How it isn't done

 Caught a snippet from Brian Kelly's presser yesterday, mainly because it's all over the interwhatsis now. And what I'll say about it is maybe not what you'd expect from an old retired sportswriter.

In the snippet, see, Kelly is kinda-sorta chastising some members of the media for being late. He told them there's a $10 fine for each infraction, and at the end of the season he'll use the proceeds to throw the media a party, latecomers included.

Now, clearly, he was joking. Not very well, because Kelly is not now and never has been known for his stand-up routine. He's no Lewis Black, nor even Louis Holtz.

That's the only thing I've got to explain why one reporter fired back in, shall we say, a non-reciprocal manner.

"Maybe if you'd win I'd be on time," the reporter snapped.

Not cool. Not cool at all.

Look. The Blob holds no brief for Brian Kelly, a carpetbagger who fled Notre Dame and headed south because LSU threw a wad of cash at him. Losing to Florida State on a blocked extra point was just the man getting his, in the Blob's opinion.

But that doesn't mean he also deserved that reporter's wisecrack.

That was simply sophomoric. And unprofessional. And every sportswriter I know will tell you that.

We tend to stick together, we Knights of the Keyboard (as Ted Williams once sarcastically dubbed us), bound by the slings and arrows of outrageous deadlines and truly stupid stuff that only seems to happen to us. And we have a code, even if sometimes it doesn't look like it.

Ask the right questions, that's part of it. Avoid the five-part question, the off-point question, the what-the-hell-was-that question (Best example: The reporter who asked West Virginia quarterback Major Harris before the 1989 Fiesta Bowl what percentage of the Notre Dame mystique would be a factor in the game. Harris looked at her like she had two heads.)

Also, don't knowingly steal another reporter's question. Also, don't grandstand. 

Which is to say, don't be a dick.

The reporter in Louisiana the other day was being a dick. 

 Maybe she thought she was being clever. Maybe she thought Kelly was being serious, and therefore a dick himself. Hard telling what she thought, if anything.

All I know is she gave fuel to the crowd that loves to feel persecuted, and believes the media is among the primary persecutors. Who think the free press is "the enemy of the people," as a certain former president once said. And who'll use one reporter's boneheadedness to tar an entire profession.

And that's a lot of crap.

Here's the truth: I worked the sportswriting gig for 38 years, and in all that time I ran across very few dickish types. The vast majority of us were just trying to do the job as best we could. Sometimes we succeeded; sometimes we didn't so much. But most of us at least knew what the job entailed, and that there was a right way to do it and a wrong way.

Which is why I imagine when that reporter popped off the other day, at least a few other reporters in the room gave him the side-eye. Or thought, "Dude." 

Know how I know this?

Because I've done it myself. Because more than a few colleagues have done it. And because one late Saturday afternoon in Notre Dame Stadium, some drunk slipped past the gendarmes into the postgame presser, and started firing bizarre questions at then-Notre Dame coach Bob Davie.

One of the Notre Dame beat writers immediately started asking some questions of his own.

"Who are you?" he asked the drunk. "Who do you write for?"

"I write for the student paper," the guy replied, or some such thing.

"Bulls**t," the beat writer said -- and then had security remove him.

And that, friends, is how it's done. As opposed to how it isn't.