Round Two: Some coaches will yell

As I cross the T-minus two months threshold on my retirement countdown and take stock of these last 40 years in journalism, a common denominator is emerging: It’s the things that happened outside the lines and never saw the light of day in a newspaper that stand out most to me, behinds-the-scenes stuff that I’ll take with me into the sunset.

One of those moments happened at the dawn of my career, back when I was the University of Akron men’s basketball beat writer for the campus newspaper, The Buchtelite. The Zips had just finished playing a preseason exhibition game at James A. Rhodes Arena, and since I was the only media covering the game, I was told that I would be able to interview Akron head coach Bob Huggins one-on-one afterward.