Maybe it was Steve Kragthorpe’s comments about West Virginia fans and the way they throw batteries. Maybe it was the Louisville coach’s potshot over how “tanked” West Virginia fans can get for a noon start. Maybe Kragthorpe’s wife didn’t feel it was smart to sit in the stands at Milan Puskar Stadium, but either way, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Colin Dunlap says she absolutely should not have been where she sat.
“The men and women — like myself — who have a job to cover these teams should be granted one piece of real estate that serves as a sanctuary from everything else: The press box. We earned as much, we deserve it. If you expect objective, non-biased reporting, we expect an atmosphere free of the wife of a coach sitting right behind us.”
Colin raises some very interesting points. I’ll say this: In seven years as a Rutgers beat writer, Christy Schiano never sat behind me. I even remember her once sitting in the drenching, freezing rain out at Army instead of coming into the press box. Of course, Greg Schiano’s too smart to let his wife anywhere near us on game day. Cranky scribes, after all, can be a dangerous group.
Aditi Kinkhabwala has written a regular column for SI.com and been published in Sports Illustrated.