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'Rick' With A 'P'?: DallasBasketball.com's 10-Point Study Of Coach Carlisle And The Mavs Media
Mike Fisher -- DB.com
Does Rick Carlisle treat the media with disrespect? Disdain, even?
That's the allegation being leveled over yonder by my friends at the D Magazine blog and at The Dallas Observer, where they are playfully typing the word “Rick’’ with a bonus “P.’’
I’ve got 10 takes on the issue (if it’s even considered an issue), beginning with a thesis that would seem to negate the purpose of the following “thesis paper’’:
You don’t care.
1. Fans don’t care.
In my experience, they never have.
Oh, over the years, maybe they’ve been buoyed by me reporting that Nellie did somebody a kindness and maybe they’ve been disappointed to learn that Jimmy Johnson might’ve killed kittens for amusement. But what fans want from their coach has little to do with church attendance or fatherhood or good grades in high school. And it damn sure has little to do with whether Rick Carlisle greets me with a hearty “hello!’’ when I enter the press-conference room.
Let me tell you something: You would really like former Cowboys head coaches Barry Switzer and Dave Campo and future former Cowboys head coach Wade Phillips. Personally, I mean.
Do you care?
Wins. That’s pretty much all you care about. (With one media-platform exception, which I’ll get to below.)
Whines? From the media? While we enter the game on free passes and eat free popcorn? Whines irritate you. In fact, in these sorts of mini-debates, the public usually ends up siding with Coach.
2. I’ve had three one-on-one visits with Carlisle. Each time, it took him some time to warm to the moment, I must admit. But by the end – especially in our first visit, after I cleverly referenced The Keith Jarrett Trio (a favorite of his; I’d done my kiss-up homework) – he was fairly accessible.
“Keith Jarrett is a classic,’’ Carlisle told me, smiling and forgetting for a moment that he was speaking to the media and instead assuming he was talking to a jazz fan. (Which I’d become. In the previous 24 hours. In preparation for the interview. I’d never heard of Keith Jarrett until the day before.) “Jarrett and (bassist Gary) Peacock and (drummer Jack) DeJohnette. … That’s hard-core jazz. That’s how I like it.’’….
(I did that interview for a magazine. I suppose I ought to unleash it here. … if only to humanize the dude a little bit.)
3. But. …
He does like to give questioners the needle. I truly think he thinks he’s being playful. Or, at least, just amusing himself. When sideline TV reporter Emily Jones asks pregame questions, Rick habitually pokes back at her. There’s no way the pokes are intended as malicious – though they do sometimes come across that way.
I’ve watched to see if he handles the likes of Coop or Mark Followill any differently. If Rick is a sadist, is he also a chauvinistic one? Nah. Men, women, children. … Rick’s an equal-opportunity needler.
A number of times this season, I’ve posed questions to Carlisle in group settings, and before he answers the question (which he always does) he’s responded with retorts like:
“That’s an awfully long question.’’
Or
“Well, what do you think I should do?’’
In my position, there is no use in being offended by this. In the same way a comedian handles a heckler, it is wise to have pre-planned volleys for such remarks. Back in training camp, the first time he pulled the “That’s an awfully long question’’ answer on me, I fired back, “wait ‘til you hear the two follow-ups.’’ (This ain’t my first rodeo.)
He laughed and then answered the question.
4. I would like to say that the pressure of these late-season games has caused Rick to tighten up. But I cannot say so. In my presence, he’s acted this way from Day 1. And actually, I guess that’s a good thing – in the sense that these late-season games haven’t caused him to be any more tighly-wound than usual.
And he does seem pretty tightly-wound. From what I can gather, Carlisle is not often seen sipping a beer in a hotel lobby bar or playing cards on the team plane. One of his greatest personal pleasures, I am told, is the opportunity to work one-on-one with players. No cameras. No credit. Just teaching.
But, concedes a mutual friend, Carlisle is “quirky. And maybe, like with most coaches once things start getting tight, the quirkiness comes out even more.’’
("Quirky''? "Amusing himself''? Danny Bollinger offers photographic evidence and an explanation for how the coach stole those duds.)
5. It’s been observed that because Carlisle worked for ESPN last season, he would figure to have a more collegial relationship with The Fourth Estate.
Nope. That’s not how these fellas work. None of ‘em.
They are in that fraternity. They are not in this fraternity. When a coach occupies a spot in the media for a year, he’s taking a “working vacation,’’ is all. Carlisle undoubtedly learned some tricks of my chosen trade. … but all he’s done with them, if anything, is utilize them in a way that helps him ply his chosen trade.
In fact, here’s how little he’s really learned about how the local media works: More than occasionally, when a TV guy asks a post-practice question, Carlisle will respond by saying something snide like, “I answered that question yesterday. If you would’ve been here yesterday. …’’
It might benefit Rick Carlisle to understand something: The local TV stations are all pretty much two-person reportorial crews now. FOX4 does a terrific job, for example. … and they do it with Doocy and Max and with the third staffer leaving without being replaced, so the cameramen attend practice and ask reporter’y questions. And Coach, you wanna give Larry the Cameraman grief because he’s holding a camera on his shoulder, balancing a boom mike in the other hand, in a hurry to get across town to catch a Cowboys press conference, then hustling back downtown to edit for the 5, 6, 9 and 10. ... and he's asking a question on a Tuesday that somebody else had asked on a Monday?
Besides the fact that budgets are stretched, this is Dallas. This ain’t Indianapolis. My example above is no exaggeration. If a TV reporter didn’t attend the Monday Mavs practice, it’s probably because he was at Cowboys practice. Or Rangers practice. Or Stars practice. Or at a Super Bowl press conference. Or covering sports at one of a dozen area colleges. Or being asked to swing down to City Hall in a pinch.
Or, quite possibly, trying to pay his bills by working a second job.
Like it or not, that’s not Carlisle’s problem. It’s not his fraternity.
One addendum here: Carlisle probably doesn’t know how cushy he has it here. Sefko, Moore and MacMahon are good guys. Followill, Ortegel and Coop are good guys. (I should add that among those people who I've talked to about Carlisle, they have no personal gripes about him.) The media in Dallas is generally down-pillow soft. I, personally, am a saint. Even Rick’s two “accusers’’ here, D’s Eric Celeste and the Observer’s Richie Whitt, make the “prick’’ accusation with, I think, the proper tone and framing.
Celeste is a non-sports beat writer, but he’s experienced and bright and is asking a question.
Whitt has covered every coach in this town for more than 20 years and has sharp perspective.
They’re being profane. But not unfair.
In addition to having generous ownership (that allows Rick to be Rick) and a fine support staff, he's surrounded by media people who, frankly, would just as soon the Mavs and their coach succeed. We're not supposed to say that, and in some cases we're not allowed to. But dang it, it is more fun when the teams are good, right?
6. Are Carlisle’s interpersonal skills with the media similar to Avery’s? Not at all. If I may play pop-psychologist for a moment. … Avery’s edginess was born of an inferiority complex.
Rick’s edginess is born of a superiority complex.
Yesterday, as our man Trey Fallon reported, Carlisle was a bit snippy when responding to questions about the injured Josh Howard.
“I will not be giving a daily status update of Josh,’’ Rick said.
Is that arrogance? Yeah, probably. Revealing of a sense that answering such questions are a bother? Or maybe even beneath him?
Yes, and yes, and that’s a “superiority complex.’’ Avery tried to explain to you that he had all the answers. Rick thinks he has all the answers. ... and is so certain of it that the fact needs no explanation.
7. Does that “superiority’’ carry over to the way he deals with his team? My friend Eric Celeste of D Magazine theorizes so:
It seems to me that Carlisle's uptight, I'm-smarter-than-the-room attitude is evident on the sidelines. It even smacks of late-era Avery at times, which is quite scary.
Eric absolutely nails in on the smartest-guy-in-the-room take. That characterization of Rick comes up all the time. But I don’t see that it negatively impact his team. I know that there is a professional respect for the coach in the locker room (much different from the complex and emotionally-charged love/hate "family'' thing felt for Avery.) I know that at least Carlisle allows his assistant coaches to actually speak at practice – so in that way alone, his interpersonal skills top Johnson’s.
With the players, if not with the media.
8. Does Rick often respond to media comments with “a derisive, mocking and condescending laugh,’’ as Whitt noted?
Yes. And by doing it on the air, so the audience can actually hear the warts and all, with Cooperstein, with Norm Hitzges, with whomever, Rick threatens to bust through the old “You-Don’t-Care’’ code. To treat a print guy with distain? That’s tough to convey in a newspaper, and it’s not necessarily an objective reporter’s role to convey it, anyway.
But on live radio? When a reasonable question is posed by figure respected by the audience (as Coop and Norm certainly are)? When the only adversarial component in the entire process is Rick?
That’s an error in judgment. You, the listener, don’t like to see anyone get bullied.
However, again. … generally. …
9. You don’t care. Or, at least, you are dying to give the coach the benefit of the doubt.
Here’s a perspective from Wes Cox over at MavsMoneyball, a Dallas fan who I think expresses the typical sentiment pretty clearly:
OK, there are reasons to dislike Carlisle, but him giving smart ass answers to dumb ass questions isn't one of them. I don't care if it's Norm Hitzges, Chuck Cooperstein, or anyone else asking the question. I really couldn't care less if Carlisle is nice to the media or not. And to saying his tendencies with the media are an indication of how he is with his team is speculative and more than a bit of a reach.
10. Is there a method to Rick’s meanness? Is he doing it on purpose to “take the heat off his team’’ and stuff like that? Is he this way to wisely hide company secrets from the prodding media?
Does he care about my long-standing conviction that team representatives (owners, coaches, players) are the “CEOs’’ of a publically-held trust and that fans are the “stockholders’’ and that the media is the conduit between CEO and stockholder. … and that therefore the CEO must speak through the conduit?
No. No. No. And no.
So is it “Rick’’ with a “P’’?
The only way you’ll care about the spelling is if it results in his Mavs losing games.
248pm mar 24 2009