Greg Lee: Incorrect prediction from 1995 really stunk
Random thoughts while driving my 22-year-old son across the country.
• I hadn’t been in Sandpoint for more than three years in late August and the topic came up. The dead fish. Shoot, it’s been nearly two decades since it happened.
It was 1995 and in my weekly Panhandle Picks – I was covering North Idaho schools exclusively at the time – I tabbed winless Lake City to beat Sandpoint.
Well, Sandpoint handled Lake City 29-12.
After the game, Sandpoint coach Satini Puailoa, then in his second season in his first stint, asked if I had a sense of humor. I assured him I did and he said I’d receive something special in the mail that week.
When I arrived at work the following Monday, the joke was waiting for me. Actually, the priority mail package containing the joke carried such an unpleasant stench that co-workers put the package in the emergency exit stairwell.
Upon opening the package I found a dead 12-inch fish, either a perch or blueback, in a sealed plastic bag.
It’s one of the strangest things to happen to me in my now 30 years of covering prep sports here.
• I’ve always contended that if a coach needs to reach me, that coach can do so with no problem.
If I need to reach a coach, though, sometimes it’s like trying to call the White House.
I’ve noticed this more with coaches for the minor sports than the major ones.
• In three decades here I’ve come across some wonderful coaches.
But some coaches have some strange strategies regarding dealing with the media.
I remember my first year covering a boys basketball team in the area when I wanted to interview the team’s top scorer after the game. The coach wouldn’t let me.
“I don’t allow my players to talk to the media,” the coach said.
When I started covering the Greater Spokane League full time five years ago, I came across a boys basketball coach who said he didn’t want to be interviewed after games.
Now, to his credit, he gave me full access to his players.
This coach said he wasn’t comfortable talking to the media. This from a coach who is a media teacher.
• To keep access to athletes open, I always caution the few cocky ones I come across. You know the ones who want to showboat and diss their opponents.
Printing quotes laced with arrogance isn’t going to do me or the athletes any favors.
• Coaches occasionally ask me if they can talk off the record. Many times I don’t have any problem doing so.
I couldn’t survive in my position if I burned coaches. That’s not what I’m all about.
I keep in mind that when I talk to athletes, the majority of them are still fairly immature. After all, they’re 16- to 17-year-olds.
So it’s refreshing when I get to talk to teenagers who many times seem to be more mature than adults.
• The people I don’t like dealing with the most – I’m sure this won’t shock you – are parents. Especially the Little League-type parents.
Parents see life through fogged lenses. I understand that. And when I try to express that to them – in other words, try to share a dose of reality – most of the time they don’t get it.
So I understand how parents can affect the lifespans of coaches. Gone are the days when someone coaches for 10 or more years. It’s more like five or less anymore.
And that’s a shame.