Life in the press box is glitzy
but fosters a businesslike
approach
to
football
By Henry Houston
I
don’t know why I like watching football.
Unlike professional wrestling, I didn’t grow
up watching the sport. I never played it in high
school because of my fear of being injured.
Instead I played saxophone in my school’s
marching band.
Being an enterprising reporter, I wouldn’t let
lack of experience get in my way of covering Duck football.
I contacted University of Oregon's Athletic Department to
see if I could get press access into the football games.
I was told that because Eugene Weekly doesn’t attend
any camps, away games or midweek press conferences, I
could only attend a few games that the bigger media outlets
wouldn’t cover.
It becomes clear right away as a reporter with press
box access at Autzen that you’re entering another world:
Someone is operating the elevator. Yes, Autzen Stadium in
2018 has an “elevator lady.” I don’t think it’s a security
issue. It’s because an angel is needed to take you to heaven.
Once on the media floor, the aroma of popcorn carries you
to your seat. From there, a reporter — who’s probably making
barely above living wages — has access to an all-you-can-eat
buffet presumably made by UO Catering, endless popcorn
and a never-ending fountain of soda and coffee.
I wonder if this is truly a UO Catering experience
because it’s not the typical menu you see at events when
you’re a starving student, floating around for a free meal.
Instead, it’s a collection of food that is actually warm
and tasty — although when burritos are on the menu, the
tortillas are still cold.
My experience inside the Autzen Stadium press box
reinforces the notion that sports reporters are one of the
most cared-for bunches in the industry. Trust me, I don’t
enjoy this sort of hospitality at local government meetings.
On the other hand, you’ll find reporters with more animation
when covering a city council meeting than a football game.
During the nonconference games at UO at least (this
year, UO only played lower-tier teams), no one seemed too
interested in having fun inside the press box. Maybe I’m
out of place to suggest this, but I think football should be a
fun game to watch. It should then be analyzed mercilessly
afterward by people who have never put on pads and a
helmet and squared off on the gridiron — in other words,
by people like me.
Instead, reporters furiously updated social media
accounts and typed the bare-bones statistics, which the
UO provides at the end of the quarter, onto their respective
news sites. So, I wonder, why detach yourself from the
excitement of the game?
I guess I drank the Kool-Aid while in the press box,
too, but as a whole, UO has an amazing line-up of student-
athletes right now to get excited over — even if it’s still a
day at the office. Justin Herbert, a Eugene native, leads the
team as quarterback. Herbert is the last glimmer of hope we
have in Eugene, a city that cannot find a way to deal with
problems like financially strapped schools, lack of access
to affordable housing and the dearth of well-paying jobs.
We don’t even have a city hall.
Yet we have reporters in the press box who don’t want
to sit back and bask in the warmth of Herbert’s talent. I
mean, as of now, the guy leads the Pac-12 conference with
15 touchdown passes. He averages 282.2 yards per game
and is on the shortlist for the Johnny Unitas Golden Arm
Award.
Now, there were certain moments where other reporters
in the press box took out their phones to snap some photos
or show some emotion. Most of the time, this was during
the “Star Spangled Banner,” when a huge, battleship-sized
U.S. flag was spread out across the football field. Being
mere mortals, it’s impossible not to be excited when
Puddles the Duck rides by on a motorcycle in a display of
avian coolness.
Maybe it’s a sense of objectivity these reporters feel
they must follow, which can be cast aside for patriotism
and Puddles. I say save that pretense for another beat,
because objective journalism is a farce, especially when it
comes to football.
With only a few minutes to go in the game, being a
reporter with press access takes you onto the sidelines. Of
course, the last thing that I make sure to do is snag a few
cookies for the trip down to the field.
I try to look serious while on the sideline, as if I’m
supposed to be there. But, as I look around at the fans
around me (albeit a lot fewer than when the game kicked
off) and gaze back to the action of colliding pads and
helmets, I’m sure I’m sporting a dumb “Holy crap, I’m on
the sidelines!” smile on my face.
For the other reporters, this novelty has surely worn off.
When the game clock counts down to zero, the cardio
and strength coordinator Aaron Feld herds the players off
the field. Feld, whose body and personality match that of a
WWE wrestler named Sheamus with a vaudevillian twist,
shouts for the players to get inside the locker room.
That’s the cue for reporters to follow the clip-clop of
football players into the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex, which
has the look and feel of the Death Star.
Coach Mario Cristobal is no Darth Vader or Emperor
Palpatine. Rather, he dissects the faults of the game in a
technical manner that makes him sound more like one of
those Star Wars Imperial officers who think “the Force” is
some ancient myth and that true power resides in knowledge
and strategy — more like General Hux than Kylo Ren.
Much of Cristobal’s technical breakdowns of the
game go over my head. Sure, I know a bit about slants,
posts and whatnot from my years of playing the Madden
football video game series, but at least in between the
rapid-fire questioning directed by the football program’s
communications official, occasional genuine charisma
emerges from the student-athletes who leave the comfort
of the canned, coached responses I’m sure they are fed.
Tony Brooks-James, running back, dishes jokes against
the other running back, Travis Dye. Freshman Adrian
Jackson welcomes jokes about himself for making up
words like being “preparated” for the game.
Toward the end of the night of the first game of the
nonconference football schedule, I start to feel why these
other reporters look so disinterested in the press box.
First of all, it’s a nonconference football game, so
there’s no real challenge — this year’s schedule seemed as
interesting as the Cleveland Browns’ NFL preseason games
(the Browns, in case you don’t know, are synonymous with
losing).
Now multiply an uninteresting football game by its
length — about three and a half hours — and add another
hour of questions and answers from coaching staff and
student-athletes. And I didn’t even experience the banality
of mid-week practices.
I guess I won’t be too heartbroken if I’m not invited
back to cover Duck football and have to stick to the city
council beat for the rest of my professional life. But, hey,
Duck football and I will always have burritos with cold
flour tortillas. For that, I am grateful. ■
Read Henry Houston’s coverage of Duck football at eugeneweekly.com.
Luckily for his press compatriots, he’ll be out of town when No. 17 Oregon
plays No. 7 University of Washington, but he will return to Autzen for two
games in November.
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eugeneweekly.com • October 11, 2018
13