Nebraska Coach Tim Miles doesn’t do “coachspeak” all that much. He tries to shy away from cliches too. While other coaches can ramble on and on for 20 minutes, yet say nothing interesting, Miles gives you a whole week’s work of articles in about five or six minutes.
Tim Miles summed up Big Ten Media Day best:
“Today is not media day, it’s the nightmare for sports information directors.”
He then joked about a way to make the event much more interesting:
“we walk in and you guys are just like punching your keys, drinking your coffee, grumpy that it’s morning. Are we going to do a happy hour deal? Is that what you want? Are you that difficult to deal with?”
This exchange was hilarious too.
Tim Miles: “You know, an old coaching friend told me one time, never trust the media unless it helps you with recruiting, so I kind of stick by that.”
Q. How old a coach was that?
Tim Miles: Well, that was Jim Molinari, my assistant. He told me yesterday. (Laughter).
Other gems include Miles articulating his offensive strategy:
“probably just throw the ball to Petteway and Shields and stand there and say nothing.”
And what it’s like to cover practice:
“If you want to come Lincoln and see missed shots and stuff like that, we’re right there, baby. You can go over to gate 25 afterwards and get something to eat.”
On solving roster/scholarship issues:
“I have trouble filling my scholarships, no one wants to play for me that badly.”
On developing a new rivalry within the conference:
“If I say enough dumb stuff, we’ll have rivalries, so I think it really depends on that.”
On his outlook for this season, where he finds motivation to continue progress:
“I kind of look at like can you believe we blew an 18 point lead to Ohio State. That crap still aggravates me to no end. You want to put our guys in a bad mood, bring up the Big Ten Tournament, or Baylor, that game was so ugly I decided to leave early.”
Northwestern Coach Chris Collins followed up Tim Miles at the podium and sad this:
“I didn’t realize I was following Coach Miles, so I won’t even try to be funny. The comedian of the conference. “
Paul M. Banks owns, operates and very often writes The Sports Bank.net ,which is partners with Fox Sports. Read his features stories in the Chicago Tribune RedEye edition. Listen to him on 1620 The Zone. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks). His work has been featured in hundreds of media outlets including The Washington Post and ESPN 2