talk real quick about the second-quarter collapse?"
It's a good thing you're a pretty face, Erin.
At the time this initially struck me as kind of amazing. Why were coaches putting up with this intrusion—this interference—when the game was only half over? After all, they'd be taking questions from the media when was all was said and done anyway. But with impatient-yet-obedient body language from the coaches, you could tell they were seemingly under contract to cooperate and politely spit out trite answers to trite questions, which to this day remain pretty much the same: "We just need to get our heads in the game and go out there and execute," is what they spout off before quickly darting off at the first break in conversation.
As astonishing as all this was, it soon became the norm for on-field reporting, and I think we've all grown accustomed to it since. But what I saw Saturday night during the Penguins-Red Wings game made me realize that this inside-the-huddle immersion has crossed the line.
Between a face-off during the hockey game, NBC on-ice reporter Pierre Maguire actually had the nerve to step over from his private booth at center ice onto the Detroit bench and ask coach Mike Babcock about a play that had just transpired. I don't remember the specifics of the exchange, but it doesn't really matter. It's just that the mere timing of his question—on Detroit's bench before the next face-off—really shocked me and made me realize that this style of reporting has gone to the next level—from intimate to invasive.
This simple act got me thinking "what's next?" Erin Andrews chasing Jim Tressel into Ohio State's locker room, pushing past security and unrelenting before the dismissive Tressel answers her question about why he continues to call predictable plays? Or Maguire in Detroit's locker room, pounding on the bathroom door for Babcock to come out and tell him what his strategy for overtime is?
"It took me a while to pry the bathroom door open on Mike Babcock, but Detroit will definitely be switching things up for the overtime period," he would say shortly thereafter. "Expect a conservative trap formation where the left winger forces the play. Just watch."
Exaggeration aside, it seems like it's only a matter of time before these walls are completely broken down and we have full transparency that borders on flat-out spying.
2 comments:
I remember this interview with Babcock as well, and even though I've seen it in hockey games throughout the year, this one struck me as particularly invasive. It wasn't even intermission. This was when Babcock needed to be coaching.
Do they do this in baseball? That seems like a sport where they really could have someone in the dugout because it requires much less attention to what is going on on the field than, say, hockey or football.
It's all about pushing the limits on increasing the access fans are given. The LPGA has suggested they may have players twitter during rounds.
I have mixed feelings about this. Part of me feels you should leave coaches alone to let them do their jobs. The other part of me says that part of their job, as men played to coach other men playing a game, is to give me better access. The real problem I have is that if they dare say what they are actually thinking (we're getting our asses kicked, that was a cheap shot, the refs sucks, you're annoying me) they'd be chastised.
Yeah, at what point will coaches not be able to restrain themselves live on national TV?
Maybe all this is something we'll eventually adjust to, but right now it just seems wrong.
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