Times and places

 I once heard a reporter in a press conference totally befuddle a young man named Major Harris.

The year was 1989, the occasion was the Fiesta Bowl, and Harris was the quarterback for West Virginia, who would go on to lose to Lou Holtz's Notre Dame legions to secure ND's last national championship. The question, if I recall (and, come on, it's been 37 years), came from a Pittsburgh newspaper reporter. It went something like this:

"Major, what percentage of the Notre Dame mystique will be a factor in the game?"

Harris looked at her like she had two heads.

"Uh ..." he replied, or words to that effect.

This is not how Jaguars head coach Liam Coen responded yesterday in the postgame presser after the Jags lost to the Bills in an wild-card playoff game

No, he merely grinned and said "Thank you, ma'am" when Lynn Jones of the Jacksonville Free Press asked ... well, OK, so it wasn't exactly a question.

What she said was this: "How you doing today, Lynn Jones, Jacksonville Free Press. I just want to tell you, congratulations on your success, young man. You hold your head up, alright? You guys have had a most magnificent season. You did a great job out there today. You just hold your head up, okay? Ladies and gentlemen, Duval, you the one. We got another season, okay? Take care, and much continued success to you and the entire team."

Now, I wasn't there, obviously. But I've sat in enough of these postgames (including the one at the aforementioned Fiesta Bowl) to imagine at least some others among the assembled media looked at one another and mouthed, "What the hell?"

Because, listen, there's such a thing as protocol in these affairs, and Jones' boosterish declaration violated it in any number of ways. One, she didn't ask a question (even a dumb one involving the Notre Dame mystique). Two, she DIDN'T ASK A QUESTION. And, three, even if there's a time and place to give a pep talk to a source (and I'm not sure there is), this wasn't it.

This was the time and place to ask what in the name of Tom Landry was Coach thinking when he dialed up a fullback dive on third-and-9. Or why he didn't take the gimme field goal when he came up short on fourth down inside the 10. Or why he stuck with the Cover Two even though the other team's QB1 was tearing large holes in it.

Look. I don't know Lynn Jones, so I can't tell you what she was thinking. But I know her job, because she's a columnist for the Free Press, and I did a little columnizing myself in my time. So I can say with some assurance (as Drew Lerner of Awful Announcing noted in his story on this) that the place for telling a coach what a magnificent job he did is in the column.  Not in the presser.

It's not that I don't understand that impulse, mind you. I do. More than once I felt for a coach or player in the wake of a tough loss, but I held my tongue. I didn't tell him (or her) to keep his/her head up. I didn't give him/her a sympathetic pat on the shoulder. I just asked my questions and moved on.

Maybe that meant I didn't get the best stuff sometimes, I don't know. Maybe keeping a professional distance wasn't always the way to go. But it was my way, and it served me well.

I do know one thing, though.

Lynn Jones' way is not the way to go. Never was. Never will be.