Blue White Illustrated

M alcolm Moran, a nationally known and well-respected sportswriter who is now a Penn State journalism profes- sor, recently called for the opening of locker rooms to the media after games. Malcolm, a friend of mine, zeroed in on the Penn State football locker room in the wake of the Sandusky scandal, but his com- mentary in the Feb. 13 edition of The Philadelphia Inquirer was directed at all football teams, col- lege and professional. Malcolm did- n't write it, but if football locker rooms were open, why not baseball, hockey, basketball, etc.? I spent a lot of time in my early writing career in the 1950s and '60s in locker rooms before and after games, and I came up with many incisive and often exclusive stories. Like Malcolm, I also have some great and warm memories and some embarrassing and frustrated ones, too. But I can't think of any- thing worse than open locker rooms in this highly competitive, techno- logical and cutthroat journalistic age – an age of rampant live report- ing via TV and the Internet and instantaneous analysis on message boards, Twitter and talk radio. The era of open locker rooms was a slower, more polite and less con- tentious journalistic period, when the print sports media were domi- nant, television was transitioning from film to electronic technology and the morning newspaper, radio and 6 o'clock and 11 o'clock new- casts were musts if the sports fan wanted to know what was happen- ing. Those "romantic" days are gone forever, just like the carrier pigeon, telegraph and Pony Express. Back then, there were only a handful of reporters and photogra- phers covering Penn State football on a regular basis, and cameras and microphones inside the locker room were rare. The same was true for other college and professional sports teams, even in the biggest cities. Nowadays, there are dozens of reporters and photographers on site on game day, including several television camera crews poised to feed their video over the Internet or via satellite almost immediately after interviewing coaches and play- ers in media rooms. L A S T WO R D Open-and-shut case I can just imagine what would happen in locker rooms with today's media horde literally running ram- pant – pushing, shoving and sur- rounding players and coaches in every nook, cranny, toilet stall and shower faucet. Think about how crowded the average football locker room would be, particularly the visi- tor's cramped quarters in the bow- els of the stadium. Think also of the decibel level. The atmosphere in a losing locker room can be highly emotional without a couple of hot- shot reporters poking their TV cam- eras into the face of the half- dressed player whose fumble just cost his team the game. I can easily imagine 25 to 30 reporters with their notebooks, recorders and cameras surrounding Matt McGloin in front of his locker and sharply asking him why he threw those two interceptions in the fourth quarter. Would a half dozen of his teammates rise to McGloin's defense and swarm the reporters with threats of bodily harm? That nearly happened to me in a much less crowded Penn State lock- er room in 1964. For the first time since football began at the school in 1887, a team had lost its first three games, and the fans and media were primarily blaming the quarter- back, a relatively inexperienced sen- ior named Gary Wydman. Although the '64 team stopped the losing streak with a 6-2 victory over Army, it lost again on Homecoming to Syracuse, 21-14. I went to the lock- er room to interview coach Rip Engle and Wydman for a then-pop- ular sports newspaper, Pittsburgh Weekly Sports. A despondent Wydman was sitting in front of his locker with his jersey and shoulder pads off when I approached. I had interviewed him after earlier games and he was always forthcoming and polite. So, I began once again questioning him W W W . B L U E W H I T E O N L I N E . C O M L O U P R A T O | B L U E WH I T E C O N T R I B U T O R and he just happened to be from Pittsburgh Central Catholic. After the game, a half-dozen or so about the media and fan criticism, when suddenly, there was this immense player still in his stinking, sweaty full uniform hovering over me like Frankenstein's monster and yelling at me to leave Wydman alone and get the hell out of the locker room. Don't blame him for the loss, he roared. It's the team that lost, and team that's going to win. I didn't move and told Frankenstein that I was giving Wydman the opportunity to answer his critics. Before the smelly behe- moth could pick me up and throw me out of the locker room, Wydman told him it was OK, and I went on with the interview. I included the confrontation with the "monster" in my story and, of course, that was the best part. Center Bob Andronici and I still laugh about the incident whenever I see him. Old Frankenstein returned to the State College area before I did in 1996. And it was Bob who led the campaign for the 1964 team that raised $50,000 to sponsor the football trophy case in the Penn State All-Sports Museum that now includes John Cappelletti's jersey, Bruce Clark's Lombardi Trophy and the oldest piece of memorabilia in the museum – a 1894 football from the Lafayette game. And as for that 1964 team? Three games later, it pulled off one of the biggest upsets in Penn State histo- ry, defeating No. 2 Ohio State at Columbus, 27-0, and finishing with a 6-4 record and a No. 14 ranking in the coaches' poll. Which brings up another of my classic locker room memories. The same day that the '64 team upset Ohio State, I was at Pitt Stadium, covering Pitt's game against No. 1 Notre Dame. The Irish won on a field goal by a nonscholarship soph- omore named Joe Azzaro. It was the first field goal of Azzaro's career, print reporters huddled around coach Ara Parseghian. We already knew Ohio State had lost, so Notre Dame's victory would keep it atop the polls. Paraseghian was very friendly as we asked several ques- tions. Then I came up with an obvi- ous gem that went something like this: "After what Joe Azzaro did today, is he going to get a scholar- ship?" "It's none of your business," snapped the future Hall of Fame coach. "I don't think that question was called for." There was silence for several seconds as some of the reporters nervously glanced at me. One of them, Roy McHugh of the Pittsburgh Press, told me later, "I don't know why he got upset. It was a question we all would have asked." Roy also included Parseghian's grumpy retort to me in his own story the next day. Now, I also had many pleasant encounters in locker rooms in the 1960s, such as interviewing Joe Paterno, Mike Reid, Charlie Pittman, Chuck Burkhart and oth- ers after the Nittany Lions' 15-14 victory over Kansas in the 1969 Orange Bowl; verbally sparring with Jim Brown on a couple of occasions after his Cleveland Browns had defeated the Steelers at Pitt Stadium; and sitting alongside Roberto Clemente and his team- mates in the Forbes Field trainer's room many times to gather material for magazine and newspaper sto- ries. Then there was the afternoon at Forbes Field in 1969 when I asked San Francisco Giants great Willie Mays how he got thrown out at home by Clemente after he tried to score from first in a 4-3 loss to the Pirates. I wonder if Malcolm Moran has ever been chased around a locker room by a naked future Hall of Famer screaming, "He's calling me horse s--t! He's calling me horse s--t! He's calling me horse s--t!" No, I never called him a name. I just asked Mays a simple question as he came out of the shower. Yeah, bring back open locker rooms, all right. And let the six-ring circuses begin! M A R C H 2 3 , 2 0 1 2 39

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