It’s interesting covering preople as a TV reporter, or a sportstalk show host, or as a sportswriter or columnist.
The media has changed so much of the last dedcade. The role of the media is now drastically different. How we are viewed, how we are treated, trying to do our job, is very much a different landscape now.
Taking you into a Coaches Press Conference, giving you a close up look at the coaches we deal with, and letting you decide whose right vs wrong in their approach..
Meet Rocky Long, head coach San Diego State, a career genius as a defensive coordinator, doing very well now in his only head coaching job. He works at a team with a limited football tradition, with limited resources in a conference few fans in a major league city pay attention too.
Meet Mikc McCoy, Chargers head coach, working for a money rich team, with a superman star quarterbackk, with all the resources an NFL franchise could ever have, in a city whose fans love the 50-plus years of quarterbacks and offenses.
One coach is winning. The other coach is losing. One coach is like a book of quotations, with a candid smile on his face. The other is losing, condescending, not very friendly, and failing at his job.
College coaches run and control their programs. They recruit the players, they coach them up, and in their fifedom, have longevity, and the ability to guide young people. They make decent money in the Mountain West Conference, enormous money in a place like the SEC..
NFL coaches are under the pressure and paranoia of having to win at everything. The money is different, the egos are greater, they are at the mercy of horrific injuries, poor ownership, and a prying media.
The ability to creatively package and execute on game-day is something to see. Sure you want to win, have to win, but game days at a college stadium are very different. Game days in the NFL are tension filled, with the next play likely to lead to failure, second guessing and condemnation.
Coaching at San Diego State and with the Chargers is so very different. And so is the relationships a Rocky Long builds and a Mike McCoy fails to appreciate.
Walk thru the Aztecs Athletic center and you can feel the energy going floor to floor. Walk into Chargers Park and you see locked doors, limitations everywhere, and a not very friendly culture. Night and day. Heaven and Hell.
On Monday’s we sit and listen to McCoy dish out cliche after cliche, witholding any useful information, as if extolling why a 3rd and 2-pass call did not work, would be leaking CIA information to the enemy, the next opponent.
Rocky Long often talks about decision making in games, his philosophy of going for it on 4th down, the dynamics of the matchups he wanted to run, and why a play worked or did not work.
Ask an injury question and you get stonewalled with the Chargers, even if the national media is about to talk about a torn rotator cuff or a fractured ankle. Pose the same question about an injury at SDSU and you get a time frame, and a rehab schedule, and an honest assessment.
Detail a question about a coaches conversation with his GM or a team captain, and there is the ‘private’ conversation response. Do the same to the college coach about his feeling about conference expansion and tv contracts and starting game times, and you get a strong sense about what he feels.
Ask about a position change, and the NFL coach will give you some stoic statement about the best interest of the team. The college coach will go in depth about the move of the tight end to left tackle, the challenge and the mechanics of such a change.
It goes on and on, with McCoy and Long, just coming at it from different directions.
It’s our job to ask the questions, get some answers, and draw conclusions.
Mike McCoy, week after week, empties his waste basket of cliches on the table on Monday’s.
“Best interest of the team”….”Put a good game plan together”…..”Keep that conversation to ourselves”……”When he’s ready he’ll be on the field.”
It worsens, when you are caught in a lie, and the key working media loses trust in your honesty.
On Tuesday, Rocky Long goes a good half hour, detailing his feelings about Bowl matchups, coaching salaries, the pressure to win, injuries, position changes, philoshocial feelings about the college game. There is never the feeling of “Next Question-I refuse to answer the last question.”
Though not everyone will agree when a coach details a star player’s marijuana suspension, he treats them like men, and holds them accountable.
A prime example was McCoy saying a top player was ‘dinged’ when he really suffered a catastrophic-career ending knee injury. That compared to Long detailing a player whom they helped with Bi-Polar disorder even after he left the program.
So Mike McCoy is losing games now. He’s lost the support of the working media that finds him distant, condescending, and just not very friendly. He gets his traits from an owner who acts the same way.
Congrats, you’re (2-7), and if you haven’t noticed, have lost your fans too.
So Rocky Long will talk to us next about a wide variety of topics, not caring whether you agree with the answers, but hopeful you appreciate the responses to what we feel are important questions, covering college football.
Congrats to him, and by the way, his team is headed to another bowl game, and possibly a (9-3) season.
To quote a former Chargers General Manager, AJ Smith, who had his way of offending people, and defending his philosophies, the statement stands tall in San Diego.
“It is what it it is”. Mike McCoy could be well liked and get the benefit of the doubt. He’s created a miserable situation. Rocky Long has made it fun to be around his program, even from the days of bad records, bad starts to seasons, and bad play calls. He gets it, and enjoys it.
It is what it is-though in some cases, it doesn’t have to be that way.

It’s interesting covering preople as a TV reporter, or a sportstalk show host, or as a sportswriter or columnist.
The media has changed so much of the last dedcade. The role of the media is now drastically different. How we are viewed, how we are treated, trying to do our job, is very much a different landscape now.
Taking you into a Coaches Press Conference, giving you a close up look at the coaches we deal with, and letting you decide whose right vs wrong in their approach..
Meet Rocky Long, head coach San Diego State, a career genius as a defensive coordinator, doing very well now in his only head coaching job. He works at a team with a limited football tradition, with limited resources in a conference few fans in a major league city pay attention too.
Meet Mike McCoy, Chargers head coach, working for a money rich team, with a superman star quarterbackk, with all the resources an NFL franchise could ever have, in a city whose fans love the 50-plus years of quarterbacks and offenses.
One coach is winning. The other coach is losing. One coach is like a book of quotations, with a candid smile on his face. The other is losing, condescending, not very friendly, and failing at his job.
College coaches run and control their programs. They recruit the players, they coach them up, and in their fifedom, have longevity, and the ability to guide young people. They make decent money in the Mountain West Conference, enormous money in a place like the SEC..
NFL coaches are under the pressure and paranoia of having to win at everything. The money is different, the egos are greater, they are at the mercy of horrific injuries, poor ownership, and a prying media.
The ability to creatively package and execute on game-day is something to see. Sure you want to win, have to win, but game days at a college stadium are very different. Game days in the NFL are tension filled, with the next play likely to lead to failure, second guessing and condemnation.
Coaching at San Diego State and with the Chargers is so very different. And so is the relationships a Rocky Long builds and a Mike McCoy fails to appreciate.
Walk thru the Aztecs Athletic center and you can feel the energy going floor to floor. Walk into Chargers Park and you see locked doors, limitations everywhere, and a not very friendly culture. Night and day. Heaven and Hell.
On Monday’s we sit and listen to McCoy dish out cliche after cliche, witholding any useful information, as if extolling why a 3rd and 2-pass call did not work, would be leaking CIA information to the enemy, the next opponent.
Rocky Long often talks about decision making in games, his philosophy of going for it on 4th down, the dynamics of the matchups he wanted to run, and why a play worked or did not work.
Ask an injury question and you get stonewalled with the Chargers, even if the national media is about to talk about a torn rotator cuff or a fractured ankle. Pose the same question about an injury at SDSU and you get a time frame, and a rehab schedule, and an honest assessment.
Detail a question about a coaches conversation with his GM or a team captain, and there is the ‘private’ conversation response. Do the same to the college coach about his feeling about conference expansion and tv contracts and starting game times, and you get a strong sense about what he feels.
Ask about a position change, and the NFL coach will give you some stoic statement about the best interest of the team. The college coach will go in depth about the move of the tight end to left tackle, the challenge and the mechanics of such a change.
It goes on and on, with McCoy and Long, just coming at it from different directions.
It’s our job to ask the questions, get some answers, and draw conclusions.
Mike McCoy, week after week, empties his waste basket of cliches on the table on Monday’s.
“Best interest of the team”….”Put a good game plan together”…..”Keep that conversation to ourselves”……”When he’s ready he’ll be on the field.”
It worsens, when you are caught in a lie, and the key working media loses trust in your honesty.
On Tuesday, Rocky Long goes a good half hour, detailing his feelings about Bowl matchups, coaching salaries, the pressure to win, injuries, position changes, philoshocial feelings about the college game. There is never the feeling of “Next Question-I refuse to answer the last question.”
Though not everyone will agree when a coach details a star player’s marijuana suspension, he treats them like men, and holds them accountable.
A prime example was McCoy saying a top player was ‘dinged’ when he really suffered a catastrophic-career ending knee injury. That compared to Long detailing a player whom they helped with Bi-Polar disorder even after he left the program.
So Mike McCoy is losing games now. He’s lost the support of the working media that finds him distant, condescending, and just not very friendly. He gets his traits from an owner who acts the same way.
Congrats, you’re (2-7), and if you haven’t noticed, have lost your fans too.
So Rocky Long will talk to us next about a wide variety of topics, not caring whether you agree with the answers, but hopeful you appreciate the responses to what we feel are important questions, covering college football.
Congrats to him, and by the way, his team is headed to another bowl game, and possibly a (9-3) season.
To quote a former Chargers General Manager, AJ Smith, who had his way of offending people, and defending his philosophies, the statement stands tall in San Diego.
“It is what it it is”. Mike McCoy could be well liked and get the benefit of the doubt. He’s created a miserable situation. Rocky Long has made it fun to be around his program, even from the days of bad records, bad starts to seasons, and bad play calls. He gets it, and enjoys it.
It is what it is-though in some cases, it doesn’t have to be that way.

—0—-

Wow.

That was impressive, even if San Diego State wakes up looking at a loss on Tuesday from their Monday night game at Utah.

The Aztecs went hammer-and-tong with the big-bruising Utes, playing race horse basketball against the plodding Pac 12-team.

State would not wilt, not when Utah built a 9-point lead early, not when the hostile crowd turned wild over officials calls, and never giving up when at times, other young teams would cave in at the Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City.

Winston Shepard had a strong second half, and needs 17-point halves like that to become the go-to veteran on the floor.

Dakarai Allen shows no fear firing up three pointers, as he showed early on with 3-treys to keep State close.

Zylan Cheatem is not afraid to dive to the  bucket, and this is a young redshirt freshman playing with the big boys.

Sophomore Trey Kell is bigger and stronger and can drill three point shots.

There’s still alot of growing to do with Malik Pope, who can get hot, but can also take a bunch of errant shots that kill momentum.

Jeremy Hemsley is so very young, but not afraid to matchup against veteran guards, or to take it into the paint against tall timber.

The bigs are the bigs, but it is disappointing there are still offensive deficiencies with some of these guys.

Skylar Spencer doesn’t have much of an offensive skill set.  For all the basketball Angelo Chol has played, you’d think he would have developed any type of a jumper, or a move to his right, to compliment his lefthanded power drive hook shots to the bucket.

Steve Fisher said he’d use the trip to Utah to figure out what the personality of his team would be.  I think he knows now, attack the rim, take it to the hole, kick it out, hit threes, and play big boy defense with shot blockers.

They lost to a firepower Pac 12-team, but they were not bullied.  SDSU is enormously athletic, and gifted with the ball.  Just think where they will be by January when conference play starts.

Good luck Boise, New Mexico, UNLV, the others who thought they were going to be basketball royalty in this conference.

I don’t think anyone can provide the blast furnace offensive and defensive power that State showed, on the road, in a brutally tough barn in Utah.

It might have been a last second loss, when Utah hit 20-of-22 free throws in the 2nd half to stave off the multiple SDSU comeback attempts.

But it was a win, to hang tough, keep roaring back, and finding out how good this bunch of guys wearing Black might be.  Really good.  Wow.

—0—

And the young infielder they got from the Yankees Jose Perila can hit minor league pitching.

Rumors circulating they may make a run at a 32-year old Japanese shortstop Nobu Matsuda also.

Perseverance, Patience, Personality, Passion.

Pick any of those words and it describes the man who has had as a big an impact on athletics at San Diego State, in its long history on Montezuma Mesa, as anyone..

Steve Fisher belongs in the Basketball Hall of Fame, and maybe soon, when he retires, he will get there. But right now he is still ours, and aren’t we lucky.

Think about how hard his job has been.

Coaching offices at one time in trailers. Playing once upon a time in dank and dirty Peterson Gym. Home games at the empty Sports Arena. No quality wins to speak of, an afterthought in a town that didn’t care about the sport. That’s what SDSU was prior to his arrival.

Fast forward to now at San Diego State. Sellouts at Viejas Arena. The Show putting on the show before the real basketball show begins. National rankings, March Madness a permanent fixture on the calendar. Deep runs into the tournament. 4-and-5 star recruits coming here from all over the country.

San Diego State basketball once upon a time gave us a failing Jim Brandenberg, an overmatched Fred Trinkle, and people like Tony Fuller and Jim Harrack-Junior.

And now it’s Steve Fisher.

Think about starting his coaching career, a year removed from the Fab 5-at-Michigan, going (0-14) in the conference and (5-24) overall.

Think about the leap of faith it must have taken, or maybe it was the sales pitch, to get Fresno State transfer Randy Holcombe, to come play for Fisher.

It started with quality JUCO’s, progressed to Division 1-transfers coming back home, to the point now, they get McDonald’s All Americans, and 4-and-5 star players signing here yearly.

Steve Fisher’s prized player is the unsung San Antonio Spurs star Kawhi Leonard. But it could be any and all Aztecs of years gone by.

They came, they played, they learned, they graduated, and they got good.

The man’s perseverance was something to behold. His persistence to keep recruiting no matter what the player’s initial decision was continued. His passion for the game, and his classy personality, are what allowed him to become great.

They’ve named the basketball court after him. Tonight is opening night against his Alma Mater Illinois State. There’s a season to be played, another championship to be won, and a tournament to get to, against all the other great programs in the country.

The best program on the West Coast is not UCLA nor Arizona, or anyone else, it’s San Diego State. They may not be blue blood like Kentucky or someone else, but the Red & Black are something very special these days.

He won’t admit to it, but I will say it. This basketball coach not only saved the program, he may have saved the entire Athletic Department. His success brought nationwide recognition to the school The tourney payouts made a difference. The name has become household across the country,

Thanks to that man, who took gruesome and made it into greatness., Steve Fisher is why San Diego State is where they are these days.

—0—-