Check out what former Uptown sports scribe Gregg Doyel has to say about his relationship the Duke (sic) hoops coach while he was working in Charlotte:
It started in March 1999, when a book deal fell into my lap. An obscure publishing house in Kansas — like there’s any other kind in Kansas — wanted 50,000 words on Coach K and the Duke program. Here was the cash advance. Here was the deadline. Take it or leave it. I took. And then I asked to interview Coach K for the book.
He refused.
Fine. Mine was an unauthorized biography, and he had his own book coming out a year later. He didn’t want to help mine compete with his, and I get that. Really. But he took it several steps further. He wrote a warning letter to my bosses at the Charlotte Observer, saying my book would harm our relationship. And he had one of his publicists reach out to former players and coaches at Duke, essentially asking them not to speak with me.
Hmmm. Care to wonder if that threat changed the way the paper covered the Duke (sic) program? I don’t. I know that threats to cut off access to access journalists are mega-effective in shaping coverage. I also know that a complete Coach K hissy fit about dook getting almost booed off the court at the New Old Coliseum during the NCAAs in 2005 was soft-sold by the Uptown paper.
This is why I am so not looking forward to McClatchy’s coverage of Coach K’s Team USA from Beijing via confirmed dook house organ Luciana Chavez. In fact, this pairing has all the makings of a journalistic train wreck. Hey, at least MNI will get access.
