In the early years of my sports journalism career — before there were such things as tweets, hot takes and even functional laptops (but electricity had been invented) — there were open locker rooms.
After games. For the media to help tell the story in the best way possible.
And probably the most amusing strategy of a star player who wanted to defer that attention, once, was hiding in a laundry basket. After a Notre Dame win.
Fast forward to the aftermath of Notre Dame’s 34-23 loss to Ohio State on Monday night in the CFP National Championship Game in Atlanta.
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Open locker room at Mercedes-Benz Stadium, for both teams, after a brief “cooling off” period. The constant in these two experiences — decades apart — from my vantage point was for me to use that access to help me tell the story of the game, of the season, of the future of Notre Dame football in the best way possible.
So, telling the story of other media members’ experiences in that open-locker room setting, and gathering the resources to do so, was not a priority as I went about using my roughly 20 minutes most efficiently. That entailed talking to four different players and both coordinators, Mike Denbrock and departing Al Golden.
The media did not have universal experiences of that open locker room, so let me start there. Nor do we experience life and handle adversity — ours and others’ — through a common lens. But let me not bury the lede (or lead), either.
There were problems with the setup and how things played out, and you may have seen some interpretations of it spill into social media.
I’ve had a number of people reach out to me about this. And I was asked about it in my live chat on Thursday, and I gave a brief and incomplete answer with the promise for more. And after gathering some more info, here’s my version of that kept promise.
Some bullet points and then some detail:
► Notre Dame prepared for this scenario and owns that it fell far short of the standard in the way it played out. This is a sports info staff that has been professional and helpful to me in my experiences. I can’t and won’t speak for everybody, but for me what happened on Monday night isn’t the norm.
► Some of the accounts I’ve read and heard are way overblown. Did the media themselves act professionally in the instances whether there was a conflict? I couldn’t tell you. And there were some media in the locker room, as per usual in a national setting, I had never seen in my life.
If the script were flipped, an unfamiliar face who I didn’t know whether I could trust, would make the moment more unsettling but something I’d have to navigate anyway.
► This was a fairly unfamiliar setting for everyone. Open locker rooms rarely happen in sports at any level anymore. They do, though, in the College Football Playoff. The CFP runs the show and the schools go along with their policies.
So what happened?
The controversy revolves around some media trying to interview Notre Dame’s Christian Gray, a sophomore cornerback who was on the coverage for a key third-down conversion by Ohio State late in the game.
I never actually saw Gray in the locker room. It’s not like there was a seating chart. And it was a tight space and smelled like a locker room, and not everyone was dressed. So, you kind of kept a narrower focus with your vision, and tried not to take deep breaths.
But what I did see firsthand was what happened shortly after Gray had been approached.
From what I was told, Gray was sobbing with a towel over his head, convinced he had lost the game for his team. When he was questioned by the media about his play, he couldn’t gather himself to answer. And I was told when the media persisted, injured cornerback Benjamin Morrison got involved and tried to protect his friend.
I heard him call a media member “a coward” and told him to “get out of the locker room.” And his tone and his words were way out of character for anything I’ve experienced with Morrison before.
It was loud and hostile, but my first-ever job in this business was covering former Indiana University basketball coach Bob Knight, and so Monday night is far down the scale from what I’ve experienced previously in terms of vocabulary and decibel level.
Having said that, as I turned the corner to the other path through the locker room and found linebacker Drayk Bowen and interviewed him, you can hear on my recording of that interview Morrison shouting in the background — and other voices, some from other players. Morrison’s anger apparently fueled that in other players.
I was told Irish defensive backs coach Mike Mickens stepped in and volunteered to answer any questions about the play involving Gray. Much later in the sequence, on the perimeter of the locker room, defensive coordinator Al Golden was asked about Gray. His response?
“Yeah, there’s 15 other calls I could have made,” Golden said. “But we were kind of near the end of our rope in terms of we couldn’t allow another first down. So, we went the pressure route, and obviously 4 [Jeremiah Smith] made a great play.
“So that’s always sad when that happens, because everybody looks at that player. And certainly I should be looked at for putting him in that position. But Christian is going to battle back. You don’t have to worry about him, man. He is a competitor. He’s resilient, and he’s a blessing.”
What would have been in the best-case scenario here, one that ND can apply the next time this happens?
The sports info staff spending time with Gray before the doors opened to the media, knowing he’d get tough questions and helping him prepare for that. And if he needed more time to compose himself and his thoughts, they needed to help provide that buffer within the allotted time the media had free roam.
All lessons that could be learned and applied for the next time there’s an open locker room. And likely will be.
As far as Gray is concerned, keeping the media away from him completely would have been denying him an opportunity to deal with the real-life adverse situations he’ll likely encounter either in the NFL or in life.
I’ve interviewed Gray a number of times, including earlier during the playoff run. He has the tools to handle this, in part because he has a strong role model in his mom, Shonda. And in part because he had an awesome grandpa, in the late Edward Covington.
“Growing up, my grandpa always told me [to] keep my head up, even when something’s not right,” Gray said just ahead of the Jan. 9 Orange Bowl win over Penn State, with the winning points in that 27-24 Irish victory set up by a late Gray interception.
“That's what being a man is. Even if something's going wrong, even though somebody caught a touchdown, you keep your head up high still, because you’ve got another play. You’ve got another day. You’ve got another year.”
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