Originally published on The Louisville Cardinal on April 13, 2004

In part two of The Louisville Cardinal’s interview with Billy Reed, the venerable journalist discusses athletes, coaches, and his favorite aspects of journalism and sports.

Louisville Cardinal: What do you think about sports and the mentality of the athlete?

Billy Reed: I think fundamentals in just about every game have gone by the wayside. Pick any sport. For example, in basketball, so much revolves around the dunk or the three-point shot, because that’s what’s shown on the Sportscenter highlights. In baseball, so much emphasis is on the home run; the nuances of the game like hitting behind the runner and that kind of stuff are lost. Football, it’s the big touchdown play I guess.

I think that now athletes want to perform the spectacular more than they are interested in doing all the little things, in whatever game, that makes a team great. You can look at so many excellent teams and they may not have superstars, but because they play so well together and understand the game, they’re very successful. But you just don’t see that as much anymore.

And the coaches, money and TV have just changed everything. Coaches are now like rock stars, paid exorbitant money for teaching a game, and you’ve got the shoe companies and the apparel companies all involved.

And that’s had an impact on the relationships of coaches and athletes and the people that cover them. They’re making so much money now they have no use for newspaper reporters, we’re just kind of considered a nuisance. In the old days, writers had much better relationships with coaches.

LC: How did you develop the rapport with coaches back then?

BR: In the 50’s and 60’s when I was coming up, there was just a much greater level of trust. Coaches and players knew in those days writers were not looking for any scrap of scandal they could use against them, and they were confident they could tell somebody something in confidence and it wouldn’t appear in the paper.

From the standpoint of the writers, if you got to have that kind of relationship, you knew these news sources wouldn’t lie to you. It was just more fun on both sides. That trust has just been eroded to the point where it just doesn’t exist anymore.

I can remember, gosh, you used to be able to go, if you were covering Kentucky, you’d go up and walk into Adolph Rupp’s office if he knew you, he’d tell you to come on in and you’d sit around and jaw for a couple of minutes and get what you wanted. But anymore, my gosh, you’ve got to go through layers of PR people and personal assistants. Plus, the differences in the economic level. Now the coaches operate on a level, especially in college, that are just different from writers.

The money I think tends to make them look down their noses a bit at journalists, and journalists resent that, and so you have this constant friction that exists, and that’s unfortunate.

LC: Do you think there’s a way for a coach and a writer to have a good relationship any more?

BR: I think there is. It depends on a personality. I still think if a coach or player becomes convinced you really care about their sport and are interested in them as people more than just as commodities, you can be trusted.

Yeah, I think it’s much harder and it’s much more rare, but I think it can be done. But you have to want it, both sides have to want to have that working relationship. It’s a tough thing from a reporter’s standpoint to strike that balancing act because too many coaches think if you get to know them as a friend, you’re never gonna criticize them or write or report anything that’s negative.

And that’s just not the way it works. What you have to do is build that trust level up to the point where the coach, yeah he may get mad and chew you out, but by and large there still is an underlying level of trust to where he knows you’re just doing your job. And that’s tricky, that’s very difficult to pull off.

LC: What are some things you like about journalism today?

BR: I think now the level of writing, strictly in terms of creativity, is probably better now than it’s ever been. I see young guys who just are really skilled. They might need a little discipline now and then or a wiser head to help them with editing, but I think there’s just a lot more bright young people going into journalism now than there used to be. It’s become a very attractive career option for a lot of people. I think a lot of these young people, there’s still a high level of idealism.

And hopefully because of some of the things my generation accomplished, such as many of us opposed racism, sexism, those kinds of things, hopefully young people of all races and sexes will have a better chance to succeed because those doors have been opened.

There’s still an awful lot of good work being done, even on TV. I still see the Real Sports that Briant Gumbel does, it’s very good. I enjoy stories that address issues that are in some ways larger than sports, that they’re societal issues, and the role that coaches and athletes play in those things.

Muhammad Ali, for example, in my day was a favorite of mine. I always was really fascinated by him. Not so much as a boxer, although he was a great athlete, but just his impact on society.

I still see some good reporting being done, maybe not as much as I’d like, but there’s still a lot of good work being done.

LC: What are some of the things you like about sports today?

BR: I still enjoy the games, the competition. To me, once you go to a game and it starts, you forget about the other stuff, the outside stuff. The cheating, the rules violations, the money, all of it. The games, especially at the college level, are still really fascinating to me.

I enjoy seeing a good coaching job. I enjoy young people very much. Young people are fascinating to me. I really like to see kids coming along who not only are great athletes but good students. People that you know, partly because of what they’ve learned from sports, they’re gonna be good citizens, they’re gonna be very productive members of society. I really enjoy that.

I enjoy our Triple A baseball team here in Louisville, and I enjoy thoroughbred racing because I love the animals and the beauty of it and the courage of the jockeys.

And you can’t beat college sports for the hoopla, the pageantry, the tradition. I still get just as much fun as it from that standpoint as I ever have.