For the 2011-12 holidays I was in sunny Pasadena, enjoying the absolutely first rate hospitality a media member receives when covering the Rose Bowl; the greatest bowl game of them all. And to top it all off:
I’m told by the winning coach of a BCS game (Oregon Ducks’ Chip Kelly) that my business and marketing ideas are superb! In a crowded room full of my media peers no less!
Chip Kelly was in a great mood after winning his first BCS game win in three tries. I’ve been told he usually doesn’t joke around much in press conferences, so my back and forth with him was a special treat.
Protocol dictates you state your name and affiliation before asking your question at these pressers, so when Chip Kelly heard “Paul Banks from The Sports Bank.net” this happened. (transcript from ASAP Sports)
PB: How does it feel
Chip Kelly: You have a website named after you?
PB: I came up with the idea, yes.
Chip Kelly: That’s awesome.
PB: Thank you. I’ll take that as an endorsement for the site.
Chip Kelly: Write it down.
PB: How does it feel to get your first BCS win and to do it in a game that people will be talking about for a while, because this is really trending all over the internet all day?
Chip Kelly: Another internet word, trending. That’s good. We’re just excited for the win. I think a lot has been made out of we hadn’t won a BCS game before.
To be honest with you, I think that could be the case if we had been in seven or eight or nine of them. We’d only been in three.
We’re 1-2 right now, but we take each game individually, and that’s what we’ve always talked about. For us to go away from that, I think these guys would think I was crazy if we all of a sudden started to build it up as that.
We believe it’s on the line every day we step on the practice field. We believe it’s on the line every game we play in, and that formula works for us. We’re 34-6 in the last three years because we take every game like it’s the Super Bowl.
Some people don’t believe that, but you watch these guys practice every day and watch how they get after practice this past Tuesday, this past Wednesday, and it’s on the line every day for us. That’s what works for us, and we’re going to stick to that.
It feels great. Any time you win it feels unbelievable. And the thing that gets you excited is when you can share it with your players, and they see kind of the fruits of their labor pays off. I’ve never been around a harder working group of guys.
The “trending” term is in reference to the fact that earlier in the day “Rose Bowl,” “Rose Bowl 2012” and “Rose Parade” were 3 of the top 15 trending terms on Alexa.
I had another rather exciting improvised banter at a press conference last year- with North Carolina Tar Heels coach Roy Williams (read the transcript here)
Paul M. Banks is the owner of The Sports Bank.net, an affiliate of Fox Sports. He’s also an analyst for multiple news talk radio stations across the country; with regular weekly segments on NBC and Fox Sports Radio. Follow him on Twitter (@paulmbanks) and RSS Catch him Tuesdays talking Illini and Northwestern for KOZN 1620 The Zone, Fridays talking Chicago Bears for WAOR 95.7 The Fan