A year ago, Sean Miller, making a point in Sunday’s game, denied ever paying a player to attend the UA after spending five days away from the Wildcats in the wake of an ESPN report saying he discussed a pay-for-play scheme with aspiring agent Christian Dawkins.
Sean Miller delivered what I believe was an appropriate response last week when a naïve TV reporter from Phoenix twice asked him to comment about issues related to the FBI’s investigation into college basketball corruption.
Miller said, “you can drive back to Phoenix.”
Before you send a reporter to ask those kinds of questions — twice — it is incumbent on any news organization to be realistic. The questions may need to be asked, but Miller isn’t going to answer them. Not to a Tucson reporter, not to an ESPN reporter, not to any reporter. My colleague Bruce Pascoe has regularly asked those questions for a year. He has never gotten more than “no comment.”
Last week’s awkward exchange made the media industry look dumb.
When I was a rookie beat reporter covering the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, the mighty New York Times sent reporter Neil Amdur to Tampa to ask Bucs coach John McKay, a legendary coach from USC, about the team’s 0-26 start as an NFL franchise.
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“John,” he said, “what do you say to those who say you’re just a college coach?”
McKay puffed on his cigar, blew smoke into the air, and looked at Amdur.
“I tell them the same thing I tell you: (bleep) off,” he said.
Amdur left without a story, just as the Phoenix reporter did last week.
