Charlottesville: Meet the Press
By Elliot Olshansky - June 03, 2006
I love press conferences. You may find this odd, but it's one of my favorite things about covering major events like this.
Obviously, the most exciting part of this gig is the games themselves, and the dramatic events that are played out upon the field. After it's over, though, getting to sit in a room and ask these young men questions and listen to what they have to say, you get a great sense of who these kids are.
Take the Lehigh press conference after this game, for example. These kids have just seen a three-run lead evaporate in the bottom of the ninth - and their season with it - and what do Joe Ercolano and Joe Matteo do? They talk about how proud they are of their freshmen, and the way they competed. They speak about how they're proud of their season, and how they represented their school and their league. This is the first Lehigh team to win the Patriot League and play in an NCAA regional, and as head coach Sean Leary said, in 25 years, that'll still be the case. No one can take that away from them.
Leary also spoke proudly about the courage that Geoff Campbell showed in throwing a strike on 3-2, when a hit would end the game. It was one man challenging another, and Campbell came up on the short end, but not for lack of guts.
Of course, sometimes it's just plain fun to be in a press conference. For Evansville, it was fun to wach Robbie Minor's eyes light up as he talked about his first collegiate home run, and what it felt like, or Jim Viscomi talking about the double that he tried to stretch, and how it came close to costing them, but Minor came through.
Call me a softy, but I love this stuff.
Posted by Elliot Olshansky at 07:02 PM on June 03, 2006
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