DALLAS — Marcus Dupree checked in on me last week, just to see what I was up to these days. I go back and forth with Everson Walls on the texting device, more likely to converse about Richardson basketball (Walls went to Berkner, but his wife was an Eagle and his nephew goes there) than the Cowboys.
When Will Clark signed with Texas after his best days were behind him in San Francisco, and then another former Giant, Royce Clayton, joined the club here, Clark pointed to me in the Texas clubhouse and said to Clayton, “Remember this [expletive] from San Francisco?”
My point here: Had I never spent time in the OU locker room talking to Dupree or the Cowboys’ locker room talking to Walls, had I only shouted questions to someone seated at a podium, those relationships never would have developed. Had I only directed questions to Clark while seated 15 feet away from him outside the Giants’ clubhouse, he never would have realized what a [expletive] I could be.
I bring this up because of NBA commissioner Adam Silver’s remarks at All-Star weekend, that the NBA is exploring the idea of keeping their locker rooms closed when the pandemic finally ends and finding other means for reporters to conduct interviews. In his words, seeking “another way to build those relationships other than being in the locker rooms while players are dressing.” He even raised mental health concerns for the players and said there were “real health and safety issues for all of you” to consider.
Let me reinforce that players rarely need to dress and undress in the presence of reporters in modern arenas, that the idea of X-rated scenes playing out in our midst is highly overstated.
But here’s what Silver was actually saying.
Look, the players have run this league since the 1980s and they loved the locker rooms being closed the last two years during the pandemic. So you aren’t going back. Besides, newspapers and local media aren’t as important as they were in David Stern’s era so we have filled press row with people operating fan sites and now the locker rooms would be too crowded, anyway.
I don’t expect a ton of sympathy in writing this column. And I know half of you are thrilled any time you see the press getting kicked in the teeth. I won’t even get into how that came about in recent years. Allow me simply to explain what some may not realize this means and also offer a warning to players who think they have struck gold by kicking the media out of their midst.
On the first part, the only really effective way to do one’s job as a beat writer is to get to know the people involved — not just management, which will always make itself available (another thing players might need to consider is whose voice directs all the arguments once press access to players is reduced). And not every player is a superstar. Most, clearly, are not. If the marginal player believes he can do all necessary marketing via his own social media accounts, good luck with that.
Beyond that, the most quotable players are rarely the best players. They never make it to the podium. Forget developing sources, just getting their personalities into the overheated conversation that deals almost solely with the LeBrons and Lukas of the world becomes impossible.
One of the most enduring quotes in Cowboys history came following rookie Clint Longley’s stunning game-saving performance against Washington on Thanksgiving Day 1974. The “triumph of an uncluttered mind” was made famous by a writer quoting guard Blaine Nye. Believe me when I say Nye wasn’t making it to a podium after that or any other game.
On top of that, for the two years in which COVID has drastically reduced access for all reporters, many of you seem unhappy with us when we don’t ask the kicker why he missed another short field goal or grill the cornerback on giving up those two late touchdowns.
Sorry. NFL locker rooms are closed, and only a few players are made available after any game.
There were 90,000 maskless fans with the roof closed Sunday after Sunday at AT&T Stadium last fall, a sure sign that we had returned to normal, right? Except for the press, which remains mostly locked out.
So there’s an important story-telling aspect that disappears when access is reduced to bland postgame press conferences. But there’s a nastier component to this that players should ponder if this is where we are headed and locker rooms are to remain off limits forever.
The media, being composed of human beings, is easily manipulated. Just give us a little of what we need, and you will find yourself treated in godlike fashion. Beyond that, it’s harder to criticize people who are reasonably nice to you.
On the flip side, I give you the world of European soccer. Manchester City writers do not enter the team clubhouse before or after games or any other time. Access postgame is often limited to the coach and perhaps one player who offers up quotes to a group to be written two days later (don’t ask me how this embargo works but I’m told it does). On the other hand, the tabloid press in England is much more vindictive and prone to scathing personal attacks than anything you will ever find over here.
Players don’t get this, but once they are essentially removed from contact with the media, or that contact becomes limited to mind-numbing press conference settings, they are removing themselves from the fans as well. As I said, if your name is LeBron, you exist on a higher plane and this doesn’t really apply to you. But for 90% of the professional athletes out there who aren’t identifiable to the masses by a single first name, LeBron’s world is as off limits to them as it is to you or me.
Keep this in mind. Whenever there are work stoppages in this country, a considerable percentage of fans blame it on the millionaire athletes and not the billionaire owners. Free agency has turned what once were heroes into mercenaries-for-hire, and it’s hard for fans to get their arms around John Wall being paid $44 million this season not to play for Houston.
Take one more step away from the fans by deciding those lowly newspaper writers and local radio-TV reporters aren’t worthy of your one-on-one conversation skills now and then, that your own social media savvy is all you need to sustain a league that has suffered considerable TV rating drops that go largely ignored.
See how that works for you.
