What the Internut, er, Internet crowd doesn't understand is that reporters and coaches have their dust-ups from time to time. If each is doing their job, a squabble is inevitable, if not desirable.
In an extreme example of the mongoose-and-cobra relationship, a former Kentucky coach once put up his dukes to gesture a willingness to get physical. I declined the invitation despite having the seventh-grade boxing championship at Copernicus Junior High (Hamtramck, Mich.) on my résumé.
So Billy Gillispie's mild put-down of ESPN sideline reporter Jeannine Edwards at Mississippi on Tuesday night seemed like a ho-hum incident. Yet, the blogosphere buzzed with excitement.
"To me, it's a total non-issue," Edwards said in a telephone interview. "It's kind of funny it's getting as much attention as it is. When you're on live television, you have to be prepared for just about anything. There are times you get thrown a curve ball and you just have to roll with it."
In case you haven't seen or heard about the incident, Edwards stopped Gillispie for the customary leaving-the-court mini interview at halftime. She noted that Jodie Meeks hadn't scored a basket in the first half and asked the coach what adjustments he might make to get his leading scorer on track.
"This is not a one-man team," Gillispie said before adding, with a shrug of his shoulders, "and that's really a bad question."
Is Gillispie (or any coach) qualified to judge the merits of a question? Rather than explore that topic, Edwards moved on.
"I totally understand where he was coming from," she said. "It was the heat of the moment. He was frustrated with his team. Whether or not it was a question he liked is irrelevant."
Gillispie called Edwards the next day and apologized.
"I'd never had that happen before," Edwards said. "But I also never had an incident that had gotten that much attention before."
The halftime interview became instant fodder for Web sites.
Blogger Dashiell Bennett used sarcasm to make a point.
"Edwards had the temerity to suggest that Kentucky might be concerned that the team's leading scorer had only six points at halftime," he wrote. "That was just stupid, and Gillispie told her so, saying that Kentucky is not a one-man show and Edwards had asked a 'bad question.'
"You see, just because Jodie Meeks is one of only two players on the squad averaging double-digits that doesn't mean the Wildcats need him to score points or anything. I mean, he added 15 in the second half — even though Ole Miss held him to just four field goals for the entire game and he missed his average by four points — and Kentucky still lost! So clearly he's not the most important player on the team, you dummy."
Edwards, whose duties for ESPN include coverage of the Southeastern Conference, considers Gillispie a "casual friend." The two share an interest in horse racing.
Before joining ESPN in the mid-1990s, Edwards trained and rode thoroughbred horses. She even rode in a few races to learn about the experience.
Edwards, who grew up in Tenafly, N.J., where she was a cheerleader in middle school and high school, is married to a former jockey. She got her start in television as an analyst for races at the Pimlico and Laurel tracks.
Edwards is a pro who knows what lies at the heart of her exchange with Gillispie at Ole Miss: the unavoidable friction created by coaches wanting to win and reporters wanting to inform.
"We know those perspectives are not always congruent," she said.
Pro influences?
There wasn't much of a collegial feel to SEC basketball last week. Not with the in-season departures of two coaches, Mark Gottfried at Alabama on Monday, then Dennis Felton at Georgia on Thursday.
Aren't college coaches supposed to be mentoring their players through the school year? Isn't it the pros who fire coaches during the season? How far away are we from dismissing a coach, say, five games into a season?
SEC consultant C.M. Newton saw benefits to an in-season firing. It frees coaches to look for new opportunities and allows athletic directors to begin searching for someone new.
As for it looking like something the pros would do, Newton huffed, "Hell, all the pre-game introductions smack of the pros, don't they? We've adopted much of what the pro situation is all about."
There was a quiet dignity to simply introducing the starting lineup and tipping off the game. For several years now, Rupp Arena and most other college settings seem like a tawdry NBA sideshow with all the bombast, fireworks, etc.
"I don't see it as progress," Newton said. "We have a pro mentality that's invaded our game."
Bilas blasts firings
ESPN commentator Jay Bilas harshly criticized the in-season firings, especially Georgia dismissing Dennis Felton.
"I firmly believe that any administration that says 'one more year' should keep the coach the full year, absent true cause," Bilas wrote in an e-mail. "With Georgia, the administration didn't have the guts to fire Dennis Felton after winning the SEC Championship, yet couldn't wait until the end of the year?
"We are in a 'pro' environment, and athletic directors and presidents are charged with running businesses. They don't want to be cast as making business decisions but are often stuck in the middle and screw it up."
Bilas also expressed dismay with the absence of a strong opinion, yay or nay, from SEC Commissioner Mike Slive. The ESPN commentator suggested a double standard was at work.
"I was surprised that Mike Slive played the role of Switzerland in his comments," Bilas wrote. "I doubt that administrators would sit on the sidelines if commissioners, AD's and presidents were being fired in the middle of the year like that. If that were the case, I think we would hear much more about the importance of the endeavor, and how this should be different from corporate America and professional sports."
Legacy
When asked about the coaching changes at Alabama and Georgia, Florida Coach Billy Donovan noted a balancing act. Coaches concentrate ever more on improving their teams and winning games because the stakes (i.e. money) are higher than ever.
But, he added, coaches also seek "not to let winning be an end-all."
Donovan suggested that the legacies of Mark Gottfried and Dennis Felton would "not be based on what happened in the won-loss column" but would be based on "how former players spoke of them as men and mentors and coaches."
Of 29 players who finished four seasons at Alabama since 2000, 28 graduated. Ronald Steele and Greg Cage graduated last spring, Cage with degrees in psychology and criminal justice. Two other players — Alonzo Gee and Brandon Hollinger — graduated in December.
Felton brought discipline to a Georgia program that had become a national punch line.
Extenuating circumstances hurt both coaches. Injuries to Steele, once one of the best players in the league, became a draining three-year saga at Alabama.
At Georgia, Terrance Woodbury is the lone remaining player from a recruiting class that included Louis Williams, Mike Mercer, Billy Humphrey, Kendrick Johnson and Rashad Singleton.
Vols grab spotlight
Tennessee Coach Bruce Pearl took pleasure in ESPN sending its GameDay crew to Knoxville for Saturday's game against Florida. He saw it as a sign of the Vols staking out a place on the national scene.
"A few years ago, we couldn't get ESPN to do a game, let alone GameDay," Pearl said.
Pearl also saw the attention drawn by the Florida-Tennessee game as a further sign that Kentucky no longer monopolizes the power structure of the SEC Eastern Division. Of course, Florida won national championships in 2006 and 2007. Tennessee won the outright SEC regular-season title in 2008.
"You'd like to think the SEC championship runs through Florida and Tennessee as well as Kentucky," Pearl said. "That's been the case the last few years."
Of Tennessee's last two opponents, Pearl said, "Florida is arguably the best team in the East. Louisiana State is arguably the best team in the West."
Need your blood
The Kentucky Blood Center will use the upcoming UK-Florida game as part of a drive for donations.
Coincidentally, the winter weather has caused a decrease in donations, which led the KBC to issue an emergency appeal for help.
A competition between Kentucky and Florida fans — dubbed the Big Blue Slam — begins on Monday and runs through the day before UK plays the Gators on Feb. 10 in Rupp Arena.
All donors will receive the inaugural Big Blue Slam T-shirt while supplies last.
Donors also are eligible to win one of eight Wildcat Fan Packs, filled with UK items. One will be given away each day.
The Big Blue Slam will be at all Kentucky Blood Center donor centers (Lexington, Pikeville and Somerset) and at all mobile blood drives.
To find donation locations and/or to make an appointment to give blood, donors can go to www.kybloodcenter.org or call 800-775-2522.
Blood donors must be 17 years old (or 16 with parental consent), weigh at least 110 pounds, be in general good health and meet additional requirements. The parental permission slip for 16-year-olds can be found at www.kybloodcenter.org. All donors must also have a photo I.D.
By the way, the participating Florida blood center is LifeSouth Blood Center in Gainesville.
New heights
Former UK assistant Herb Sendek has Arizona State at new heights.
His Sun Devils were ranked 14th last week in The Associated Press media poll and the USA Today/ESPN coaches' poll. That marked the first time in its 31 years in the Pacific 10 that Arizona State had the highest ranking of any league team. UCLA was 17th and Washington 23rd.
Arizona State placed 12th on Nov. 28, 1994, the week after the Sun Devils had won the Maui Invitational. But two other Pac 10 schools — Arizona (ninth) and UCLA (fifth) — ranked higher that week.
Arizona State reached No. 12 again on Jan. 9, 1995, but eventual national champion UCLA was sixth.
Hardest to explain were the polls in the 1980-81 season. Arizona State started 15th, finished 24-4 and beat the No. 1 team in the nation, undefeated Oregon State, on its home floor on the final day of the regular season. Oregon State was ranked first or second every week from Dec. 30 until the final poll and was second after losing to Arizona State.
Despite the 20-point road win against Oregon State, Arizona State finished third. That matches the highest AP ranking in school history. The Sun Devils also reached third on Jan. 8, 1963.
Happy birthday
To basketball elder statesman C.M. Newton. He turns 79 on Monday. Newton, the former UK player and athletic director, continues to contribute to the game (re-establishing the National Invitation Tournament, for example).
Newton is spending his birthday weekend visiting a daughter in Arizona.
