Few words of wisdom in post-game interviews

Pity the poor sports reporter.

Sure, he or she gets to sit in prime seats and watch games normal people would have to pay to experience. But then there’s the postgame interview.

As The New York Times reported during its coverage of the World Cup, post-game interviews generally are events “where the questions are often repetitive, the players are generally bored (and) the coaches find 50 ways to say nothing.”

And sometimes postgame interviews are just stupid.

It cited a 2009 soccer match after which the American coach inexplicably was asked how his team coped with the recent death of Michael Jackson. And the current Cup in Russia when an English player was asked about his views on a World War II battle in Stalingrad.

All of which reminded me of what I don’t miss most about my decade as a sports reporter. For me, interviewing coaches and players were, at best, cliche-ridden wastes of time. And, at worst, confrontational.

If, for instance, I had the nerve to ask, “Coach, what happened on the play when all 11 of your players lined up in the wrong formation and the running back was tackled for a 68-yard loss?” the answer I never got was, “Yeah, we really screwed the pooch on that one.” More likely, what seemed to be a reasonable question would draw the response, “Weren’t you watching the game?” (To which I always wanted to reply, “Yes, but I don’t know what play you called and I didn’t have seven assistants reporting to me about it.”)

And you might be surprised at how little fun it is to approach a sweaty, 300-pound lineman and ask, “Your holding penalty on the last play of the game just cost your team the Super Bowl. How do you feel about that?”

Reporters do their part to add to the nonsense, of course. Such as the time a reporter at a Super Bowl involving San Francisco asked a player how it felt to know that a large percentage of his team’s fans were gay. The player’s response, mercifully, went unreported.

Post-game interviews are a part of the job, though. And there’s always the chance you might mine a nugget of journalistic gold, such as: “After the loss, quarterback Rocky Overthrow said his coach was an idiot, his teammates were cowards and he was going to go get drunk.”

But the only memorable interview I ever had was with Cleveland legend Jim Brown, which wasn’t exactly an interview at all. It consisted of me saying, “Uh, Mr. Brown …” and him replying, “I don’t talk to reporters.”

Saved us both a lot of time.