It’s 70 minutes until deadline in the bowels of Invesco Field at Mile High and a rookie sports reporter desperately needs to interview Broncos quarterback Jake Plummer.
After a few moments of searching – and sidestepping wadded training tape shed by players in the cavernous home locker room – he spots Plummer at a corner locker. “What luck,” he says to himself, “Plummer’s all alone.”
Upon closer examination, though, there appears to be one problem.
Plummer isn’t wearing pants.
In any other profession, approaching a half- dressed man to chat would be hazardous to your health. But here, it’s just another day at the office.
Locker rooms today are far different places than a half-century ago, a time when athletes and reporters discussed the game then grabbed a drink together afterward. These days, the door is more likely to be slammed shut than swung open, especially if a reporter doesn’t know the basics of locker room etiquette.
Now, it’s about keeping a respectful distance from an athlete – giving the player his space and massaging agents and team officials. And that’s before the first question is asked.
“Sometimes, I don’t feel like (reporters) understand the pressure of this work, how hard the job is,” says Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams. “You hold your guard up, because when things start going bad you see that some guys aren’t out for your best interests.”
Working relationship
Building rapport with certain athletes can take years for a reporter. But getting off to a good start requires knowing locker room etiquette.
“First off, you always have to be polite,” says Broncos offensive tackle George Foster, the spokesman for an offensive line that has a monastic vow of silence with the media. “You approach only when you see that a guy has idle time; don’t bother him when he’s on the phone or when he’s talking to another player.”
But that’s not all. There’s a laundry list of unwritten rules:
Don’t ask about players’ private lives; writing about items in a player’s locker is off-limits unless the player agrees; internal messages taped to walls or shown on televisions are not for publication; if players talk in private but someone overhears what they say, the words stay in the room.
“The locker room is our safe haven, and it should always be treated that way,” says Walt Weiss, a Rockies coach. “This is like our home, so you have to honor those rules.”
For those covering the Nuggets, that usually means waiting until Carmelo Anthony gets dressed and raises his head before asking the first question. Avalanche star Milan Hejduk wants at least 10 minutes to cool off after losses; Rockies closer Brian Fuentes doesn’t want to be asked about injuries; and Foster, the offensive lineman, shouldn’t be bothered when he’s reading the newspaper, removing tape from his ankles or heading for the shower.
Avalanche goalie Jose Theodore, meanwhile, doesn’t want questions before any of his starts.
“That’s just how I am,” he says. “I get paid to play, so I need to prepare.”
But Broncos safety John Lynch, one of the most approachable athletes in the city, will give interviews wearing only a towel.
“The only rule I think we all have in common is that we want to be treated with respect,” Lynch says. “You can write something bad about us, but be a man and come back the next day so we can talk about it.”
In their domain
Locker rooms smell as if wallpapered in sweaty socks. It’s an acoustic aroma, really, one that bounces around searching for an escape route.
The Avalanche locker room is like a shoe box, with a few lockers, a television set and dry- erase boards for diagramming plays. A large, hockey-rink rug is in the middle of the room with a team logo on it.
Rockies players have the most luxurious accommodations locally – partly because they spend half their year at Coors Field. The wide rectangular room, though, is spartan, save for leather couches overlooking televisions that hang from poles.
The Broncos’ Dove Valley locker room – where the team trains in Arapahoe County – is a contrast to the wide-open feel at Invesco Field and is the most intimate of the group. The players sit so close in some places that they could touch the hand of a neighbor sitting across from them.
The room is opened to media a handful of times a week, for 45 minutes each visit by NFL rule, but players are not required to make themselves available for interviews.
On this day, Jason Elam is absent; Plummer is walking out the door and Rod Smith is sitting at his locker with a pie on a plate when the media is allowed in.
No one attempts to speak to Smith until a female reporter approaches a half-hour into the interview time.
“Rod, can I talk to you?” she asks.
Smith fires a sideways glance, but doesn’t say a word.
“Rod?” the reporter asks again, standing a few feet away. She pauses. No response.
Access to players limited
Long ago, when newspaper writers traveled with the team via train, they were almost as an extension of the team. Access was unparalleled.
“Now every team has a handler who is there to limit everything we do,” says Boston Globe columnist Dan Shaughnessy, who began covering professional baseball in the 1970s. “It’s a stupid game we have to play. Every day, our access is shrinking.”
The ever-tightening restrictions – and the addition of mega-millionaire egos that often come with the job – have made it more difficult than ever to cover teams, reporters say.
“The peer pressure within NFL locker rooms is unlike any other place,” says Danny O’Neil, who covers the NFL for The Seattle Times. “Some guys don’t talk because other guys don’t talk. Some will try to intimidate and see if you’ll back down.”
Baseball isn’t exempt. At a recent Rockies game against San Francisco, Barry Bonds stretches on a couch in the visitors’ video room off the clubhouse, watching an advertisement for a golf school.
Teammates and reporters file past, no one saying a word to the mercurial outfielder.
Finally, one writer approaches.
“Excuse me,” he says. “Do you have a free second?”
Bonds lookes up, uninterested, like he just awoke from a nap. He shakes his head and whispers.
“No, no, no.”
“It’s preposterous,” Shaughnessy says. “The self-importance today is off the charts.”
Hit-and-miss proposition
While Plummer gets dressed after a recent victory over the Kansas City Chiefs at Invesco Field, a gaggle of 15 or so media people wait in a half circle around a mini platform.
Though they are only 10 feet away, they act as if he’s invisible. They know his boundaries. They know the quarterback will talk when he’s ready.
After a few minutes, Plummer stands. The camera lights beam. Reporters part like the sea and make room.
The interview is brief. But the reporter with the looming deadline still wants a quote for a story about Javon Walker.
With the clock ticking, the writer watches Plummer throw a strapped bag over his shoulder and stop to talk to the offensive linemen.
Plummer then heads for a bottled drink near the door.
The reporter lobs a softball as the quarterback approaches.
“Excuse me, Jake,” he says. “It must be nice to have a receiver out there like Javon who can come in and do what he did in Rod’s absence.”
“You can answer that, man,” Plummer says, seemingly put off by the question. “You know the answer to that.”
The reporter stammers. Plummer continues walking.
“Javon really turned it up, right?” he asks.
“You can answer that.”
But then, Plummer stops. Walker made some nice catches, the quarterback says, then adds that receiver David Kircus also “came up big.”
After 20 minutes of stalking Plummer, the writer gets the quote he wants. He makes deadline.
The next morning, he reads the newspaper. Plummer’s quote was cut from the story.
Staff writer Robert Sanchez can be reached at 303-954-1282 or rsanchez@denverpost.com.
