Home | WGN News | WGN Weather | WGN Programming | WGN Sports | Employment | Contact WGN

« Surfin' the Net - Comic Book Covers | Main | Tomorrow on WGN's Morning News... »

Child's play

Back when I was strictly a sports reporter, there was nothing I looked forward to more than a good post-game press conference. Pure joy if there ever was such a thing- the intimacy of your question being answered in the company of dozens; irritable coaches being asked "what went wrong" in their team's 12-0 loss; counting how many times someone says "to a man."

As if there were a way to make this sometimes insufferable experience even worse, athletes now occasionally bring their children to these postgame Q&A's. Nothing kills a soundbite worse than cliches, quite like a 3-year old biting a microphone head. Reporters often greet such behavior with obligatory laughter at the child's antics, but let me tell you something- they want to string that kid from a coat rack.

I don't blame them. Number one, they're on a deadline. And number 2, unless I'm a pediatrician, I don't want to see kids in my workplace, period- at least not unnanounced. We have "Take Your Child to Work Day" for a reason- so the rest of us know the exact day we'll need an extra Xanax.

You may think I'm overreacting, that there are only a handful of athletes who do this. I say it's much more common than you may think, and I offer this video as proof.

TrackBack

TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://blogs.trb.com/cgi-bin/mt/mt-t.cgi/81841

Post a comment

(If you haven't left a comment here before, you may need to be approved by the site owner before your comment will appear. Until then, it won't appear on the entry. Thanks for waiting.)

Copyright © 2008 Tribune Interactive
By visiting this site, you are agreeing to our Privacy Policy & Terms of Service.