In case you missed it, here is Jim Baumbach's recent Web-only column catching up with former St. John's coach Brian Mahoney, who still works at the school.
I was on the St. John's beat for Mahoney's first three seasons, after covering the team for the final two years of the Lou Carnesecca regime.
A year after I left the beat, Mahoney was dismissed from the job. He chose not to comment publicly at that time, but a day or two later I went to his home in Rockville Centre and knocked on the door.
I was getting excited about a journalistic coup when he invited me in and we spent 10 minutes chatting at his kitchen table.
Then he said something unfortunate: "This isn't an interview, is it?"
Sure, theoretically he should have told me before we started he was talking off the record, but under the circumstances I was not about to quote him based on a journalistic technicality.
And that was that. Sigh.