April 10, 2024 • 44 mins
Michelle and Erika catch up with Bob Gillespie, a former columnist for The State in Columbia, S.C. He reflects on his experiences as a sportswriter for the Gamecocks, Clemson, PGA Tour and more. Navigating the dynamics of being a sports journalist is different and Bob filled us in some of the behind-the-scenes of it all. He talks about just how much the profession has evolved over the years. With the rise of digital media and social platforms, Bob elaborates on the challenges of the role and the future of the profession. He also sprinkles in stories from his time on the beat, from unforgettable games to encounters with both coaches and players (and SIDs!).
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Episode Transcript
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(00:07):
Came the show. Hey, Erica, welcome to another episode of The spin
Chicks. What's going on with you? Just checking out some recipes? Ooh,
recipes? Yes, I've never madethese things before. I always make
guacamole. I know your fame isguacamole. I probably made guacamole nine hundred
(00:30):
and seventy five times, maybe fourthousand and thirty five times, every single
party. I make it, allright? So why did you switch it
up? I because I wanted somethingwarm. So I'm making buffalo chicken dip
okay, okay, and spinach artichokedip. Hot spinach artichoke dip. All
(00:53):
right? So are you making healthyversions of those? Or are there healthy
versions of their version? First ofall, I tasted the buffalo chicken dip
and it's spicy. So I pouredsome more ranch dressing that goes in the
buffalo. I did not know whatwas in that before. I just knew
it tasted amazing. But anything that'sgot cream, cheese, hot sauce,
(01:15):
ranch dressing, chicken and cheese,you can't miss warmed up. Come on,
all right, are you tailgating orwhat's going on? I'm hosting a
party, gotcha Okay, well thatand then spinach artichoke dip another one.
Yes, it has arto chokes veryhealthy. Yes it has spinach very healthy.
(01:36):
The rest of it, and thatmayonnaise, cream cheese, parmesan cheese
cheese yaisa. All right, Well, whoever's coming over, they're probably going
to be calling you the next day, like Michelle, sorry delicious, but
yeah good butt. Yeah, butwe lot some healthy stuff too, all
(01:59):
right, so you probably don't tohear about my breakfast avocado egg clad recipe.
Just a little ripe avocado, mashit up with some easy over easy
seasoning from Spicology, and then dillfresh dill, chop up the egg,
and then a very small amount ofprimal mayo, just to like, you
(02:21):
know, bind it all up.Ye woitmen, you put boiled egg in
avocado together. No, no,take the hard boiled eggs and chop them
up with the mashed up avocado thespices, and then you can have it
on just a real tiny piece ofsour dough or just eat it straight from
the bowl ready to go. Igot I like guacamala or avocados on top
(02:45):
of eggs, but I've never mixeda boiled egg, but it probably tastes
good, good protein, right,Yeah, and then you add some turkey
sausage and some raspberries. I'm readyfor the day. Wow, you're gonna
kill it. Okay. Are thepeople really want to hear about the recipes
or do they want to talk aboutstorming the court? Let's talk about court
(03:07):
storming. Whoop whoop. It's apopular topic. So are you what's your
take on storming the court? Well, I have been a part of storming
and I have been a part ofgetting stormed, So I've been both.
I do believe that college students andI know this will not be popular with
(03:32):
you, Erica, so go aheadand start to say eh. But I
did a survey of the Nasmith isone of my clients, and I did
a survey of all of our internsthe other night. I think there were
twelve of them on the call andasked them who thinks court storming is a
part of being in college. Everysingle kid raised their hand said they love
(03:53):
it, wish they get Many ofthem were student athletes. Well I didn't.
I didn't ask this student athletes,and I don't disagree with you on
that. I was going to givea big butt. I am. I
am okay with it, but thereneeds to be some safety measures. Now,
what does that look like? Inbasketball? A lot of times the
(04:15):
games go down to the you know, the final few seconds. Should there
be an extra time out at theend of a game where you know there's
going to be court storming so thatthey can get their players, all their
starters off the court. But thensomebody is going to be out there and
get hurt, and then that wouldleave them open to being sued by that
player that got hurt because they're ascrub. Well, I think when you
(04:40):
talk about how to prevent it,I mean, let's be honest, who's
who's doing that? I mean who? I mean, it's enough by bullet
worse back in the barn. Yeah, it's difficult, and things turn can
turn dangerous really quickly. I mean, I think they've been lucky. Obviously,
it's been happening for a long time. But I still think that I
(05:02):
don't know, just feels different,it looks different, and I don't I
really can't explain it. I canjust tell you that if and I haven't
been a part of basketball, i'dbeen a little bit of part of football.
But it's frightening, and I justthink you need to make sure these
student athletes get off the court.That's where they play, and I think
they are you know, they deservejust a safe space to just exit the
(05:24):
court, to play, to dowhat they're supposed to do and then and
then go. And I'm not againstcelebration, but you say all that,
but it's probably very difficult to managebecause who wants to be stopping kids storming
the court, do you? BecauseI don't put the little rope up with
good luck at the point. I'vebeen at many games before where it's happened
(05:45):
against my team and for my team, and it is it's scary. I
was on the court one time atSanta Clara when they beat Gonzaga and the
kids storm the court and I wastrying to get across to hand a box
score. It was like, rightas the game ended. I don't think
I was really thinking, and Iwas going across to get the box score
to the talent and I got hitand knocked over and my shoe was broken.
(06:12):
It was one of my favorite pairsof shoes, and you know how
we are about our shoes. Now, if I could do that over again,
I probably would have sent a studentand sinkers over there, but I
was like, let me get thisover there too quick and get this person
to this and you know, justdoing sid work. So I don't think
I saw the Caitlin Clark. Ididn't think the kid intentionally hit her.
I think they were just running outthere and not really paying attention. The
(06:35):
kid from Duke, I'm not sure. Well, it's hard. It's just
like replay. You know, youslow down video and you think you know
what's happening, but when you're inthe moment, it's different. So it's
not an easy solution. But Ithink once you've seen a lot of these
things happening, it's like, hey, let's take a step back and figure
out how we can do it.So we'll see who managed. Pardon,
(07:00):
have you ever done it? Courtstormed, Field stormed, No, No,
I have not done it. Thatjust wouldn't be a thing I would
do. All when South Carolina beatthe pants off of Tennessee and that was
so fun, but we went onon after. I kept telling my husband's
son who went to cal Poly,which you know, they were number one
(07:23):
in the country in baseball at thepoint, but they were not good football,
and he was just kind of watchingwith fascination as these kids started to
go on the field and I waslike, you want to go down there?
Now? This was after a coupleof minutes we did not go in
the initial wave, and he waslike, Yeah, that'd be really fun.
Let's do it. And so wejust walked down there and walked down
to the field. I mean,at some point you can't really stop it,
so why hurt the people trying tostop it? But I guess there
(07:45):
needs to be more of a punishmentor more of a safety thing. I
don't know, what do you think, Like, what's your if you were
the if you were Greg SANKI,although they already have they already have,
you know, punishment in place inthe SEC. If you were the Commission
or the Big ten or the SECor the Pac twelve, what would you
do? This is gonna sound crazy, but I think, you know,
(08:09):
I do you think there's any wayto just really have a court storming that
could be a safe one? Imean, I I think I might have
seen it happen once where it wasactually just an organized, a truly celebratory
thing. I just I don't know, I think it would take a lot
of communication, and honestly, youknow, how I just don't know if
people are interested in that. Someof this stuff is just so in the
(08:31):
moment. How do you control likea viral moment? Yeah, you know,
I know I think we should,But then the how to is just
a completely different. Yeah, becauseif the game goes down to the last
second and it's a buzzer beater andsomebody hits a three at the at the
buzzer and then they run on thecourt, Well, how do you get
people off the field or the court, or if it's a it's an interception
(08:54):
they run back, how do youget in the coaches as well? I
mean, how do you get themoff the court? Yeah, I mean
I think with basketball things are kindof tighter. I'm not familiar with a
whole lot of arenas. I knowyou've seen many more, but just how
they're set up and how you canget to things. You know, remember
there's cheerleaders, there's usually court sideseats with people there. I mean you
(09:18):
can literally be on the court andlike two seconds just walk forward. So
we've kind of set up these arenasfor sponsors and for that whole experience,
and then when you have that.But again, you know, you've got
coaches, you know, you've gotpress, row the officials, and it's
(09:39):
I'm alsoing nothing really bad happens.Well, I agree. The whole reason
the SEC put their rule into placeyears ago was because at Georgia, when
Georgia beat Florida when they were rankedreally high, Matt Walsh got punched in
the face and they raise hell aboutthat, and that's when they put the
(10:00):
rule into place fifty thousand to fiftyor something. But the funny thing is
is now college presidents at those schoolsare saying, I'll pay the fee.
That was fun last night. Soyeah, okay, well, here,
while we're talking our producer Jack,he just gave me a good idea,
and I think I'll kind of justsay it. Maybe you have people that
(10:22):
are assigned to each player and theopposing team, and you just escort him
off like that's your person, Likeit's additional security just for that visiting team,
because at the end of the day, I think that's who may be
most vulnerable. So there you go, Jack, just solve the problem.
Thank you, Jack. All Right, Well, let's get to our guests
(10:43):
today because we've been talking about liketradition and things that have been going on
for a long time. And todaywe have kind of an og beat writer,
correct, Michelle, I think itwas more of a columnist maybe beat
writer at the beginning of his career. We're going to talk to Robert Gillespie,
better known as Bob Gillespie from Columbia, South Carolina. He was a
(11:03):
writer at the state paper for thirtyone years, retired in the last decade,
and he is legendary in the statefor not only covering college sports,
but he's a big big golf writer, big golf writer. He probably won't
tell us on this episode, buthe could tell us some great stories.
(11:24):
We're going to have to have himback because he could tell us some great
stories about Dustin Johnson and Patrick Reidand some of the people that he's covered
over the years at the Masters.But I'm excited to talk to him about
college athletics and you know, thedumb questions or the do I have to
do this interview thing so well,it'll be good to get kind of his
(11:45):
take on just journalism today, sportsreporting today in the collegiate space. You
know, obviously we are familiar withback when they had fax machines. But
again, covering sports has kind ofevolved and just what's going on with newspapers
and print digital. So yeah,I'm looking forward to getting his perspective on
that. And then I think weshould. Now that we've got kind of
(12:07):
like an og sports reporter, thenmaybe we look into the different generations of
sports reporters in future episodes and ohinteresting, Okay, I've got a few
in mind, So all right,see if Bob likes the two hundred and
forty characters or a few supporters longform. Awesome, all right, let's
meet Bob. Well, Bob,thanks for joining us today. We're so
(12:31):
excited to have you. Yeah,well, I wish I could actually be
You're in Florida now, so Iwish I could be there. Yes,
Stampa. It's nice and warm today. We got lovely weather around here,
and as you know, I'm havingto look at it from the inside because
we're covering back surgery. But hopefullythe weather will last long enough for me
to get back on the golf course. That's not big Bill will Yeah too
(12:54):
much golf? Right? Is thatwhy you had to have back surgery?
No, they that it was.You know, I'm giving something away here,
but I had something called spinal stenosis, which, for those of you
into medical stuff, is where arthritisand stuff comes off the spine and start
pinching on the spinal cord causes nervething. So they went in and they
(13:16):
cleaned all that out and went inand stuck a little padding between a vertebrae.
Nobody's getting sick as I talk aboutthis far. They no, I
didn't think that, and and soyou know, it takes a little while
or recover from it, but onceyou're once you're back, you should be
better than ever. So fingers crossed. Awesome. Well, I'm not even
sure where to start with Bob Ericabecause there's so much that we could talk
(13:37):
to him about. So I'm goingto let you ask the first question.
Yeah, what's she's saying there isBob is really old and it's been around
a really long time. Now,what I'm saying, we're age positive around
here. No such thing as old. Well, let's just start off with
you know, you are a sportsreporter and you've been one for a long
(13:58):
time, but things have changed inthe newspaper industry, so let's just jump
right into that. I mean,can we save newspapers. Should we save
newspapers, Well, I'm biased.I think we should. Whether we can
say in the format we're used tois the big question. I think there
will be news departments around because peoplestill want to know what's going on for
(14:20):
the most part, and not everybodydoes, because there's a lot of people
out there who think they can getall their news Facebook and Twitter and Instagram
and stuff like that. But Ithink there's still a number of people,
at least my generation is still we'reall gone want to get news that we
feel like you can trust, thatyou know it's been researched and vetted and
(14:41):
that sort of thing. But thebusiness model of newspapers is the problem,
not so much the content. Justgive an example, Michelle. You may
have to sit down for this one, but the state newspaper here in Columbia,
where I've worked for thirty some oddyears, has now gone to only
publishing three days a week. Andnot only that, but they will not
(15:05):
deliver your newspaper to your house.You have to get it by mail,
which of course means you get ita day or maybe even two days late
for what's in the paper, whichis what they're trying to do is trying
to drive everybody to the website andto get it via the internet, you
know, which which makes sense ifyou think about it, because it's a
heck of a lot cheaper to stickit on the stick it on Facebook,
(15:26):
or stick it in an email thanit is to run those presses and print
off newspapers and then put the newspapersout on the street or in people's mailboxes
and stuff like that. So yeah, that that's that's the big change that
I've seen, I see coming ornot even cooming here now. But you
know, I hope that newspapers cansurvive because I think, you know,
(15:50):
newspapers. The role of newspapers,whether it's a physical newspaper or whether it's
like I said, providing news topeople, I think it's still vital.
The question has become and I don'twant to get political, but I said,
this is not a political podcast,okay, But but I think I
can say this without taking aside,is that there has been a lot of
(16:12):
stuff thrown at what they used tothey now call the mainstream media by certain
elements of society. And you know, I'm sorry, I'm an old traditionalist.
I think you know, you haveto have a source for news that
you can trust, that you cansay, Okay, this may or may
not agree with what I think,but this is being done by people who
(16:37):
are honestly and straightforward but trying toget the words to you so that you
can make informed decisions on how youlive your life. So you know,
we'll see I know the paper Iwork for. Uh. Since I was
there, they have gone through aboutoh gosh, three or four different sports
staff, meaning they've had people comein to replace me and others who hired
(17:00):
or put by us and excuse uh. And so those people have been very
talented. In fact, I've gottento know. I've made a point each
time a new staff, as sportswriterscame in, I tried to make a
point to meet those people and tosay, you know, hey, you
know, I'm retired, but Imight be a resource for things that happened
before you got here, things youdon't know about. And that's been great.
(17:22):
But now they're on the third.Now, now they're on the third
go round on that. But thelast groupe, Uh, let's just give
you an example of it. Sowhere did these where are these people going
that were that came in? Arethey going to better jobs different locations.
Uh, pretty much gitting out,getting out of journalism. What's happening with
them, Well, it's it's kindof a mix of both. Prinstance,
(17:42):
there's a young guy named Andrew Raspokraswho is a Virginia graduate. He came
in, he was very good,very talented, a good writer, good
reporter, and he left and tooka job with something called Historic Columbia here
in town, which is simply promotingthe city and its history and that sort.
So they brought in two more guysafter him that I got to know.
(18:04):
One was a North Carolina graduate andthe other one was from Wisconsin.
Uh. The young man from Wisconsin, then Portnoy is now a lead writer
for the Sports Business Journal out ofCharlotte, which, you know, I
don't know about the salary, butthat's definitely a better job of working for
a paper to one, but youget to fly all over the country and
cover all sorts of great things.And the other one, Michael and Ia
(18:27):
just decided after at the state,you know, maybe I want to go
back to school. So he isback at the University of North Carolina working
there. They're they're publishing, publishing, marketing points. Uh so, you
know, to answer your question,it's depends. But a lot of people
are getting into the newspaper business andthen getting out, you know, not
(18:48):
just moving to a larger newspaper,but moving to different different types of work
against portnoy up at sports Citizen Journal, let's still sports journal. In fact,
you like I said, that's theaction publications. They got a lot
more resources than state newspapers. Sothe last of sect he is. In
fact I taught a few times.He's very happy like that. But again
(19:11):
he's twenty six, twenty seven,he's on the runt end of his career.
He's got to figure out how tomake this last, you know,
for a long time where it's somebodyhigh each but now you know, I
write this fewboard here, business wallgo out of doctor retire. So Bob,
let's just take a step back andtalk about this. You you know,
you are a sports reporter, youhave been for a long time.
What is the modern day sports reporter? Because I think you know, you
(19:34):
talked about the importance of news andpeople wanting to get you know, credibility
in their news. But if wetalk specifically about sports, you know,
you can get scores from Twitter.What are people really looking for? Like,
what is the role, in youropinion of a modern day sports reporter.
Are you talking, Erica about abeat writer. Are you talking about
someone that just covers sports, someonethat only covers a certainty, or maybe
(19:57):
a national writer. I'd say,let's just jump into college sports because that's
kind of, you know, whatwe're familiar with. But based on your
yeah, I think, uh,it's kind of a complicated answer. As
as Michelle alluded to. When Iwas at the State the last ten years
I was at the newspaper, Ididn't cover games. They had me doing
(20:18):
what they call long form journalists.These would be stories that would be,
you know, oh, four orfive, six, seven times longer than
say a regular weekly game story,and I'd be out there, you know,
talking to you the background stories on. People might spend a week or
even a month in a couple ofoccasions doing these more in depth stories.
(20:40):
Those now and now aren't they they'renot really doing. Newspapers in general across
the country aren't really doing game recaps. They're using ap and they're writing these
long form type of stories for touh, to talk about a game like
this game is coming up on Saturday. Say it's a football game, and
then you would publish story over acouple of days during the week. Yeah,
(21:03):
well here here's here's another element ofwell a couple of elements from that.
For instance, with the state newspapers, like let's say South Carolina is
playing a game tonight. They're not. Let's say they are, and the
beat writer will go to the gameand he will write something for the website.
But you're right, it's going tobe short and to the point.
Usually the way they write them now, it will be here's basically what we
(21:23):
used to call the league. Here'swhat happened, Here's who won, here's
who's hit the winning shots. Andthen he'll try to break down the game
into some elements. This is whySouth Carolina won, or this is why
South Carolina loss. Things like that, uh. And those are pretty tight
and briefed, and it's like yousaid, it's it's a little more than
the score, but just barely morethan score. Uh. And then the
(21:45):
other stuff is, as you said, more background or uh, in depth,
maybe you know, and it doesn'talways have to see what's going on
right now. I did a lotof writing when I was there, about
you know, say people played atthe university or somewhere in South Carolina,
you know, twenty five years ago, where are they now? Type story?
(22:06):
And interestingly, the two guys thatI mentioned who moved on recently,
most newspaper, most sports writers thatI have met, do not aspire to
go cover games. They want todo more stuff. They want to do
the old sports Illustrated model, whichis go out then time, get behind
the scene, talk to people,not just get the locker room quotes and
(22:27):
things like that, but you know, give you, give you more for
your money, give you more backgroundon what's going on in the sport.
Both those guys did a lot ofthat stuff. But my sense was sometimes
that you know, if they wantedto do that, it was almost like,
okay, they have to say noton their own as in the paper.
With the paper, so the papersaid, okay, your main job
(22:48):
is to cover the game cock orthe tip. So let's let's talk a
little bit about that. So interms of, you know, dealing with
coaches and athletes, what what arecoaches and athletes obligation to the media,
Like what is fair coverage. I'veheard that some athletes are you know,
won't talk to the media in collegeand unless they're paid to do it.
(23:10):
I think that all came out atTexas A and M a couple of years
ago, where somebody was paid twothousand dollars to do a pre season interview
or something. I don't remember theexact details. But what what are their
obligations currently? I mean, beforeit was like an honor to be interviewed,
is it still an honor to beinterviewed? I think it's I think
it depends on the situation, thecoaches, the athletes. Let's give you
(23:33):
you know, you made a goodpoint when I broke into the business,
and Michelle can probably speak to usa little bit too. We used to
have great access to athletes. Youmight call up and say, hey,
I'd like to interview you Sam Smith, the starting quarterback or something like that,
and you know, a day orso later that person would be made
available to sit down with them.And not forever, but you can spend
(23:56):
a good bit of time with themnowadays, and we see this not just
important in politics and everything else.You don't get a lot of one off
ones. You end up with alot of what I call podium journalisms.
Either coach comes in after the game, or he comes in the day before
the game to preview the game,and he stands at a podium and he
takes questions from this guy over hereand this guy over there and discal there,
(24:18):
and you know, if you're tryingto build a theme of your story,
if you're trying to do more thanjust the basics of they're playing tomorrow,
here's who they're playing, here arethe records, here's who's important,
et cetera. If you're trying todo more than that, it's very difficult.
Well, so that is that.Do you feel that's what the consumer,
(24:41):
the reader wants that more like embeddedtype coverage or do you think it's
you know, you mentioned it before. Is it something generational where maybe some
people want to read the end depthand some people just want to skim or
are maybe interested in more issues.Yeah, I think it's a little both.
Think you know, again, Idon't want to take any shots.
(25:03):
That's the young generation. But asyou you you pointed out that you know,
you can go online and get thescore five minutes after the game is
over. You don't have to waitfor somebody to to write and tell you
what happened. Uh, and thereare a certain element of the readership out
there or the audience maybe I shouldsay not readership, but who that's what
they want to know. They wantto know. Okay, just if DJ
mac break double figures for South Carolinadidn't want DJ Johnson get a number of
(25:27):
three, and once they get that, they're happy. And but there are
some people who really want to readfor you know, what's what's this guy
like? You know what this familylike? You have to overcome adversity to
get to where he is? Howdid he find South Carolina or how did
South Carolina find him? Excuse?So, I think there's still a place
for that as to which is thedominant one right now? Again, I
(25:51):
don't The stuff I do now isfor the old school stuff, you know,
if I decide I want to writesomething, and most of what I
do now is freelance. Haven't writtenstuff with the paper, oh gosh,
since the pandemic yet they kind oftell people they lost my phone number in
the pandemic. But uh, there'ssome stuff that I'm doing for a couple
(26:12):
of websites and some magazines and stuffis more background, is more personal personality
or person oriented than results orients.I think I think both. But what
do people want to read? Dothey want to just go on Twitter?
Or do people want to read longform stories? I mean, it's hard
for you to say, but youknow, when you're talking to your cronies,
(26:33):
what are your you know, youngand old? What are people?
What are people? I mean,I know how I like to read stuff.
I like to read Twitter, butI also like to go say on
ESPN or the Athletic and read somethings. And I don't mind reading long
form. But sometimes I think,like yesterday I read a story about in
Erica. You've probably liked this oneabout the clippers new logo. Have you
(26:56):
read about it? Erica the LaClippers. You definitely should read that article.
It talks all about how they cameup with their new brand and why
they did it and everything, andit was a long story, but I
was like, you know, thisis really interesting. So I think consumers
want that, even though they say, no, we want to get it
done in two hundred and forty characters. Yeah, No, I think you're
(27:19):
right. I think I think Ithink you want the result you want to
get. You if all you wantis the result, it's there, you
can get it. Quickly. Buta lot of people, well you said,
just look at what at least forthe moment, the popularity of the
athletics. They have come in andthey hired people. They hired several people
you used work for minded to say, one's covering the Carolina Panthers, once
(27:44):
covering Georgia. And when talking tothose guys, the things that they made
the point of was said, youknow, I got so tired of being
at a ball gi and Michelle canprobably speak to this. I know I
went to a U. I guessI'm tired of being at a ball game.
Yeah. Well my point was Iwent to a ball game, and
(28:04):
I'm sitting in the stands of afan right and I'm watching the game,
and it's a really fun game towatch. And I look over on Press
Road where there are still some guyslike Dave Cloneger and Pete Acabelli with Charleston
Paper and Associated Press, and youlook over there, they're not watching the
game. They're looking at their phonebecause they're tweeting out something. Are you're
(28:25):
still tweeting? You know, they'rethey're basically part of their job is to
keep a running conversation with the fanson the Internet, and I'm sitting there
going, you know, I'm glad. I'm glad I retired when I did.
There's no way I could have donethat during a game, which is
part of the responsibility. By theway, It's not like they're just doing
this fun. They are faced tooby their editors who put content out on
(28:47):
the Internet and then come back andtry to make sense of what happened in
the game and write a story.I don't get it, but you know,
apparently casking his these days, Ithink too when you talk about the
tweeting and everything. Sometimes you know, we can just get our coverage from
the coaches themselves, and they're almostthe entertainment on social media. So why
(29:11):
read any coverage I mean immediately comesto mind, and even what they said
about coach Saban with his gems.But Bob, can you just weigh in
a little bit because you covered youknow, obviously you're a beat writer.
But how important is developing a relationshipwith the coach and with the PR department
at the university important to you know, covering and covering in the way that
(29:33):
you want to. I mean,is it critical that you have this good
relationship or can you have a twoway thing because sometimes the news isn't always
good that you have to report,and so what are the challenges with that
in covering a school? Oh,Bob, wait a minute, a hold
on before you answer that you workedwith some doozies. I remember, and
I won't tell you which coach itwas, but he called me to tell
(29:56):
me about how a reporter at youruniversity got called out by the head coach
and the head coach walked out ofthe press conference. And yeah, there
was not professional at all. Well, there were, there were a lot
of things going on there. Yes, and by way, by the way,
the coach and the writer are bothretired now, so that that's probably
(30:17):
just the well yeah, but yeah, yeah, that was that was strength.
But again that's again a different portionof the thing because the reporter who
got into a conflict with the coachwas not the beat before he was the
columnist for the newspaper. So I'mnot sure. I'm sure everybody and board
knows. We try over here tolet people understand. Column You know,
(30:40):
writers cover the game. They giveyou the fact, they give you the
fact interpretation. Columnists are there togive you their opinion. They're there to
say they stink and this is whythey stink, or this is why they're
good. And you know, coachesdon't always like that. Coaches got a
little moore. I don't know,maybe they've gotten the little boys used to
(31:00):
having that separation from the media.But to get back to the original question
on that is I know when Iwas doing it. Yeah, relationships for
everything, because if you just walkin and say hey, I'm Bob and
I'm covering your team and walk out. Now, why would that coach ever
give you the time of day?Or you know, you got to build
(31:21):
trust And I think trust works bothways. You've got to be able to
trust the coach it's going to bestraight with you, and if not,
he's got to trust that you're goingto call him on. And we had
we had incidents like that. Iyou know Michelle. I think Michelle was
around during the coach previous to theone we just mentioned, certain infamous coach
(31:42):
now almost ninety years old and thingslike that. And he was there for
six seasons and it was a lovehate I mean, you know, I
can remember I can tell you storiesabout writing things about him that I would
hear back from people said, oh, he hated that story. Okay,
well, let's do that. Uh. And then other times when I would
be in his sitting in his officeand be the subject to a charm offense
(32:06):
where you know, hey, Ireally liked your writing. I appreciate your
honesty. Yeah, So how dohow do I mean? You know,
we're talking about athletes and coaches here, and how do you know you as
a sports writer, if you couldtalk to them like you have a you
have a pulpit right here. Don'tgo, don't go for ten minutes on
(32:27):
this, But what would you liketo say to athletes and coaches? Don't
take it personal. I mean understandyou have a job to do. What
what would you like to say?What do you think? Erica? Well,
I'll let Bob answer first and thenI can weigh in. Well,
again, it's it's not as simpleas black and white. But I think
(32:51):
the best thing, and this wasall always worked with me, is,
first of all, let's stay withan athlete, you know, get back
to the coaches with an athlete.When I sitting down to interview, and
that's always a little uncomfortable. It'suncomfortable for the writer a lot of times.
And obviously if the athlete hasn't beeninterviewed a lot. We're again now
we're mostly talking to college athletes,pros as the whole different quality. But
(33:13):
some of these guys maybe have neverbeen interviewed in their life for very few
times. So they were interviewed bysome guy when they were in high school
kind of on the fly. Andnow you've got somebody who out they wants
to sit down and find out whoyou are and what you're about. And
I think it takes some understanding onthe reporter's part, you know, but
you want to be you want tocome across as interested and really want to
(33:36):
hear them, hear what they haveto say, because I think most people
and athletes are no different. Theyhave you know, if they're in the
spotlight, like athletes are, theywant people to know who they are or
you know, up to a point. You know, they don't want to
give away the world. They wantpeople to appreciate them and understand what their
motivations are. And again, theseare the stories you read that you really
(33:59):
enjoy about the guy who again overcamea you know, a one parent childhood,
or overcame growing up surrounded by gangs, or maybe even on the other
extreme, some guy whose father playedfor University X, and now he's expected
to do the same thing because it'sa heritage thing or a legacy thing.
So I think that I think,you know, I always told reporters,
(34:22):
you know, if you could getone on one with a guy, do
at that one, because that's whenyou find out something about the same with
the coaches. If you're founting onfinding out something about a coach and a
group meeting and you miss blamed Kiffand we had Steve Spurrier here incredibly entertaining
at times, but it's not thattime in a press conference where you're going
(34:44):
to figure out who these people are, what they're about. It when you
get them one on one, andit's not easy, and the system is
not set up to make it easy. These days. It's more about uh
limited access to things like that,and you know, I think that's by
design. Buy a lot of universities, for sure, and force information departments.
Of course, getting back to that, Michelle knows, you know,
(35:07):
when she was at South Carolina,she and I went nose to those a
few times, and then there wereother times when we sit down and talking,
Look, this is what I'm tryingto do. He says, Okay,
I get that. Let me seeif I can tell you. And
that's what you hope for, isyou know, I'm not out here to
Catholic's not out here to put anybodyelse on across or anything like that.
(35:27):
I'm here to try and do myjob and write a good story. And
you know, it was always funnyto me that somebody would accuse you.
So, oh, you're pulling forthe other team. I said, why
would I do that? Oh?Yeah, that's a That's a big thing,
isn't it. There the sports peopleare always a fan of the other
team. My readers are South Carolinafans. I'm trying to write for my
readers. Why would I Why wouldI try to make the team. I'm
(35:51):
writing about what's bad. Now theylook bad, and I say, oh,
they look great, and nobody's goingto take it seriously. You've got
to have credibility. Well, Ithink to finding the balance between the coverage
and establishing the relationships. And Ican see where it's a slippery slope sometimes,
but I think building those relationships isthe key to good coverage, even
when you have to ask the hardquestions or when time is an issue.
(36:14):
And even now with everything coaches haveto do and players obligations, you know,
you want to expose them to theyou know, get the exposure and
all that, but at the sametime, you know they also have have
a job to do as a athleteand a student. I guess we're still
saying that student athlete. So it'sbeen real quick to this, and Michelle,
(36:35):
I'm sure remembers this from her timeat South Carolina. There is more
and more of universities again, we'restill talking to college athletes. Universities are
rather than making it easier for reportersto do their job, it's not that
well, some of them are activelytrying to not let them do their job.
I don't want to go down thatroad, but most of them are
(36:57):
now I know, Well, wehave an issue with plenty a few years
ago, Michelle, you may rememberthis where the athletics director got quoted as
saying, our job talking to ismedia. People within the university say our
job is not to make the newspapersand TV reporters job either. It's to
get the word out. So basicallythey are now some of our competition for
(37:21):
getting stories out. Yeah, Imean, that's what I had to do.
When I was at Santa Clara,we had to. You know,
we were I don't know how manypro teams. We had, two NFL
teams, two Major League Baseball teams, a hockey team. Oh and the
top public in the top private university, Stanford and Cal right there in our
backyard. So we had to beour own newspaper. We had to put
(37:42):
out our own stuff. I mean, the social media coming around in two
thousand and seven, Twitter in twothousand and eight. When I started at
Santa Clara. It actually came ata perfect time because then we could do
so much of that stuff and hadprobably we were probably some of the earlier
adopters across the country at Santa Clara, because we could not get in the
(38:05):
Mercury News. And the Mercury NewsI remember the sports editor told me this
one time. You love this,Bob, and Erica said, it's almost
more surprising if your score gets inthe paper than if it doesn't. Because
how much their staff was shrinking somuch they had gone and they were actually
(38:27):
the first newspaper, the San JoseMercury News, the very first newspaper in
the country to put their newspaper online, and they kicked themselves from day two
of that that they didn't charge fromthe beginning because they felt like if they
had charged from the beginning, itwould have saved every newspaper across the country.
So yeah, yeah, that's they'rea good point, and they're not
(38:52):
alone. Pretty much every newspaper,you know, said we got to put
our stuff online. We got toput ourself online, and nobody thought,
you know when we when we whenwe published a newspaper and we put it
on a news stand, we don'ttell people come on up and grab a
copy and leave. We say,come up, grab a copy and pay
for it. And it always cracksme up how people get so mad they
(39:12):
have to pay for the newspaper.Yeah, yeah, well or pay for
it online, you know, right, well that don't freak no, no,
no, you expect it to befree, because it was from the
beginning. Because the business people innewspapers. Don't get me started on business
people in newspapers, but they quitehonestly were stupid. They did things that
basically, you know, cut thelegs out from under their product, you
(39:35):
know, like you said, aftera while, people, you know,
when there was only a few peopleonline reading stuff online, it was one
thing, and it was, youknow, kind of a novelty. But
now everybody reads online, and likeI said, if I can read the
New York Times, the Washington Postor the LA Times or whatever for free,
why the hell would I subscribe.Nobody's that stupid. But apparently the
(39:58):
people who came up with a businesslawn, well, we're not really thinking
very well. So let us we'regonna wrap things up here at some point,
but let us ask you. We'regonna I want to ask you a
couple of quick hitters. Uh.Favorite favorite coach that you worked with?
Oh boy, story just a name, No story speaks for it. Uh.
(40:19):
Well, I guess I shouldn't askat least favorite coach that you ever
worked with. Favorite golfer that you'veworked with. Oh boy, there's a
lot of great ones, a lotof great ones locally that I've had the
pleasure to deal with. Uh,but you know, the all time best
is still Jack Nicholas. I mean, he is the best golfer in history
for a reason, not just becauseof Okay, favorite favorite athletic director that
(40:42):
you ever worked with. M letme think a second, probably Eric Hymon
at South Carolina. Okay, well, Bob, before we uh let you
go, we want to put youthrough the spin cycle. It's our little
quick hitting question segment here. Sowe've so enjoyed having you on, and
(41:06):
I think we need to have youback to talk a little more golf because
I know we focused a lot oncollege sports, but I know golf is
kind of a kind of your secondchapter. So I'd love to have you
back on to talk about golf becauseI know you've covered Dustin Johnson and Patrick
Reid, the Master's, every heritage, everything, so it'll be interesting to
We'll catch you before you're up andat I'm one hundred percent we'll have another
(41:27):
session. But let's get into thespin cycle. We're just going to ask
you in either or and just saythe first thing that comes to your mind.
Are you ready? You're all right? Texting or talking, talking,
driving or putting pudding? Morning personor night owl? Oh boy? Probably
(41:52):
more night out? Happy Gilmour tincup or caddy shack. Oh, caddy
shack. That's a question. It'sa classic, all right. And last
this should be really easy, Bob, what's for dinner? Whatever? My
wife mate, what's your favorite thingthat she makes? Oh? Her post
(42:15):
editions are done. She's not avalue, but she could. All right,
sounds delicious. Well, thank youso much. I really enjoy talking
to you. I know we couldprobably have gone for hours because the topic
is pretty compelling. But we're gladthat you shared a little time with us.
Yeah, thanks for your nuggets thatyou dropped on us, and we
(42:36):
definitely want to have you back totalk more about golf because I know that's
a passion. Please let me knowbecause I'm always here and I enjoyed it.
Michelle, that was a great episode. Thanks for introducing me to Bob.
I love just hearing about his timeas a columnist sports reporter and just
(42:57):
kind of some of the things thathe did. It takes me back.
He's the OG very popular in SouthCarolina, and people really liked Bob never
took a super controversial look at things, so it's very popular. So well,
I love it how he said,you guys kind of you kind of
maybe had I mean, I knowsometimes I do remember it with him.
(43:19):
Now a few were their other hadto tell him what was what or give
him Yes, a few others possiblyhim, I don't remember that was your
job, So I think you knowit's nice that he could come on and
tell us a little bit about hiscareer. And I know we didn't get
a chance to cover what he's doingnow, but I think we talked about
having him back because he's focusing alittle bit more on golf, which sounds
(43:44):
fun as well. But would loveto have him back, and again,
I think fascinating talking about the currentstate of sports journalism. So I think
we've got some future guests in minewhere we can dive in a little bit
more. Yeah, he's definitely theOG. So love it, love it
all right, Well, if youenjoyed this episode, please like, follow,
(44:07):
subscribe, vibe what why not?Then you'll know when the next Spin
Chicks comes out. Wouldn't that bespecial? And we've been recording lots of
episodes. We've got a lot inthe hopper we have, yes, we
do, and then and the Chicken. Since we're the spin Chicks, we
could say we have a lot inthe where chickens hang out and stay that
(44:28):
coop coop. We've got a lotin the coop. We've got a lot
in the coop coming out. Sosubscribe, hit like, leave a comment.
We'd love to have another comment,all right, say next time,
thank you,
Came the show. Hey, Erica, welcome to another episode of The spin
Chicks. What's going on with you? Just checking out some recipes? Ooh,
recipes? Yes, I've never madethese things before. I always make
guacamole. I know your fame isguacamole. I probably made guacamole nine hundred
(00:30):
and seventy five times, maybe fourthousand and thirty five times, every single
party. I make it, allright? So why did you switch it
up? I because I wanted somethingwarm. So I'm making buffalo chicken dip
okay, okay, and spinach artichokedip. Hot spinach artichoke dip. All
(00:53):
right? So are you making healthyversions of those? Or are there healthy
versions of their version? First ofall, I tasted the buffalo chicken dip
and it's spicy. So I pouredsome more ranch dressing that goes in the
buffalo. I did not know whatwas in that before. I just knew
it tasted amazing. But anything that'sgot cream, cheese, hot sauce,
(01:15):
ranch dressing, chicken and cheese,you can't miss warmed up. Come on,
all right, are you tailgating orwhat's going on? I'm hosting a
party, gotcha Okay, well thatand then spinach artichoke dip another one.
Yes, it has arto chokes veryhealthy. Yes it has spinach very healthy.
(01:36):
The rest of it, and thatmayonnaise, cream cheese, parmesan cheese
cheese yaisa. All right, Well, whoever's coming over, they're probably going
to be calling you the next day, like Michelle, sorry delicious, but
yeah good butt. Yeah, butwe lot some healthy stuff too, all
(01:59):
right, so you probably don't tohear about my breakfast avocado egg clad recipe.
Just a little ripe avocado, mashit up with some easy over easy
seasoning from Spicology, and then dillfresh dill, chop up the egg,
and then a very small amount ofprimal mayo, just to like, you
(02:21):
know, bind it all up.Ye woitmen, you put boiled egg in
avocado together. No, no,take the hard boiled eggs and chop them
up with the mashed up avocado thespices, and then you can have it
on just a real tiny piece ofsour dough or just eat it straight from
the bowl ready to go. Igot I like guacamala or avocados on top
(02:45):
of eggs, but I've never mixeda boiled egg, but it probably tastes
good, good protein, right,Yeah, and then you add some turkey
sausage and some raspberries. I'm readyfor the day. Wow, you're gonna
kill it. Okay. Are thepeople really want to hear about the recipes
or do they want to talk aboutstorming the court? Let's talk about court
(03:07):
storming. Whoop whoop. It's apopular topic. So are you what's your
take on storming the court? Well, I have been a part of storming
and I have been a part ofgetting stormed, So I've been both.
I do believe that college students andI know this will not be popular with
(03:32):
you, Erica, so go aheadand start to say eh. But I
did a survey of the Nasmith isone of my clients, and I did
a survey of all of our internsthe other night. I think there were
twelve of them on the call andasked them who thinks court storming is a
part of being in college. Everysingle kid raised their hand said they love
(03:53):
it, wish they get Many ofthem were student athletes. Well I didn't.
I didn't ask this student athletes,and I don't disagree with you on
that. I was going to givea big butt. I am. I
am okay with it, but thereneeds to be some safety measures. Now,
what does that look like? Inbasketball? A lot of times the
(04:15):
games go down to the you know, the final few seconds. Should there
be an extra time out at theend of a game where you know there's
going to be court storming so thatthey can get their players, all their
starters off the court. But thensomebody is going to be out there and
get hurt, and then that wouldleave them open to being sued by that
player that got hurt because they're ascrub. Well, I think when you
(04:40):
talk about how to prevent it,I mean, let's be honest, who's
who's doing that? I mean who? I mean, it's enough by bullet
worse back in the barn. Yeah, it's difficult, and things turn can
turn dangerous really quickly. I mean, I think they've been lucky. Obviously,
it's been happening for a long time. But I still think that I
(05:02):
don't know, just feels different,it looks different, and I don't I
really can't explain it. I canjust tell you that if and I haven't
been a part of basketball, i'dbeen a little bit of part of football.
But it's frightening, and I justthink you need to make sure these
student athletes get off the court.That's where they play, and I think
they are you know, they deservejust a safe space to just exit the
(05:24):
court, to play, to dowhat they're supposed to do and then and
then go. And I'm not againstcelebration, but you say all that,
but it's probably very difficult to managebecause who wants to be stopping kids storming
the court, do you? BecauseI don't put the little rope up with
good luck at the point. I'vebeen at many games before where it's happened
(05:45):
against my team and for my team, and it is it's scary. I
was on the court one time atSanta Clara when they beat Gonzaga and the
kids storm the court and I wastrying to get across to hand a box
score. It was like, rightas the game ended. I don't think
I was really thinking, and Iwas going across to get the box score
to the talent and I got hitand knocked over and my shoe was broken.
(06:12):
It was one of my favorite pairsof shoes, and you know how
we are about our shoes. Now, if I could do that over again,
I probably would have sent a studentand sinkers over there, but I
was like, let me get thisover there too quick and get this person
to this and you know, justdoing sid work. So I don't think
I saw the Caitlin Clark. Ididn't think the kid intentionally hit her.
I think they were just running outthere and not really paying attention. The
(06:35):
kid from Duke, I'm not sure. Well, it's hard. It's just
like replay. You know, youslow down video and you think you know
what's happening, but when you're inthe moment, it's different. So it's
not an easy solution. But Ithink once you've seen a lot of these
things happening, it's like, hey, let's take a step back and figure
out how we can do it.So we'll see who managed. Pardon,
(07:00):
have you ever done it? Courtstormed, Field stormed, No, No,
I have not done it. Thatjust wouldn't be a thing I would
do. All when South Carolina beatthe pants off of Tennessee and that was
so fun, but we went onon after. I kept telling my husband's
son who went to cal Poly,which you know, they were number one
(07:23):
in the country in baseball at thepoint, but they were not good football,
and he was just kind of watchingwith fascination as these kids started to
go on the field and I waslike, you want to go down there?
Now? This was after a coupleof minutes we did not go in
the initial wave, and he waslike, Yeah, that'd be really fun.
Let's do it. And so wejust walked down there and walked down
to the field. I mean,at some point you can't really stop it,
so why hurt the people trying tostop it? But I guess there
(07:45):
needs to be more of a punishmentor more of a safety thing. I
don't know, what do you think, Like, what's your if you were
the if you were Greg SANKI,although they already have they already have,
you know, punishment in place inthe SEC. If you were the Commission
or the Big ten or the SECor the Pac twelve, what would you
do? This is gonna sound crazy, but I think, you know,
(08:09):
I do you think there's any wayto just really have a court storming that
could be a safe one? Imean, I I think I might have
seen it happen once where it wasactually just an organized, a truly celebratory
thing. I just I don't know, I think it would take a lot
of communication, and honestly, youknow, how I just don't know if
people are interested in that. Someof this stuff is just so in the
(08:31):
moment. How do you control likea viral moment? Yeah, you know,
I know I think we should,But then the how to is just
a completely different. Yeah, becauseif the game goes down to the last
second and it's a buzzer beater andsomebody hits a three at the at the
buzzer and then they run on thecourt, Well, how do you get
people off the field or the court, or if it's a it's an interception
(08:54):
they run back, how do youget in the coaches as well? I
mean, how do you get themoff the court? Yeah, I mean
I think with basketball things are kindof tighter. I'm not familiar with a
whole lot of arenas. I knowyou've seen many more, but just how
they're set up and how you canget to things. You know, remember
there's cheerleaders, there's usually court sideseats with people there. I mean you
(09:18):
can literally be on the court andlike two seconds just walk forward. So
we've kind of set up these arenasfor sponsors and for that whole experience,
and then when you have that.But again, you know, you've got
coaches, you know, you've gotpress, row the officials, and it's
(09:39):
I'm alsoing nothing really bad happens.Well, I agree. The whole reason
the SEC put their rule into placeyears ago was because at Georgia, when
Georgia beat Florida when they were rankedreally high, Matt Walsh got punched in
the face and they raise hell aboutthat, and that's when they put the
(10:00):
rule into place fifty thousand to fiftyor something. But the funny thing is
is now college presidents at those schoolsare saying, I'll pay the fee.
That was fun last night. Soyeah, okay, well, here,
while we're talking our producer Jack,he just gave me a good idea,
and I think I'll kind of justsay it. Maybe you have people that
(10:22):
are assigned to each player and theopposing team, and you just escort him
off like that's your person, Likeit's additional security just for that visiting team,
because at the end of the day, I think that's who may be
most vulnerable. So there you go, Jack, just solve the problem.
Thank you, Jack. All Right, Well, let's get to our guests
(10:43):
today because we've been talking about liketradition and things that have been going on
for a long time. And todaywe have kind of an og beat writer,
correct, Michelle, I think itwas more of a columnist maybe beat
writer at the beginning of his career. We're going to talk to Robert Gillespie,
better known as Bob Gillespie from Columbia, South Carolina. He was a
(11:03):
writer at the state paper for thirtyone years, retired in the last decade,
and he is legendary in the statefor not only covering college sports,
but he's a big big golf writer, big golf writer. He probably won't
tell us on this episode, buthe could tell us some great stories.
(11:24):
We're going to have to have himback because he could tell us some great
stories about Dustin Johnson and Patrick Reidand some of the people that he's covered
over the years at the Masters.But I'm excited to talk to him about
college athletics and you know, thedumb questions or the do I have to
do this interview thing so well,it'll be good to get kind of his
(11:45):
take on just journalism today, sportsreporting today in the collegiate space. You
know, obviously we are familiar withback when they had fax machines. But
again, covering sports has kind ofevolved and just what's going on with newspapers
and print digital. So yeah,I'm looking forward to getting his perspective on
that. And then I think weshould. Now that we've got kind of
(12:07):
like an og sports reporter, thenmaybe we look into the different generations of
sports reporters in future episodes and ohinteresting, Okay, I've got a few
in mind, So all right,see if Bob likes the two hundred and
forty characters or a few supporters longform. Awesome, all right, let's
meet Bob. Well, Bob,thanks for joining us today. We're so
(12:31):
excited to have you. Yeah,well, I wish I could actually be
You're in Florida now, so Iwish I could be there. Yes,
Stampa. It's nice and warm today. We got lovely weather around here,
and as you know, I'm havingto look at it from the inside because
we're covering back surgery. But hopefullythe weather will last long enough for me
to get back on the golf course. That's not big Bill will Yeah too
(12:54):
much golf? Right? Is thatwhy you had to have back surgery?
No, they that it was.You know, I'm giving something away here,
but I had something called spinal stenosis, which, for those of you
into medical stuff, is where arthritisand stuff comes off the spine and start
pinching on the spinal cord causes nervething. So they went in and they
(13:16):
cleaned all that out and went inand stuck a little padding between a vertebrae.
Nobody's getting sick as I talk aboutthis far. They no, I
didn't think that, and and soyou know, it takes a little while
or recover from it, but onceyou're once you're back, you should be
better than ever. So fingers crossed. Awesome. Well, I'm not even
sure where to start with Bob Ericabecause there's so much that we could talk
(13:37):
to him about. So I'm goingto let you ask the first question.
Yeah, what's she's saying there isBob is really old and it's been around
a really long time. Now,what I'm saying, we're age positive around
here. No such thing as old. Well, let's just start off with
you know, you are a sportsreporter and you've been one for a long
(13:58):
time, but things have changed inthe newspaper industry, so let's just jump
right into that. I mean,can we save newspapers. Should we save
newspapers, Well, I'm biased.I think we should. Whether we can
say in the format we're used tois the big question. I think there
will be news departments around because peoplestill want to know what's going on for
(14:20):
the most part, and not everybodydoes, because there's a lot of people
out there who think they can getall their news Facebook and Twitter and Instagram
and stuff like that. But Ithink there's still a number of people,
at least my generation is still we'reall gone want to get news that we
feel like you can trust, thatyou know it's been researched and vetted and
(14:41):
that sort of thing. But thebusiness model of newspapers is the problem,
not so much the content. Justgive an example, Michelle. You may
have to sit down for this one, but the state newspaper here in Columbia,
where I've worked for thirty some oddyears, has now gone to only
publishing three days a week. Andnot only that, but they will not
(15:05):
deliver your newspaper to your house.You have to get it by mail,
which of course means you get ita day or maybe even two days late
for what's in the paper, whichis what they're trying to do is trying
to drive everybody to the website andto get it via the internet, you
know, which which makes sense ifyou think about it, because it's a
heck of a lot cheaper to stickit on the stick it on Facebook,
(15:26):
or stick it in an email thanit is to run those presses and print
off newspapers and then put the newspapersout on the street or in people's mailboxes
and stuff like that. So yeah, that that's that's the big change that
I've seen, I see coming ornot even cooming here now. But you
know, I hope that newspapers cansurvive because I think, you know,
(15:50):
newspapers. The role of newspapers,whether it's a physical newspaper or whether it's
like I said, providing news topeople, I think it's still vital.
The question has become and I don'twant to get political, but I said,
this is not a political podcast,okay, But but I think I
can say this without taking aside,is that there has been a lot of
(16:12):
stuff thrown at what they used tothey now call the mainstream media by certain
elements of society. And you know, I'm sorry, I'm an old traditionalist.
I think you know, you haveto have a source for news that
you can trust, that you cansay, Okay, this may or may
not agree with what I think,but this is being done by people who
(16:37):
are honestly and straightforward but trying toget the words to you so that you
can make informed decisions on how youlive your life. So you know,
we'll see I know the paper Iwork for. Uh. Since I was
there, they have gone through aboutoh gosh, three or four different sports
staff, meaning they've had people comein to replace me and others who hired
(17:00):
or put by us and excuse uh. And so those people have been very
talented. In fact, I've gottento know. I've made a point each
time a new staff, as sportswriterscame in, I tried to make a
point to meet those people and tosay, you know, hey, you
know, I'm retired, but Imight be a resource for things that happened
before you got here, things youdon't know about. And that's been great.
(17:22):
But now they're on the third.Now, now they're on the third
go round on that. But thelast groupe, Uh, let's just give
you an example of it. Sowhere did these where are these people going
that were that came in? Arethey going to better jobs different locations.
Uh, pretty much gitting out,getting out of journalism. What's happening with
them, Well, it's it's kindof a mix of both. Prinstance,
(17:42):
there's a young guy named Andrew Raspokraswho is a Virginia graduate. He came
in, he was very good,very talented, a good writer, good
reporter, and he left and tooka job with something called Historic Columbia here
in town, which is simply promotingthe city and its history and that sort.
So they brought in two more guysafter him that I got to know.
(18:04):
One was a North Carolina graduate andthe other one was from Wisconsin.
Uh. The young man from Wisconsin, then Portnoy is now a lead writer
for the Sports Business Journal out ofCharlotte, which, you know, I
don't know about the salary, butthat's definitely a better job of working for
a paper to one, but youget to fly all over the country and
cover all sorts of great things.And the other one, Michael and Ia
(18:27):
just decided after at the state,you know, maybe I want to go
back to school. So he isback at the University of North Carolina working
there. They're they're publishing, publishing, marketing points. Uh so, you
know, to answer your question,it's depends. But a lot of people
are getting into the newspaper business andthen getting out, you know, not
(18:48):
just moving to a larger newspaper,but moving to different different types of work
against portnoy up at sports Citizen Journal, let's still sports journal. In fact,
you like I said, that's theaction publications. They got a lot
more resources than state newspapers. Sothe last of sect he is. In
fact I taught a few times.He's very happy like that. But again
(19:11):
he's twenty six, twenty seven,he's on the runt end of his career.
He's got to figure out how tomake this last, you know,
for a long time where it's somebodyhigh each but now you know, I
write this fewboard here, business wallgo out of doctor retire. So Bob,
let's just take a step back andtalk about this. You you know,
you are a sports reporter, youhave been for a long time.
What is the modern day sports reporter? Because I think you know, you
(19:34):
talked about the importance of news andpeople wanting to get you know, credibility
in their news. But if wetalk specifically about sports, you know,
you can get scores from Twitter.What are people really looking for? Like,
what is the role, in youropinion of a modern day sports reporter.
Are you talking, Erica about abeat writer. Are you talking about
someone that just covers sports, someonethat only covers a certainty, or maybe
(19:57):
a national writer. I'd say,let's just jump into college sports because that's
kind of, you know, whatwe're familiar with. But based on your
yeah, I think, uh,it's kind of a complicated answer. As
as Michelle alluded to. When Iwas at the State the last ten years
I was at the newspaper, Ididn't cover games. They had me doing
(20:18):
what they call long form journalists.These would be stories that would be,
you know, oh, four orfive, six, seven times longer than
say a regular weekly game story,and I'd be out there, you know,
talking to you the background stories on. People might spend a week or
even a month in a couple ofoccasions doing these more in depth stories.
(20:40):
Those now and now aren't they they'renot really doing. Newspapers in general across
the country aren't really doing game recaps. They're using ap and they're writing these
long form type of stories for touh, to talk about a game like
this game is coming up on Saturday. Say it's a football game, and
then you would publish story over acouple of days during the week. Yeah,
(21:03):
well here here's here's another element ofwell a couple of elements from that.
For instance, with the state newspapers, like let's say South Carolina is
playing a game tonight. They're not. Let's say they are, and the
beat writer will go to the gameand he will write something for the website.
But you're right, it's going tobe short and to the point.
Usually the way they write them now, it will be here's basically what we
(21:23):
used to call the league. Here'swhat happened, Here's who won, here's
who's hit the winning shots. Andthen he'll try to break down the game
into some elements. This is whySouth Carolina won, or this is why
South Carolina loss. Things like that, uh. And those are pretty tight
and briefed, and it's like yousaid, it's it's a little more than
the score, but just barely morethan score. Uh. And then the
(21:45):
other stuff is, as you said, more background or uh, in depth,
maybe you know, and it doesn'talways have to see what's going on
right now. I did a lotof writing when I was there, about
you know, say people played atthe university or somewhere in South Carolina,
you know, twenty five years ago, where are they now? Type story?
(22:06):
And interestingly, the two guys thatI mentioned who moved on recently,
most newspaper, most sports writers thatI have met, do not aspire to
go cover games. They want todo more stuff. They want to do
the old sports Illustrated model, whichis go out then time, get behind
the scene, talk to people,not just get the locker room quotes and
(22:27):
things like that, but you know, give you, give you more for
your money, give you more backgroundon what's going on in the sport.
Both those guys did a lot ofthat stuff. But my sense was sometimes
that you know, if they wantedto do that, it was almost like,
okay, they have to say noton their own as in the paper.
With the paper, so the papersaid, okay, your main job
(22:48):
is to cover the game cock orthe tip. So let's let's talk a
little bit about that. So interms of, you know, dealing with
coaches and athletes, what what arecoaches and athletes obligation to the media,
Like what is fair coverage. I'veheard that some athletes are you know,
won't talk to the media in collegeand unless they're paid to do it.
(23:10):
I think that all came out atTexas A and M a couple of years
ago, where somebody was paid twothousand dollars to do a pre season interview
or something. I don't remember theexact details. But what what are their
obligations currently? I mean, beforeit was like an honor to be interviewed,
is it still an honor to beinterviewed? I think it's I think
it depends on the situation, thecoaches, the athletes. Let's give you
(23:33):
you know, you made a goodpoint when I broke into the business,
and Michelle can probably speak to usa little bit too. We used to
have great access to athletes. Youmight call up and say, hey,
I'd like to interview you Sam Smith, the starting quarterback or something like that,
and you know, a day orso later that person would be made
available to sit down with them.And not forever, but you can spend
(23:56):
a good bit of time with themnowadays, and we see this not just
important in politics and everything else.You don't get a lot of one off
ones. You end up with alot of what I call podium journalisms.
Either coach comes in after the game, or he comes in the day before
the game to preview the game,and he stands at a podium and he
takes questions from this guy over hereand this guy over there and discal there,
(24:18):
and you know, if you're tryingto build a theme of your story,
if you're trying to do more thanjust the basics of they're playing tomorrow,
here's who they're playing, here arethe records, here's who's important,
et cetera. If you're trying todo more than that, it's very difficult.
Well, so that is that.Do you feel that's what the consumer,
(24:41):
the reader wants that more like embeddedtype coverage or do you think it's
you know, you mentioned it before. Is it something generational where maybe some
people want to read the end depthand some people just want to skim or
are maybe interested in more issues.Yeah, I think it's a little both.
Think you know, again, Idon't want to take any shots.
(25:03):
That's the young generation. But asyou you you pointed out that you know,
you can go online and get thescore five minutes after the game is
over. You don't have to waitfor somebody to to write and tell you
what happened. Uh, and thereare a certain element of the readership out
there or the audience maybe I shouldsay not readership, but who that's what
they want to know. They wantto know. Okay, just if DJ
mac break double figures for South Carolinadidn't want DJ Johnson get a number of
(25:27):
three, and once they get that, they're happy. And but there are
some people who really want to readfor you know, what's what's this guy
like? You know what this familylike? You have to overcome adversity to
get to where he is? Howdid he find South Carolina or how did
South Carolina find him? Excuse?So, I think there's still a place
for that as to which is thedominant one right now? Again, I
(25:51):
don't The stuff I do now isfor the old school stuff, you know,
if I decide I want to writesomething, and most of what I
do now is freelance. Haven't writtenstuff with the paper, oh gosh,
since the pandemic yet they kind oftell people they lost my phone number in
the pandemic. But uh, there'ssome stuff that I'm doing for a couple
(26:12):
of websites and some magazines and stuffis more background, is more personal personality
or person oriented than results orients.I think I think both. But what
do people want to read? Dothey want to just go on Twitter?
Or do people want to read longform stories? I mean, it's hard
for you to say, but youknow, when you're talking to your cronies,
(26:33):
what are your you know, youngand old? What are people?
What are people? I mean,I know how I like to read stuff.
I like to read Twitter, butI also like to go say on
ESPN or the Athletic and read somethings. And I don't mind reading long
form. But sometimes I think,like yesterday I read a story about in
Erica. You've probably liked this oneabout the clippers new logo. Have you
(26:56):
read about it? Erica the LaClippers. You definitely should read that article.
It talks all about how they cameup with their new brand and why
they did it and everything, andit was a long story, but I
was like, you know, thisis really interesting. So I think consumers
want that, even though they say, no, we want to get it
done in two hundred and forty characters. Yeah, No, I think you're
(27:19):
right. I think I think Ithink you want the result you want to
get. You if all you wantis the result, it's there, you
can get it. Quickly. Buta lot of people, well you said,
just look at what at least forthe moment, the popularity of the
athletics. They have come in andthey hired people. They hired several people
you used work for minded to say, one's covering the Carolina Panthers, once
(27:44):
covering Georgia. And when talking tothose guys, the things that they made
the point of was said, youknow, I got so tired of being
at a ball gi and Michelle canprobably speak to this. I know I
went to a U. I guessI'm tired of being at a ball game.
Yeah. Well my point was Iwent to a ball game, and
(28:04):
I'm sitting in the stands of afan right and I'm watching the game,
and it's a really fun game towatch. And I look over on Press
Road where there are still some guyslike Dave Cloneger and Pete Acabelli with Charleston
Paper and Associated Press, and youlook over there, they're not watching the
game. They're looking at their phonebecause they're tweeting out something. Are you're
(28:25):
still tweeting? You know, they'rethey're basically part of their job is to
keep a running conversation with the fanson the Internet, and I'm sitting there
going, you know, I'm glad. I'm glad I retired when I did.
There's no way I could have donethat during a game, which is
part of the responsibility. By theway, It's not like they're just doing
this fun. They are faced tooby their editors who put content out on
(28:47):
the Internet and then come back andtry to make sense of what happened in
the game and write a story.I don't get it, but you know,
apparently casking his these days, Ithink too when you talk about the
tweeting and everything. Sometimes you know, we can just get our coverage from
the coaches themselves, and they're almostthe entertainment on social media. So why
(29:11):
read any coverage I mean immediately comesto mind, and even what they said
about coach Saban with his gems.But Bob, can you just weigh in
a little bit because you covered youknow, obviously you're a beat writer.
But how important is developing a relationshipwith the coach and with the PR department
at the university important to you know, covering and covering in the way that
(29:33):
you want to. I mean,is it critical that you have this good
relationship or can you have a twoway thing because sometimes the news isn't always
good that you have to report,and so what are the challenges with that
in covering a school? Oh,Bob, wait a minute, a hold
on before you answer that you workedwith some doozies. I remember, and
I won't tell you which coach itwas, but he called me to tell
(29:56):
me about how a reporter at youruniversity got called out by the head coach
and the head coach walked out ofthe press conference. And yeah, there
was not professional at all. Well, there were, there were a lot
of things going on there. Yes, and by way, by the way,
the coach and the writer are bothretired now, so that that's probably
(30:17):
just the well yeah, but yeah, yeah, that was that was strength.
But again that's again a different portionof the thing because the reporter who
got into a conflict with the coachwas not the beat before he was the
columnist for the newspaper. So I'mnot sure. I'm sure everybody and board
knows. We try over here tolet people understand. Column You know,
(30:40):
writers cover the game. They giveyou the fact, they give you the
fact interpretation. Columnists are there togive you their opinion. They're there to
say they stink and this is whythey stink, or this is why they're
good. And you know, coachesdon't always like that. Coaches got a
little moore. I don't know,maybe they've gotten the little boys used to
(31:00):
having that separation from the media.But to get back to the original question
on that is I know when Iwas doing it. Yeah, relationships for
everything, because if you just walkin and say hey, I'm Bob and
I'm covering your team and walk out. Now, why would that coach ever
give you the time of day?Or you know, you got to build
(31:21):
trust And I think trust works bothways. You've got to be able to
trust the coach it's going to bestraight with you, and if not,
he's got to trust that you're goingto call him on. And we had
we had incidents like that. Iyou know Michelle. I think Michelle was
around during the coach previous to theone we just mentioned, certain infamous coach
(31:42):
now almost ninety years old and thingslike that. And he was there for
six seasons and it was a lovehate I mean, you know, I
can remember I can tell you storiesabout writing things about him that I would
hear back from people said, oh, he hated that story. Okay,
well, let's do that. Uh. And then other times when I would
be in his sitting in his officeand be the subject to a charm offense
(32:06):
where you know, hey, Ireally liked your writing. I appreciate your
honesty. Yeah, So how dohow do I mean? You know,
we're talking about athletes and coaches here, and how do you know you as
a sports writer, if you couldtalk to them like you have a you
have a pulpit right here. Don'tgo, don't go for ten minutes on
(32:27):
this, But what would you liketo say to athletes and coaches? Don't
take it personal. I mean understandyou have a job to do. What
what would you like to say?What do you think? Erica? Well,
I'll let Bob answer first and thenI can weigh in. Well,
again, it's it's not as simpleas black and white. But I think
(32:51):
the best thing, and this wasall always worked with me, is,
first of all, let's stay withan athlete, you know, get back
to the coaches with an athlete.When I sitting down to interview, and
that's always a little uncomfortable. It'suncomfortable for the writer a lot of times.
And obviously if the athlete hasn't beeninterviewed a lot. We're again now
we're mostly talking to college athletes,pros as the whole different quality. But
(33:13):
some of these guys maybe have neverbeen interviewed in their life for very few
times. So they were interviewed bysome guy when they were in high school
kind of on the fly. Andnow you've got somebody who out they wants
to sit down and find out whoyou are and what you're about. And
I think it takes some understanding onthe reporter's part, you know, but
you want to be you want tocome across as interested and really want to
(33:36):
hear them, hear what they haveto say, because I think most people
and athletes are no different. Theyhave you know, if they're in the
spotlight, like athletes are, theywant people to know who they are or
you know, up to a point. You know, they don't want to
give away the world. They wantpeople to appreciate them and understand what their
motivations are. And again, theseare the stories you read that you really
(33:59):
enjoy about the guy who again overcamea you know, a one parent childhood,
or overcame growing up surrounded by gangs, or maybe even on the other
extreme, some guy whose father playedfor University X, and now he's expected
to do the same thing because it'sa heritage thing or a legacy thing.
So I think that I think,you know, I always told reporters,
(34:22):
you know, if you could getone on one with a guy, do
at that one, because that's whenyou find out something about the same with
the coaches. If you're founting onfinding out something about a coach and a
group meeting and you miss blamed Kiffand we had Steve Spurrier here incredibly entertaining
at times, but it's not thattime in a press conference where you're going
(34:44):
to figure out who these people are, what they're about. It when you
get them one on one, andit's not easy, and the system is
not set up to make it easy. These days. It's more about uh
limited access to things like that,and you know, I think that's by
design. Buy a lot of universities, for sure, and force information departments.
Of course, getting back to that, Michelle knows, you know,
(35:07):
when she was at South Carolina,she and I went nose to those a
few times, and then there wereother times when we sit down and talking,
Look, this is what I'm tryingto do. He says, Okay,
I get that. Let me seeif I can tell you. And
that's what you hope for, isyou know, I'm not out here to
Catholic's not out here to put anybodyelse on across or anything like that.
(35:27):
I'm here to try and do myjob and write a good story. And
you know, it was always funnyto me that somebody would accuse you.
So, oh, you're pulling forthe other team. I said, why
would I do that? Oh?Yeah, that's a That's a big thing,
isn't it. There the sports peopleare always a fan of the other
team. My readers are South Carolinafans. I'm trying to write for my
readers. Why would I Why wouldI try to make the team. I'm
(35:51):
writing about what's bad. Now theylook bad, and I say, oh,
they look great, and nobody's goingto take it seriously. You've got
to have credibility. Well, Ithink to finding the balance between the coverage
and establishing the relationships. And Ican see where it's a slippery slope sometimes,
but I think building those relationships isthe key to good coverage, even
when you have to ask the hardquestions or when time is an issue.
(36:14):
And even now with everything coaches haveto do and players obligations, you know,
you want to expose them to theyou know, get the exposure and
all that, but at the sametime, you know they also have have
a job to do as a athleteand a student. I guess we're still
saying that student athlete. So it'sbeen real quick to this, and Michelle,
(36:35):
I'm sure remembers this from her timeat South Carolina. There is more
and more of universities again, we'restill talking to college athletes. Universities are
rather than making it easier for reportersto do their job, it's not that
well, some of them are activelytrying to not let them do their job.
I don't want to go down thatroad, but most of them are
(36:57):
now I know, Well, wehave an issue with plenty a few years
ago, Michelle, you may rememberthis where the athletics director got quoted as
saying, our job talking to ismedia. People within the university say our
job is not to make the newspapersand TV reporters job either. It's to
get the word out. So basicallythey are now some of our competition for
(37:21):
getting stories out. Yeah, Imean, that's what I had to do.
When I was at Santa Clara,we had to. You know,
we were I don't know how manypro teams. We had, two NFL
teams, two Major League Baseball teams, a hockey team. Oh and the
top public in the top private university, Stanford and Cal right there in our
backyard. So we had to beour own newspaper. We had to put
(37:42):
out our own stuff. I mean, the social media coming around in two
thousand and seven, Twitter in twothousand and eight. When I started at
Santa Clara. It actually came ata perfect time because then we could do
so much of that stuff and hadprobably we were probably some of the earlier
adopters across the country at Santa Clara, because we could not get in the
(38:05):
Mercury News. And the Mercury NewsI remember the sports editor told me this
one time. You love this,Bob, and Erica said, it's almost
more surprising if your score gets inthe paper than if it doesn't. Because
how much their staff was shrinking somuch they had gone and they were actually
(38:27):
the first newspaper, the San JoseMercury News, the very first newspaper in
the country to put their newspaper online, and they kicked themselves from day two
of that that they didn't charge fromthe beginning because they felt like if they
had charged from the beginning, itwould have saved every newspaper across the country.
So yeah, yeah, that's they'rea good point, and they're not
(38:52):
alone. Pretty much every newspaper,you know, said we got to put
our stuff online. We got toput ourself online, and nobody thought,
you know when we when we whenwe published a newspaper and we put it
on a news stand, we don'ttell people come on up and grab a
copy and leave. We say,come up, grab a copy and pay
for it. And it always cracksme up how people get so mad they
(39:12):
have to pay for the newspaper.Yeah, yeah, well or pay for
it online, you know, right, well that don't freak no, no,
no, you expect it to befree, because it was from the
beginning. Because the business people innewspapers. Don't get me started on business
people in newspapers, but they quitehonestly were stupid. They did things that
basically, you know, cut thelegs out from under their product, you
(39:35):
know, like you said, aftera while, people, you know,
when there was only a few peopleonline reading stuff online, it was one
thing, and it was, youknow, kind of a novelty. But
now everybody reads online, and likeI said, if I can read the
New York Times, the Washington Postor the LA Times or whatever for free,
why the hell would I subscribe.Nobody's that stupid. But apparently the
(39:58):
people who came up with a businesslawn, well, we're not really thinking
very well. So let us we'regonna wrap things up here at some point,
but let us ask you. We'regonna I want to ask you a
couple of quick hitters. Uh.Favorite favorite coach that you worked with?
Oh boy, story just a name, No story speaks for it. Uh.
(40:19):
Well, I guess I shouldn't askat least favorite coach that you ever
worked with. Favorite golfer that you'veworked with. Oh boy, there's a
lot of great ones, a lotof great ones locally that I've had the
pleasure to deal with. Uh,but you know, the all time best
is still Jack Nicholas. I mean, he is the best golfer in history
for a reason, not just becauseof Okay, favorite favorite athletic director that
(40:42):
you ever worked with. M letme think a second, probably Eric Hymon
at South Carolina. Okay, well, Bob, before we uh let you
go, we want to put youthrough the spin cycle. It's our little
quick hitting question segment here. Sowe've so enjoyed having you on, and
(41:06):
I think we need to have youback to talk a little more golf because
I know we focused a lot oncollege sports, but I know golf is
kind of a kind of your secondchapter. So I'd love to have you
back on to talk about golf becauseI know you've covered Dustin Johnson and Patrick
Reid, the Master's, every heritage, everything, so it'll be interesting to
We'll catch you before you're up andat I'm one hundred percent we'll have another
(41:27):
session. But let's get into thespin cycle. We're just going to ask
you in either or and just saythe first thing that comes to your mind.
Are you ready? You're all right? Texting or talking, talking,
driving or putting pudding? Morning personor night owl? Oh boy? Probably
(41:52):
more night out? Happy Gilmour tincup or caddy shack. Oh, caddy
shack. That's a question. It'sa classic, all right. And last
this should be really easy, Bob, what's for dinner? Whatever? My
wife mate, what's your favorite thingthat she makes? Oh? Her post
(42:15):
editions are done. She's not avalue, but she could. All right,
sounds delicious. Well, thank youso much. I really enjoy talking
to you. I know we couldprobably have gone for hours because the topic
is pretty compelling. But we're gladthat you shared a little time with us.
Yeah, thanks for your nuggets thatyou dropped on us, and we
(42:36):
definitely want to have you back totalk more about golf because I know that's
a passion. Please let me knowbecause I'm always here and I enjoyed it.
Michelle, that was a great episode. Thanks for introducing me to Bob.
I love just hearing about his timeas a columnist sports reporter and just
(42:57):
kind of some of the things thathe did. It takes me back.
He's the OG very popular in SouthCarolina, and people really liked Bob never
took a super controversial look at things, so it's very popular. So well,
I love it how he said,you guys kind of you kind of
maybe had I mean, I knowsometimes I do remember it with him.
(43:19):
Now a few were their other hadto tell him what was what or give
him Yes, a few others possiblyhim, I don't remember that was your
job, So I think you knowit's nice that he could come on and
tell us a little bit about hiscareer. And I know we didn't get
a chance to cover what he's doingnow, but I think we talked about
having him back because he's focusing alittle bit more on golf, which sounds
(43:44):
fun as well. But would loveto have him back, and again,
I think fascinating talking about the currentstate of sports journalism. So I think
we've got some future guests in minewhere we can dive in a little bit
more. Yeah, he's definitely theOG. So love it, love it
all right, Well, if youenjoyed this episode, please like, follow,
(44:07):
subscribe, vibe what why not?Then you'll know when the next Spin
Chicks comes out. Wouldn't that bespecial? And we've been recording lots of
episodes. We've got a lot inthe hopper we have, yes, we
do, and then and the Chicken. Since we're the spin Chicks, we
could say we have a lot inthe where chickens hang out and stay that
(44:28):
coop coop. We've got a lotin the coop. We've got a lot
in the coop coming out. Sosubscribe, hit like, leave a comment.
We'd love to have another comment,all right, say next time,
thank you,
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