The lighter side of Big Ten Media Days
Note: This story was written by DI staff writer Wes Anderson
CHICAGO–While attending Big Ten Media Day (a misnomer given the event’s two-day length) in downtown Chicago is a welcome privilege of writing for the Daily Illini (read: an opportunity to hoard free stuff that will inevitably find the bottom of a garbage can soon after), that doesn’t mean the day’s activities don’t often stray towards the monotonous.
The steady progression of coaches waxing poetic about the unfaltering greatness of their team, their university, and their undying optimism for 2008 (contrary to what the coaches may say, every team cannot win the Big Ten in one year) can leave a reporter drowning in sports clichés.
Lucky for us, though, the fraternity of Big Ten coaches is full of personalities. Here now, a look at the more attention-grabbing moments from today’s round of head coach pressers:
- All was jovial for Wisconsin coach Bret Bielema’s press conference until a rather vindictive reporter took his best shot at the Badgers’ somewhat shaky non-conference matchups:
Q: Your out-of-conference schedule includes Akron, Marshall, Fresno State and Cal Poly. Isn’t this below what’s to be expected of a program that’s been to 13 bowl games in the last 13 years and that is a perennial contender for the conference championship?
Bielema: Do you want to answer your question, or can I?
Earlier, Bielema was asked how he felt to see Michigan largely absent as a preseason favorite. The next question (which quizzically began “Coach, back to Michigan a little bit…”) asked him what he expects to see out of this year’s Wolverine squad.
“It’s good to be at a Michigan press conference,” Bielema joked after providing a boilerplate answer.
- If there is a secret code of conduct for coaches at Media Days, it almost certainly includes the requirement that coaches’ ties match their school’s most prominent color. Just about everyone followed this dictum to the letter: Zook wore his best orange, Ohio State’s Jim Tressel (sans-sweater vest) wore a scarlet tie, Michigan’s Rich Rodriguez had maize— even Northwestern’s Pat Fitzgerald was resplendent in a purple silk number.
Then there was Joe Tiller, who wore an untucked black Purdue polo paired elegantly with khakis. Tiller’s retiring after this season, and supposedly, when it’s your last year in the business, press events lose their corresponding formality.
The aforementioned Bielema (clad in cardinal) was quick to poke fun at Tiller, saying “I’m a big Joe Tiller fan because he can walk in here without a tie. If I got up here without a tie, I’d get heckled, so I admire a guy going into his last year and can wear what he wants and no one is going to say anything.”
For his part, Tiller opined that he had just come straight from Wyoming, to where he planned to return to “finish a little more trout fishing.”
- While most coaches rarely stray from the warm and fuzzy confines of the vague, noncommittal answer, Joe Paterno is the exception. The 81-year-old head coach has been coaching longer than many in the room had been alive, and is refreshingly straightforward with his musings.
Favorite moment of the day: Nobody on the planet has been asked when he will retire more times than Paterno. So when asked if a national championship this season would be sufficient motive to finally end his perpetual tenure at Penn State, Paterno shot from the hip.
“I don’t want to talk about that — I don’t know! I don’t know! Do you want me to spell it? I-D-O-N-T, I don’t know! I’m having a lot of fun,” he said breathlessly.
- More Tiller-mania: upon taking the podium for the last Q & A of the day, Rich Rodriguez decided to add his thoughts to what had become the “Joe Tiller roast,” saying he couldn’t wait to face the Boilermakers on November 1 as he had spent all summer “working on my snake oil.”
Zing!
For those unaware, Tiller famously referred to Rodriguez as “a guy in a wizard hat selling snake oil” back in February after the newly-appointed Michigan Man signed Roy Roundtree, a wide receiver who had verbally committed to Purdue.
He then attempted to negate his not-so-friendly verbal jab by assuring the media in attendance that he had the “greatest respect” for the mustachioed coach.
Consider the gauntlet thrown down, Boilers fans.
July 25th, 2008 at 12:01 pm
[…] He echoed his sentiment of not knowing when he was going to retire at the Thursday meetings with his nice little rant found yesterday right here. But that didn’t stop one reporter for egging him on and finding out, one long day later, Paterno still doesn’t know anything about when he will hang it up. […]