Wait, wait, wait… did you look at your watch?

By |  February 17, 2011

During the Nick Price interview?

OK, I’ve gotten a few emails from people, asking me if I really had the audacity to look at my watch during my Nick Price interview.

And the answer is, “Yes, I did.”

BUT I CAN EXPLAIN!!!

OK, it went like this: there were only two of us there to interview Nick during his “media round table.”

As a journalist, let me tell you — media round tables SUCK. Everyone is stuck getting the same answers, so the interviews are completely unoriginal.

Well, at the beginning of the “media round table,” it was only me, Nick, and one of my rivals in the turf media industry. I proposed to my friendly rival that we split the 30 minutes that the GCSAA allocated with Nick. No round table — two 1-on-1 15-minute interviews, peace on earth. He agreed.

Then two more competitors showed up. Damn.

But my rival liked my idea so he proposed we still do it, only splitting the time — now down to about 25 minutes — to 5 minutes each for the four of us. I asked the group, and everyone agreed it was a fair deal.

(Brief aside — I think this set-up totally freaked out my old GCSAA pal Bill Newton, who handles the media for the association. Apologies, Bill! Thanks for being a good sport and letting us media guys flip the script on you.)

I told Scott Hollister from GCM to take the first 5-minutes. He’s my old boss, after all, and the GIS is his party, best to step aside for the man. Scott began his interview while the rest of us stepped away.

Then the question was asked among the three of us: What if one of us selfish bastards decided to take more than 5 minutes? “Well, that wouldn’t be cool,” I said. Yeah, but what if?

I promised the guys that I would only take 5 minutes and not a minute more… and if I did, they could call me out on it.

Then I set up my video recorder and got ready to roll tape with Nick Price.

Twenty seconds into my interview with Nick, it occurred to me that I needed to be able to know how long this bad boy was running. I wanted to keep my end of the deal. I didn’t want to go over 5 minutes.

Hence, the blatant glance at my watch.

No, Nick Price does not bore me. Quite the opposite, Nick cracks me up and I enjoy chatting with him.

Yes, I did look at my watch. But it was for good reason.

And at the end of the day, it adds a funny side-story to my interview.

And now you know!

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