Events Calendar
In This Section
Browns terminate Stallworth's contract
Colts kicker Matt Stover, 42, is oldest player in Super Bowl history
Browns, Dolphins make unusual trade
Holmgren dislikes quarterback battles
Cavs' hoops throw Bryant for a loop
Winfield won't let pain intercept playoff chance
NFL title games include several players with local ties
Most Read Stories
Man robbed at Tallmadge Avenue eatery
Another winter punch heading toward Ohio
Four teens restrain man, take items from his Akron home
Complaints against officer keep coming
Police: Ohio girl dies after fall into snow bank
Region makes way for latest batch of snow; cancellations rise
Cuyahoga Falls residents come home to find burning couch on balcony
Blogs:
First Bell - On Education:
No City of Akron basketball tonight
Pets:
Pet telethon re-airs
The Heldenfiles:
Chipmunks "Squeakquel" on DVD/BD March 30
Akron Zips:
Late surge gives Zips ugly road win
Tribe Matters:
Blogmail response on Hafner
Cleveland Browns:
Stallworth's contract terminated
Balanced Ledger:
QB in Browns future: another mock draft
Kent State Sports:
KSU Notes – February 9
Cleveland Cavaliers:
NBA Power Rankings from Around the Internet
Buckeye Blogging:
Buckeyes grab 18 players on signing day
Varsity Letters:
Garfield at Buchtel basketball
All Da King's Men:
Palin At The Tea Party Convention
Blog of Mass Destruction:
Republican Pre-Conditions
Akron Law Café:
Law, Love and Chocolate
Car Chase:
Collector Car Hobby Loses One of the Best—Jim Roll
Let's Talk Real Estate:
Decisions Decisions: Credit Cards or Your Mortgage?
Ohio Travels with Betty:
Loucile is looking for a Lake Erie getaway in June for three kids, ages 1, 3, and 5.
Sound Check:
Talk of the Town – Top entertainment picks for the weekend
HRLite House:
OFCCP Report
Akron Gamer:
Makers of 'Castle Crashers' unveil 'BattleBlock Theater'
See Jane Style:
Do IT this week: Layering
By Patrick McManamon
Beacon Journal sports columnist
POSTED: 07:16 p.m. EDT, Jun 20, 2009
I never realized how tough it was to deal with NFL teams until I started covering other leagues.
The NBA and Major League Baseball have an entirely different culture when it comes to dealing with the media.
In baseball, players, coaches and managers talk 162 games a year — and for several weeks of spring training.
In the NBA, accessibility is a given. It's a story when a star does not talk to the media.
Consider LeBron James.
It was gigantic national news when he did not talk one time this year. What's weird is the same fans who criticized James for one mistake will shrug off an NFL player's decision not to talk after dropping a key pass that would have won a game. I know, because I've heard from the fans.
Why is it that James' slip-up was news while in the NFL it's shrugged away? Because of culture and approach. The NBA simply is different. Players are expected to address the media.
''It's obvious to anyone in the business,'' said Brian McIntyre, the NBA's Senior Vice President for Basketball Communications. ''The media represents the fans, though it's increasingly becoming a little blurred with individual outlets like Twitter and Facebook and blogging.
''Still, it's important for our players and coaches to interact with the media to get their feelings and emotions and messages out to as wide an audience as possible.
''If a newspaper spends the time and money to travel with our teams it's good business for us to cooperate.''
The NFL is trying to get a handle on this, with Commissioner Roger Goodell and Greg Aiello, vice president for PR, taking steps the past couple years to help.
They've worked hard, but the NFL is still a ways from the NBA and MLB. I can hear everyone in the background rolling their eyes and saying here goes another media whiner.
So be it.
Just part of the job
Talking to the media is part of the sports landscape, part of the territory, part of the athlete's job. It's also part of the team's job to ensure the media is given fair access and professional treatment and respect.
In baseball, managers talk in the dugout before games and in their offices after games. State security is not compromised.
Players also are available before and after games. Indians players who are involved in a key play in a game without fail are at their locker after the game. In the NBA, everyone talks, including the stars. Especially the stars.
First time I covered an NBA game, I walked into the Lakers' locker room to ask Kobe Bryant a question. I nervously introduced myself, he extended his hand and said: ''Kobe Bryant. Nice to meet you.''
NBA coaches talk after every practice. On game days, the coaches meet the media three times — at the morning shoot-around, before the game and after the game.
Same with players.
In the NFL, some guys spend open locker-room periods out of the locker room, deem themselves available once per week and sometimes refuse to talk after games (even though there's only 16).
Some NFL coaches are so obsessed with protecting information they hide behind ''competitive disadvantage'' for the simplest of things.
Terms are dictated on what to say about a specific play at a minicamp or offensive training activity in May, because you might put the team at a competitive disadvantage.
Well guess what — most of us are not interested in putting anyone at any disadvantage. And we're probably not even smart enough about the nuances to do that anyway.
Reporters have been covering sports leagues and teams for decades. Larry Bird once said the Boston Globe's Bob Ryan could watch one practice and know all the plays. As far as I know, the Celtics never banned him from practice, or tried to tell him what not to write.
Truthfully, I'd like to see the day a media guy's words affect a game, because it would be the first time.
During minicamp and OTAs, the Browns media were shoved into a corner, so far from the field the only way to see practice was through binoculars. (But they followed the rule that it had to be open.)
In baseball, you can walk from field to field in spring training and sit in the dugout before games. You can sit down with a coach before a game and ask about the opposing pitcher's curveball.
As a group, the NBA is simply more mature — though of course there are exceptions.
Perhaps it's simply because the league demands more. The culture in the NFL is to be controlling and weird — to the point that guys proudly talk about the fact they never get home to see their families because they're working so many hours.
Not everyone does it, mind you. New York folks think Jets coach Rex Ryan is a breath of fresh air.
Browns defensive coordinator Rob Ryan would be a fan favorite if folks could get to know him.
They won't. The first time he talked to the media was this past week. He was hired in February.
In the NFL, interviews with assistant coaches must be cleared. The questions have to be known ahead of time. It would compromise homeland security if we could actually walk up to an assistant coach and carry on an informal conversation.
So the fans lose.
It doesn't have to be this way. Some teams are open — and they win. Some coaches who won Super Bowls were open, like Mike Tomlin and Tony Dungy and Brian Billick and Dick Vermeil. Others who were more closed also won, like Bill Belichick. There's no patented formula. Both work.
Either way, communicating with the fans matters. Treating people professionally matters.
Browns fans deserve it.
But they won't get it.
Because nobody will demand it.
It's too bad they don't take a minute from staring at the walls in their office until 2 in the morning to look around.
Other professional sports leagues are setting a fine example to follow.
RANDOM THOUGHTS
• The Shaquille O'Neal-to-the-Cavs rumor seems to have some legs, but it's not like they're running sprints.
O'Neal no doubt would love to come to the Cavs to play with LeBron James. But reports indicate that he wants a contract extension and some assurance that James will be here past 2010.
Nobody has that assurance.
• Too, would you give a guy who's going to be 38 this season more than the $20 million he's due this season?
• The Cavs' efforts have been to position themselves to make a splash in free agency in 2010, to add a player like Chris Bosh to play with James.
Extending Shaq would hamper those efforts greatly.
• One great thing about acquiring Shaq — well, there's a lot of great things — would be his near manic obsession with stopping Dwight Howard.
O'Neal seems determined to belittle Howard at every turn, as if Howard's presence is somehow tarnishing Shaq's legacy. So Shaq is going out of his way to diminish Howard — to the point of calling him an ''impostor.''
Seems safe to assume Shaq would do all he can to stop Howard.
O'Neal might be the only guy in the league who can match Howard's interior strength — even at 38.
• Shaq certainly would make the Cavs one of the main offseason stories, and he would regenerate some of the excitement the team lost in losing to the Magic.
If it means a championship — and it seems like it might — the team absolutely has to consider it.
• NFL commissioner Roger Goodell wasted no time in suspending Browns wide receiver Dont Stallworth. Two days after he was sentenced to 30 days in jail for taking a man's life while driving drunk, Stallworth was suspended indefinitely.
One might wonder why the Browns haven't released Stallworth yet. Though there might be legal considerations involved.
• It was good to hear, though, that Stallworth has been working out with Plaxico Burress, the guy charged with two felonies for taking a gun to a strip club in December.
• Brendan Haywood, center for the Washington Wizards of the NBA, called Stallworth's 30-day sentence ''a terrible injustice'' in an online blog. Haywood wrote: ''This is why so many people look at pro athletes with disgust and disdain. I was thoroughly disappointed.''
• Next week, Haywood weighs in on the Iranian election.
• Sammy Sosa becomes the latest record-setter to be linked to steroids (according to the New York Times).
Who'd have thought?
• I'm not sure baseball commissioner Bud Selig helped matters by appearing on a radio show and talking about how ''appalling'' it was that the Sosa story was leaked.
Me, I think it's appalling a guy cheated the system for years, then had the gall to sit in front of Congress and say he never used steroids and didn't understand the questions because he didn't grasp English well.
Perhaps I'm naive.
Thinking the truth matters?
Shame on me.
• Kevin Blackistone of AOL.com gave the LeBron James/St. Vincent-St. Mary documentary high praise. Blackistone wrote that the movie was about ''compassion for others'' and concluded that it showed how unlikely it is that James will leave Cleveland.
• Indians manager Eric Wedge clearly sounds like he's at the end of his rope with some of the bad habits of some of his players. Which is understandable, the way the Indians have played this season.
The problem with reaching the end of the rope is that it can indicate a manager has nothing left he can try, which could indicate he's no longer getting through to the players.
Which is not good for the manager's job security.
• I wonder if the Indians' players have let the team down, or if they were overrated. The Indians plan for a season based on a player's average production based on their previous seasons, be it in the minors or majors.
The team would use Jhonny Peralta as an example. They expected him to reach a certain level of production, but he's well below those numbers (though the season also isn't over yet). So he's let them down.
This concept requires further study.
• One last thought on the media's relationship to sports teams . . . I've often wondered what would happen if concerts were treated like sports games.
For instance, the media watches the Rolling Stones from a press box. Song lists are handed out, with lengths of songs and lead singers listed.
The media takes notes, then schleps down to the locker room after the show.
''Mick, you missed some notes in Jumping Jack Flash. What happened?''
''That song was over. We were pointing to the next song.''
''Keith, it sounded like you had a sore throat. Were you OK?''
''Who knows? I don't comment on injuries.''
''Ron, how did you overcome breaking that string?''
''I just went on to the next string.''
''Could you talk about why you opened with Start Me Up?''
Blank stares.
• Until next time . . . there you have it.
Patrick McManamon can be reached at pmcmanamon@thebeaconjournal.com. Read his blog at http://www.ohio.com/mcmanamon/. Follow Pat on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/patmcmanamon.
I never realized how tough it was to deal with NFL teams until I started covering other leagues.
The NBA and Major League Baseball have an entirely different culture when it comes to dealing with the media.
In baseball, players, coaches and managers talk 162 games a year — and for several weeks of spring training.
In the NBA, accessibility is a given. It's a story when a star does not talk to the media.
Consider LeBron James.
It was gigantic national news when he did not talk one time this year. What's weird is the same fans who criticized James for one mistake will shrug off an NFL player's decision not to talk after dropping a key pass that would have won a game. I know, because I've heard from the fans.
Why is it that James' slip-up was news while in the NFL it's shrugged away? Because of culture and approach. The NBA simply is different. Players are expected to address the media.
''It's obvious to anyone in the business,'' said Brian McIntyre, the NBA's Senior Vice President for Basketball Communications. ''The media represents the fans, though it's increasingly becoming a little blurred with individual outlets like Twitter and Facebook and blogging.
''Still, it's important for our players and coaches to interact with the media to get their feelings and emotions and messages out to as wide an audience as possible.
''If a newspaper spends the time and money to travel with our teams it's good business for us to cooperate.''
The NFL is trying to get a handle on this, with Commissioner Roger Goodell and Greg Aiello, vice president for PR, taking steps the past couple years to help.
They've worked hard, but the NFL is still a ways from the NBA and MLB. I can hear everyone in the background rolling their eyes and saying here goes another media whiner.
So be it.
Just part of the job
Talking to the media is part of the sports landscape, part of the territory, part of the athlete's job. It's also part of the team's job to ensure the media is given fair access and professional treatment and respect.
In baseball, managers talk in the dugout before games and in their offices after games. State security is not compromised.
Players also are available before and after games. Indians players who are involved in a key play in a game without fail are at their locker after the game. In the NBA, everyone talks, including the stars. Especially the stars.
First time I covered an NBA game, I walked into the Lakers' locker room to ask Kobe Bryant a question. I nervously introduced myself, he extended his hand and said: ''Kobe Bryant. Nice to meet you.''
NBA coaches talk after every practice. On game days, the coaches meet the media three times — at the morning shoot-around, before the game and after the game.
Same with players.
In the NFL, some guys spend open locker-room periods out of the locker room, deem themselves available once per week and sometimes refuse to talk after games (even though there's only 16).
Some NFL coaches are so obsessed with protecting information they hide behind ''competitive disadvantage'' for the simplest of things.
Terms are dictated on what to say about a specific play at a minicamp or offensive training activity in May, because you might put the team at a competitive disadvantage.
Well guess what — most of us are not interested in putting anyone at any disadvantage. And we're probably not even smart enough about the nuances to do that anyway.
Reporters have been covering sports leagues and teams for decades. Larry Bird once said the Boston Globe's Bob Ryan could watch one practice and know all the plays. As far as I know, the Celtics never banned him from practice, or tried to tell him what not to write.
Truthfully, I'd like to see the day a media guy's words affect a game, because it would be the first time.
During minicamp and OTAs, the Browns media were shoved into a corner, so far from the field the only way to see practice was through binoculars. (But they followed the rule that it had to be open.)
In baseball, you can walk from field to field in spring training and sit in the dugout before games. You can sit down with a coach before a game and ask about the opposing pitcher's curveball.
As a group, the NBA is simply more mature — though of course there are exceptions.
Perhaps it's simply because the league demands more. The culture in the NFL is to be controlling and weird — to the point that guys proudly talk about the fact they never get home to see their families because they're working so many hours.
Not everyone does it, mind you. New York folks think Jets coach Rex Ryan is a breath of fresh air.
Browns defensive coordinator Rob Ryan would be a fan favorite if folks could get to know him.
They won't. The first time he talked to the media was this past week. He was hired in February.
In the NFL, interviews with assistant coaches must be cleared. The questions have to be known ahead of time. It would compromise homeland security if we could actually walk up to an assistant coach and carry on an informal conversation.
So the fans lose.
It doesn't have to be this way. Some teams are open — and they win. Some coaches who won Super Bowls were open, like Mike Tomlin and Tony Dungy and Brian Billick and Dick Vermeil. Others who were more closed also won, like Bill Belichick. There's no patented formula. Both work.
Either way, communicating with the fans matters. Treating people professionally matters.
Browns fans deserve it.
But they won't get it.
Because nobody will demand it.
It's too bad they don't take a minute from staring at the walls in their office until 2 in the morning to look around.
Other professional sports leagues are setting a fine example to follow.
RANDOM THOUGHTS
• The Shaquille O'Neal-to-the-Cavs rumor seems to have some legs, but it's not like they're running sprints.
O'Neal no doubt would love to come to the Cavs to play with LeBron James. But reports indicate that he wants a contract extension and some assurance that James will be here past 2010.
Nobody has that assurance.
• Too, would you give a guy who's going to be 38 this season more than the $20 million he's due this season?
• The Cavs' efforts have been to position themselves to make a splash in free agency in 2010, to add a player like Chris Bosh to play with James.
Extending Shaq would hamper those efforts greatly.
• One great thing about acquiring Shaq — well, there's a lot of great things — would be his near manic obsession with stopping Dwight Howard.
O'Neal seems determined to belittle Howard at every turn, as if Howard's presence is somehow tarnishing Shaq's legacy. So Shaq is going out of his way to diminish Howard — to the point of calling him an ''impostor.''
Seems safe to assume Shaq would do all he can to stop Howard.
O'Neal might be the only guy in the league who can match Howard's interior strength — even at 38.
• Shaq certainly would make the Cavs one of the main offseason stories, and he would regenerate some of the excitement the team lost in losing to the Magic.
If it means a championship — and it seems like it might — the team absolutely has to consider it.
• NFL commissioner Roger Goodell wasted no time in suspending Browns wide receiver Dont Stallworth. Two days after he was sentenced to 30 days in jail for taking a man's life while driving drunk, Stallworth was suspended indefinitely.
One might wonder why the Browns haven't released Stallworth yet. Though there might be legal considerations involved.
• It was good to hear, though, that Stallworth has been working out with Plaxico Burress, the guy charged with two felonies for taking a gun to a strip club in December.
• Brendan Haywood, center for the Washington Wizards of the NBA, called Stallworth's 30-day sentence ''a terrible injustice'' in an online blog. Haywood wrote: ''This is why so many people look at pro athletes with disgust and disdain. I was thoroughly disappointed.''
• Next week, Haywood weighs in on the Iranian election.
• Sammy Sosa becomes the latest record-setter to be linked to steroids (according to the New York Times).
Who'd have thought?
• I'm not sure baseball commissioner Bud Selig helped matters by appearing on a radio show and talking about how ''appalling'' it was that the Sosa story was leaked.
Me, I think it's appalling a guy cheated the system for years, then had the gall to sit in front of Congress and say he never used steroids and didn't understand the questions because he didn't grasp English well.
Perhaps I'm naive.
Thinking the truth matters?
Shame on me.
• Kevin Blackistone of AOL.com gave the LeBron James/St. Vincent-St. Mary documentary high praise. Blackistone wrote that the movie was about ''compassion for others'' and concluded that it showed how unlikely it is that James will leave Cleveland.
• Indians manager Eric Wedge clearly sounds like he's at the end of his rope with some of the bad habits of some of his players. Which is understandable, the way the Indians have played this season.
The problem with reaching the end of the rope is that it can indicate a manager has nothing left he can try, which could indicate he's no longer getting through to the players.
Which is not good for the manager's job security.
• I wonder if the Indians' players have let the team down, or if they were overrated. The Indians plan for a season based on a player's average production based on their previous seasons, be it in the minors or majors.
The team would use Jhonny Peralta as an example. They expected him to reach a certain level of production, but he's well below those numbers (though the season also isn't over yet). So he's let them down.
This concept requires further study.
• One last thought on the media's relationship to sports teams . . . I've often wondered what would happen if concerts were treated like sports games.
For instance, the media watches the Rolling Stones from a press box. Song lists are handed out, with lengths of songs and lead singers listed.
The media takes notes, then schleps down to the locker room after the show.
''Mick, you missed some notes in Jumping Jack Flash. What happened?''
''That song was over. We were pointing to the next song.''
''Keith, it sounded like you had a sore throat. Were you OK?''
''Who knows? I don't comment on injuries.''
''Ron, how did you overcome breaking that string?''
''I just went on to the next string.''
''Could you talk about why you opened with Start Me Up?''
Blank stares.
• Until next time . . . there you have it.
Patrick McManamon can be reached at pmcmanamon@thebeaconjournal.com. Read his blog at http://www.ohio.com/mcmanamon/. Follow Pat on Twitter at http://www.twitter.com/patmcmanamon.
Comments
Click here to post your comments
Stow, OH
Posted 11:42 PM, 06/20/2009
I think that the media should minimize their mention of players who will not answer a question or two after a game. With a whole variety of players from whom comments and answers can be obtained, it sems to me that most players need the media more than the media needs the player. Average fans only know who a lot of the players are because someone has chosen to wrote or talk about them.
Naples, FL
Posted 08:14 AM, 06/21/2009
If I read another reporter whining about not getting access to the Browns I'm going to spew! It's called reporting, sometimes its takes work, rather than printing the same story that every other reporter is typing up. Terry Pluto seems to have real insight with no more access than Pat and Marla have but without all the crying. Now Pat wants to make us feel like we fans are being short changed when its his job he's really worried abot.
Stow, OH
Posted 09:11 AM, 06/21/2009
I don't have a problem with limited access for reporters.I'm sure the coach feels it cuts down on rumors and speculation being printed , and let's face it,some of you reporters can ask some pretty stupid questions at times.
When a guy like Cribbs or Dawson comes to camp ,right away the reporters start asking questions about contracts, not football.
Stow, OH
Posted 09:20 AM, 06/21/2009
One more note Pat : Don't worry about the fans not getting to know Rob Ryan, if he can build a defense that gets sacks the fans will build a friggin shrine in his front yard.
Reston, VA
Posted 09:41 AM, 06/21/2009
Lack of access and lack of acknowledgement to the press equals indifference to the Browns fanbase; especially a fanbase that has funded the revenue-generating stadium and facilities that the Lerner's enjoy.
The Browns can be smart and use the media to their advantage, rather than fearing and treating the media like an enemy. How they percieve the media is a clear reflection in how they percieve their fans. Fans are not the team's enemy. Fans are a team's lifeblood.
I have no problem with PM, or any other writer bringing this situation to light.
The, US
Posted 09:54 AM, 06/21/2009
Maybe the local media just sucks & the Browns don't want to waste their time....
Canton, OH
Posted 02:04 PM, 06/21/2009
Man, I miss Pluto & Windhorst. .
Old Faithful, WY
Posted 02:51 PM, 06/21/2009
hey slovensko, your boys pluto and windy are currently sucking at the peedee. if you want to read mindless homerism windy is waiting for you. if you want to read someone who writes sports fluff terry will be glad to see you.
good riddance to those stiffs.
