United Way campaign celebration
Your youth sports photos
Fairfield honors service organizations
Home > Blogs > Buckeyes Beat > Archives > 2008 > January > 02 > Entry
Off to a rocky start
NEW ORLEANS — If today’s experience in trying to talk to Jim Tressel is any indication, it’s going to be a long work week.
Tressel was scheduled to be available to the media at 12:15 today at the Hilton Riverside, where the Buckeyes will be staying. A few of us found our way to the loading dock, waiting for the OSU bus to come in. We saw it about 100 feet away, but it couldn’t get any closer.
An employee was trying to direct traffic, as another bus was blocking the way. Eventually, the large bus with BCS championship and Big Ten Conference logos on the side opened its doors to let a few players off, and they rolled their luggage into the hotel.
An SUV carrying Tressel and his wife (with a courtesy driver, of course) pulled up behind the bus to let them out. Gene Smith, the OSU AD, was right behind.
So, we asked a hotel employee where Tressel would be meeting the media, and he said he had no idea what we were talking about, although he did eventually point us to the third floor. OK, great. We get into the elevator, get off on the third floor and turn right. Eventually, we come to a large, elegant room that floods into two other large ballrooms. Everything, except for our small group, was empty.
More reporters showed, until about 65 of us hovered in the middle of this large, carpeted room with a chandelier. Television reporters set up tripods, envisioning Tressel standing in the middle of the room. It never happened that way.
A small table was found and placed with a chair near the cameras. Generally, when holding a press conference like this, the print reporters will place our recorders on the table in front of the subject. This space, though, was too small for that.
New idea. Someone rolled in a podium with even less space for recorders than the other table. Now I’m guessing there were about 80 reporters gathered, including those from Atlanta, New Orleans and ESPN The Magazine. As often happens, we were all elbowing for room.
Tressel entered and, apparently feeling the need to help the poor guy trying to get another microphone in, held the BCS Championship Game-marked mic in his left hand as he talked.
Usually when these things happen, a room is scheduled in advance and reporters can easily find the subject. Today, though, we wound our way through the (lovely, I might add) Hilton and squashed together to hear Tressel talk about the excitement of being in New Orleans, Lloyd Carr’s retirement, excitement of the bowl season, his team’s mistake in arriving too early to Phoenix last season and using last season’s title game loss for motivation.
Comments
By buckeye41
January 3, 2008 1:49 AM | Link to this
What does this have to do with the Buckeyes? It sounds like a normal press gathering. A bunch of press people told to be somewhere by someone and some time. Tell us about the Coaches comments, his attitude. After reading this I have no idea what he said, if anything. I would rather know what he said when he talked than about the terrible media conditions.