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Opinion: Jim Riley | |||||||||||
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Pullman can be found near It had been more than an hour since the game clock at Martin Stadium had ticked down to all zeroes. Washington State had beaten Oregon, and the celebration had begun in earnest. WSU football coach Mike Price had answered almost every conceivable question about the game thrown his way. Price had completed a noisy interview with dozens of television, radio and print reporters who had crowded, six or seven deep, around a tiny table in a much-too-small room at Bohler Gymnasium. Price had talked on the air at length with Bob Robertson, the long-time Cougars broadcaster, and Bud Nameck, the sideline reporter who corrals Price the minute all the commercial interruptions are completed. Price then answered more questions from any of the reporters who had been too busy talking to players earlier and hadn't been there to dutifully record his answers to the first round of questions. Finally, Price was escorted over to a phone where he waited to go on a live national radio show for more questions, more conversation, more friendly banter. Price cut the interview a little short, in a bit of a hurry to attend a dinner to raise money for a scholarship in the name of former Cougars lineman Leon Bender, who died shortly after WSU played in the 1998 Rose Bowl. When his radio interview had ended, Price hung up the phone, took a deep breath and looked around. Much like he had done at the Rose Bowl on Jan. 1, 1998, Price took a minute just to enjoy the scene. This time what he saw were dozens of reporters all furiously typing on laptop computers. A wry smile came to his face as he surveyed the frantic scene. "Everybody got what they need?" he asked to everyone in general and no one in particular. Several looked up, too deep into their prose to conjure up any more queries, and muttered their thanks. Price just continued to smile, silently drank in the scene, wished everyone a safe journey home and quietly left the room. Usually in Pullman, the room near the sports information director's office has more than enough space for anybody who can talk fast enough to procure a press credential. Lately, as WSU has climbed in the various polls and proven itself to be among the elite of college football, that room has become a media madhouse. Players are brought into the room nearly all at the same time, quickly surrounded by reporters who are often too far away to hear the answers. Once the front wave is finished, another wave moves in. Popularity is measured by such waves, favorites Marcus Trufant, Jason Gesser and Rien Long often answering the same questions four or five times for different groups of reporters. The interviews, which resemble a feeding frenzy as reporters gather scraps of information, are conducted by both the familiar faces of the reporters who regularly cover the team and the strange ones from the national press corps. It is overcrowded, uncomfortably warm and not conducive to insightful questions or answers. It's also become part of the charm of Pullman, that little spot on the map where some of the best college football in the country is being played and where once-mighty Washington will bring its four-game Apple Cup winning streak today. Pullman, of all places, is now near the center of the college football universe. Earlier this year, after WSU had cracked the top 10 and had just dispatched Arizona State, then also a top-20 team, longtime WSU SID Rod Commons said it was the most media, outside of an Apple Cup, ever to gather for a game in Pullman. It nearly doubled the next week after a win over Oregon. It could double again today. | ||||||||||
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