Birmingham News sports columnist Ray Melick isn’t a stranger to controversy. He’s earned the ire of both Alabama and Auburn fans, and that’s just this season. Melick sat down with us to talk about media convergence, protecting coaches and why Les Miles is like your ex’s new hubby.
Ray, the changing media landscape is well documented. You do radio and newspapers; reporters do webcasts; bloggers break news stories. Talk a little about how sports journalism is changing.
Funny you’d start there. That’s a big question I’ve been trying to answer this fall. The biggest difference is not only the immediacy of information getting out, but the way teams are bypassing traditional messengers to get the message out for themselves. By that, I mean things like webcasts by coaches, transcripts and team-produced websites. In really a good way, it means reporters have to be more careful and more accurate than ever.
It also doesn’t allow coaches as much ability to spin, does it?
No. That’s the flip side – they can be held directly accountable for their words. In the old days, a coach would say something, then say, “Wait, don’t write that.” Now, once it’s said, it is often too late to take back. And it’s more difficult to claim you’ve been misquoted.
Sort of like the ‘protecting Saban’ comment you made a while back.
Sure. That’s a perfect example of being on the radio and saying something I wish I hadn’t said. There is no editing a conversation.
It did make for good radio.
No question. But you see, you can take that one phrase and make it sound like it means a lot of things it wasn’t supposed to mean. Saban doesn’t need me to protect him. My job is not to protect him. In fact, in light of the South Florida comments, he’d probably say I didn’t protect him at all!
In a sense, reporters protect subjects all the time. We clean up their language (grammar, sentence structure, etc). We often help them make sense when their words really don’t. But that’s one of those things that may be changing because everyone has access to the original interview now. And I’m not sure coaches and players are going to like reading their quotes, word for word. Sometimes they’ll really sound stupid – as I did, when I gave an off-the-cuff answer to a question. But the accountability factor may outweigh the embarrassment factor.
I’ve probably said too much. Protect me, okay?
I’ll give it a shot. In terms of being media-savvy, where do you think Saban is, compared to other coaches?
Saban is very literal. I don’t think the man says anything without a purpose behind it. A good example is the oft-played conversation between Saban and 33/40 sportscaster Mike Raita after the FSU game over the words “identity” and ‘image.” Saban has very specific words that mean things to him. That being said,
I don’t think Saban – like many other coaches – are really sure of how to use the media to their advantage.
Watching his press conferences can be tough sometimes. Is it worse if you’re the one asking the questions?
Not really. What you don’t see is when Saban will tell a reporter afterward that he’s glad he was asked that question, because it allowed him to get a specific message out he wanted to get out. Most of us have learned it’s not personal with Saban. He’s always trying to make a point. It’s “a process,’’ you know.
From a fan’s perspective, it seems as if his stern attitude strikes fear into the hearts of the press pool. But surely we only see one side of the story.
Exactly. That’s not to say some reporters aren’t taken aback by his demeanor. Young ones can be intimidated. But the good ones – Ian Rapaport with The Birmingham News, for example – actually have a good relationship with him, and I think Nick enjoys the interchange more than it appears.
I’ll pass along something I learned early on. A coach I covered when I was very young met me for the first time and said, “Let’s get something straight: if I’m winning, you can’t hurt me. If I’m losing, you can’t help me.” That is the relationship in a nutshell.
Well said. Saban did his best to downplay expectations preseason, but all that went out the window with Arkansas, didn’t it?
Yes, because no Alabama fan ever really expects the Tide to be average. Remember last year? Alabama fans were lined up behind Mike Shula, convinced this would be his big year. Then, when Shula was fired, everyone jumped on the “he was wrecking the program” bandwagon.
That’s the nature of us fans.
Absolutely. And the truth is, for what Nick Saban wants, Mike Shula didn’t recruit well. But for Mike’s purposes, this might have been a very good year. Hard to say.
And now we’ll never know. Which is the biggest issue Saban is dealing with this year: talent level, conditioning, or attitude and discipline?
I think it’s attitude and discipline. Shula, with an NFL mentality, let some things slide for the sake of talent. And Saban, with a college background, is trying to fix that.
Do you think that explains some of his decisions? Meaning, if Saban had options, would some starters would be riding pine?
I think that may be why some players that we thought were very good are not playing as much this year, and maybe why sometimes we see lineup changes week to week that don’t seem to make sense.
He does seem to be trying to get through to some folks.
Right. How have certain players who have been productive disappeared from the playing rotation? I have to believe it’s attitude adjustment more than misjudging talent. I mean, productive under Shula, and now we don’t see much of them.
Maybe they’re having ice cream breaks.
Too much ice cream, perhaps.
This is a cheap interview trick, but its my blog, and I say, word association.
That could be dangerous. I might say something like “protecting Tuberville” this time.
That would be a total scoop. Anyway… Tennessee game.
Means more to Alabama fans than Vols fans these days.
Texas A&M.
Now we know Coach Fran’s rope had a bag of money on the other end.
LSU.
Best defense in the country. And Les Miles is like a husband whose wife’s former husband has moved back to town, and he’s desperate to prove he’s the better man.
Tuberville.
Very slick – and not in a bad way. But I wonder how the people who are used to being in control at Auburn feel about not being in control of the football program anymore? I think, under the surface, there might be more than meets the eye.
That’s an entire part two to this interview right there.
Yep. I like Tommy, and Auburn is a fascinating place for a lot of reasons.
One could take that a lot of ways. Last one: Alabama’s next national championship.
Honestly, I can’t say. I do think Alabama will be competing for one in the next two to three years. But look at the polls: I think there are four teams in the top 10 that weren’t even ranked when the season began, and three more in the top 25 that weren’t even among the 47 teams that got preseason votes. This thing gets tougher every year. But Saban is a master evaluator of talent, and I do believe a great, great hire.
Ray, thanks a lot for stopping in.
You got it.