Press conference tirades

With all of the awful Homecoming fliers and slogans, with their poorly chosen mixes of… With all of the awful Homecoming fliers and slogans, with their poorly chosen mixes of campaigning for a worthless crown and overused quotes from formerly funny movies, out of the way, we can finally get back to walking safely in the streets.

And we can focus on pertinent things again. Thank God, because I was hoping we could toss around the extremely serious nature of ranking Arizona Cardinals’ coach Denny Green’s implosion last Monday among the greatest press conference tirades of all time.

The first question is, how can we figure out a sturdy ranking system?

There are several factors to an anger-filled press conference explosion. First, to gain major points, the coach has to mock the reporter or the reporter’s question. Second, there has to be swearing. Third and finally, the coach has to take a mocking tone or literally shout his way out of the press conference.

With those factors laid out, let’s run down the list.

One of my favorite tirades in college basketball has to be John Chaney’s burst into a John Calipari post-game press conference in 1994.

At the time, Massachusetts and Temple were huge rivals in Atlantic Ten basketball. Calipari’s Minutemen had just defeated Chaney’s Owls, 56-55, and there were several disputed calls in the contest. Prompting a frustrated Chaney to storm into the media room, telling Calipari he was going to kick his butt. And he even claimed he would kill him.

But the most hilarious part of it all was the 5-foot-10, 62-year-old Chaney, who almost always looks like he hasn’t slept in years, being held back by a group of reporters as the taller, 35-year-old Calipari shouted back. While this is certainly hilarious, it’s missing the key elements for a higher ranking, so we’ll put this would-be fight fourth on the list.

Jim Mora is always good for a laugh or two when he goes off, but he deserves praise for two specific explosions he’s had in the past. The first, when Mora coached the Saints, included him chiding his team, claiming they couldn’t stop the run or the pass and couldn’t do anything on offense.

He swore his head off, insulting his entire team and staff, and resigned after the explosion in 1996. So he scored major points for the swearing, especially the inclusion of “diddly poo,” and he walked out of the press conference. That puts him high on the list, and we’ll give him third.

His second explosion came in 2001, as the coach of the Indianapolis Colts, when he blamed his team’s entire loss on its offense. But he didn’t swear. He mocked a reporter’s question and shouted his way out of the press conference. We always keep laughing at the lines, “Playoffs? Playoffs? Are you kidding me? Don’t talk about…playoffs? We can’t even win a game and you’re talking about playoffs?”

Everybody remembers that explosion — his voice cracking, his raised eyebrows, his shock at someone asking if the Colts still had a shot at the playoffs. It’s a classic, so I’m going to put it second on the list.

I will probably upset a lot of people by leaving some classic explosions out, so before getting to the top tirade, let’s review the quality, honorable mention rants.

Herm Edwards humored every sports fan when, in 2002, he mimicked a reporter for talking about the Jets’ ability to win. Edwards seemed shocked, and responded with hilarity that lasts even to this day: “Hello? You play to win the game. You don’t play it to just play it.”

Bobby Knight owns a separate list of just his explosions, spanning from his swear-laden responses to reporters on several occasions to his hilarious “game face” routine after a reporter at the NCAA tournament asked him about his team’s lack of a game face.

Knight contorted his face in all directions, saying it was a dumb question; that he had never heard of a game face before.

But my No. 1 tirade by a sports coach has to be Green’s after his Cardinals blew a 20-point, second-half lead against the Chicago Bears. When a reporter asked Green what the Cardinals were doing to shut down the Bears, Green delivered this gem.

“The Bears are who we thought they were! And that’s why we took the [expletive] field. If you want to crown them, then crown their [expletive]. But they are who we thought they were, and we let them off the hook!”

This included a sharp smack of the podium, shaking the microphone and an awkward glare at all of the reporters in the room following the explosion. Topping it all off, the media relations director casually strode forward, explaining Matt Leinart’s availability to the press as Green walked off.

And as the newly crowned Coolest-Coach-to-Go-Ballistic stormed out, a reporter chimed, “Thanks coach.” Classic, simply classic — he swore, he mocked the question and he even stormed out. That’s a trifecta, making him the king of all tirades.

Listen for Jeff Greer at 9 a.m. Mondays at 92.1 WPTS-FM for his hour-long sports talk radio show. E-mail him at jag59@pitt.edu.