Yesterday, I covered my first ever press conference. I am writing for The Arkansas Traveler, the University of Arkansas student newspaper, and I was assigned to cover the John L. Smith press conference. I was told he would talk about the Jacksonville State game from last week and the upcoming Louisiana-Monroe game.
I was super nervous and paranoid about showing up late, so I got there 30 minutes early. When I got there, I was the only media person there and I asked a UofA employee if I was in the right place. He looked at me funny, said yes, and immediately asked "Who are you with?" I showed him my press pass and said "The Traveler." As soon as I could get that out of my mouth, he asked me what my name was. I answered and must have passed the test because he said, "Okay, have a seat."
Then, I awkwardly sat down in a chair, waiting for more people to show up. The press conference was at 1:00, and it wasn't until 12:40 that people started showing up. I expected this because I had talked to Jacob Pinter, my friend and co-worker from Sports Talk - The High School Show, who has covered several press conferences for Bo Mattingly's show. He said that he is always 10-15 minutes early because "they generally start late rather than early."
At 12:44 (I know this exact time because I looked at my phone), Coach Smith walked into the room, and boy did he make an entrance. He came in hollering, "Let's get this started! Already running late! Waiting on you guys (the media)! Let's go! It's already 1:03!" Again, I checked my phone...still 12:44. Of course, I wasn't going to be the one to tell the head coach of the Arkansas Razorbacks that we was wrong. Actually, wrong is an understatement. He was a good 20 minutes off. Thankfully, another one of the older, tenured journalists informed him that his phone, which "runs off that computer time," said it was 12:44.
I'm still not sure if Coach Smith realized his watch was wrong, but he wanted to start the press conference ASAP. We were about to start when one of the older journalists said, "Wait! We don't have Nate!" He was referring to Nate Allen, the journalist who has covered the Hogs for many years and has even written several books about the Razorbacks. The journalist then opens up his cell phone (yes, opens up- he had a flip phone that looked like it was older than me) and calls Nate Allen. Coach Smith then takes the phone and starts messing with him. "Where are you?! We're waiting on you! You better hurry or we'll start without you! Dollar waitin' on a dime!" All of the journalists in the room were cracking up at this point and one even said, "We would have never had anything like this the last couple of years." (He was taking a shot at Bobby Petrino, who was notorious for boring press conferences).
Finally, the press conference got underway and it went pretty smooth. I took notes and recorded everything on my phone. When Coach Smith finished up, two players were brought in to take questions. The first was star running back Knile Davis. As soon as Coach Smith saw Davis, he yelled "K-nile!" purposely pronouncing the silent "k" in his first name.
My article about the press conference will appear in tomorrow's issue of The Arkansas Traveler (I'm pretty sure). I look forward to covering the press conferences in the future, especially with Coach Smith. He is a pretty funny guy.
What a wonderful writing!
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