A Front-Row Seat with the Sportswriters Who Sat There
Sit down with host Todd Jones and other sportswriters who knew the greatest athletes and coaches, and experienced first-hand some of the biggest sports moments in the past 50 years. They’ll share stories behind the stories -- some they’ve only told to each other.
Diane Pucin: “It Was All Tonya, Tonya, Tonya, Nancy, Nancy, Nancy.”
Diane Pucin recalls with pride and joy how the sports calendar served as the rhythm of her life for nearly 40 years. Bob Knight throwing a chair. Jimmy Connors sending the U.S. Open crowd into a frenzy. The distinct sound of Pete Sampras’ racquet when he hit a tennis ball. An emotional Dan Jansen finally winning a gold medal. Nancy Kerrigan and Tonya Harding going full soap opera. Pucin tells us what it was like to be at these moments and chronicle them. She also discusses breaking barriers for female sports journalists. Shame on Jim Fregosi. And Diane shares her 9/11 experience, including what nearly happened to her on that horrific morning.
Pucin covered multiple Olympics, Super Bowls, Final Fours, World Series, all four major tennis tournaments, college football bowl games, and the Tour de France. She was a sports columnist, sports media critic, and an Olympic and tennis writer for the Los Angeles Times from 1998 to 2014. She had previously worked 12 years at the Philadelphia Inquirer, where from 1986 to ’98, she covered Olympics, college basketball, tennis and became a columnist. That paper nominated her coverage of the Barcelona Olympics for the Pulitzer Prize. In Philly, she also won awards for column writing and a first-place award from the Associated Press Sports Editors for a game story. From 1978 to ’86, Diane worked at the Louisville Courier-Journal, where she was a beat reporter on Indiana University football and basketball. She also was a sports reporter at the Cincinnati Post, as well as the Columbus (Ga.) Enquirer.
Pucin graduated from Marquette University in 1976.
Follow her on X: @DianePucin
Fun fact: Diane’s husband, Dan Weber, is a longtime sportswriter and was my first professional editor in 1987 at the Kentucky Post in Covington, Ky.
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Diane Pucin edited transcript
Speakers: Todd Jones & Diane Pucin
Todd Jones (00:01):
Hey, Diane. It's very nice to have you join us on Press Box Access.
Diane Pucin (00:05):
Great to be here.
Todd Jones (00:06):
It's so good to catch up. It's been too long. Too long.
Diane Pucin (00:10):
Been quite a while, yes.
Todd Jones (00:12):
It's funny, you spent nearly 40 years as a sportswriter at several newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times and Philadelphia Inquirer. You traveled the world, 10 Wimbledon, 7 Olympics, Tour de France.
Todd Jones (00:23):
And now, you're retired and living in my hometown of Newport, Kentucky, across the river from Cincinnati.
Diane Pucin (00:34):
How did that happen? I'm not even sure.
Todd Jones (00:36):
I don't know. I don't know. I do know this. Your husband, Dan Weber, who has enjoyed his own successful career as a sportswriter, was my very first sports editor in 1987 at the Kentucky Post.
Diane Pucin (00:49):
Well, that's why we're back here. And I swear to God, everywhere we go, the first thing I hear is Danny Weber. Is this Danny Weber?
Todd Jones (00:59):
He's like the Mayor.
Diane Pucin (01:00):
He is. He is the oldest of eight. There are Webers everywhere around here, and I think we've met them all.
Todd Jones (01:08):
Well, Dan helped my career get off to a great start. He sent me out to the Northern Kentucky Swimming and Diving Championship once.
Todd Jones (01:14):
I was a young intern, and I was buttering up the parents who were the judges. And they sent a photographer out named Joe Munson. And Munson came over-
Diane Pucin (01:23):
I know Joe.
Todd Jones (01:24):
And Munson came over silently watched the kids dive for like three minutes and then said loud enough for the parents to hear, "Hell, my dog can dive better than these kids."
Diane Pucin (01:34):
Well, okay, here's Dan's Joe Munson story.
Todd Jones (01:38):
Alright, here we go. Munson stories.
Diane Pucin (01:40):
He took Joe to the Indy 500. There was some northern Kentucky connection. So, they went to Indy and they find a place. Dan said, "I've been told to (I think it was the second turn, I forget) stand here will get, this is where you should shoot." Joe has no clue about anything.
Diane Pucin (02:00):
And all of a sudden Dan looks and he sees Paul Newman standing like 10 feet away in his white suit. And he nudges Joe and he nudges Joe, and he is kind of telling Joe, "Look, look."
Diane Pucin (02:15):
Finally Joe looks, and goes up to Paul and said, "Oh my God, it's Steve McQueen." And Paul Newman burst out laughing and said, “I don't think that's ever happened before.” And Paul says to him, "No, I'm not Steve. I'm the one who's still alive."
Diane Pucin (02:33):
So, there's Dan's Joe Munson story.
Todd Jones (02:38):
Well, this is somehow turned into the Joe Munson show, I apologize. You're the guest here. Enough about Munson and enough about me, that's for sure.
Todd Jones (02:46):
But hey, let's stay in Cincinnati because we got a lot of ground to cover with your great career and let's stay there in Cincinnati because I've got in front of me a Cincinnati Magazine article from 1978.
Diane Pucin (03:02):
Oh God.
Todd Jones (03:03):
Oh yeah, yes. And the headline is Liberating the Locker Room. And in all seriousness, I want to ask you about you were on the front lines for female sportswriters, for women to break the barriers that they faced starting in the mid to late '70s and on.
Todd Jones (03:26):
And this article, the sub headline is Cincinnati City solicitor Thomas Luber says, “At this point, the city is not about to stop the Reds and Bengals from discriminating against women reporters.”
Diane Pucin (03:43):
It's funny because back then, I didn't think of myself. I don't know. I had never set out, first of all, to be a sportswriter because I interned at my local Waukegan Illinois, News-Sun all the years I was in college in summers and Christmases.
Diane Pucin (04:01):
And they would rotate us interns through every department. But I never went to sports because the sports editor there said, "Over my dead body, will there be a woman writing in sports."
Todd Jones (04:12):
Damn.
Diane Pucin (04:14):
So, it didn't occur to me to be a sportswriter, even though I loved sports. I had been going to high school basketball games with my dad from the time I could go. It wasn't something I thought of becoming because there weren't any exactly role models at that point.
Diane Pucin (04:40):
But after I graduated from Marquette, I was working as a waitress in the one nice restaurant in Waukegan.
Diane Pucin (04:47):
And the bartender who had graduated from Missouri also in journalism, would bring editor and publisher in every Monday, and we'd go through the back pages. They'd have good old days, hundreds of help wanted ads for journalism jobs.
Diane Pucin (05:03):
And one of them happened to be, it said it was for a sportswriter in Columbus, Georgia, which I had never heard of, but it said it would accept recent college graduates. You didn't have to have experience, so I applied.
Diane Pucin (05:17):
And then had to look on the map to see where Columbus, Georgia was. But it was the second biggest city in Georgia far unbeknownst to me.
And I took the job, and it was for $167 a week. It was the grand salary at that time.
Todd Jones (06:52):
So, you were like an accidental sportswriter?
Diane Pucin (06:55):
I was an accidental sportswriter. And was the best accident ever. Because in Columbus, it was a Knight Ridder paper. It was a bigger paper than I expected almost. And they covered Auburn, Alabama, Georgia, and Georgia Tech football home and away. I mean, they covered the heck out of it.
Todd Jones (07:15):
So, they threw you right into the fire.
Diane Pucin (07:16):
So, they threw me right into the fire. One of the first games I did was Notre Dame at Georgia Tech. That was my first experience standing outside the locker room. And Notre Dame did not allow women into the locker room-
Todd Jones (07:32):
But they would let the men in.
Diane Pucin (07:34):
And so, the Notre Dame SID in a good move, said, "I won't let anybody in if you insist on going in, but if you don't insist, I'll bring people out." Well, the guys did not stand for me. They were like-
Todd Jones (07:50):
Yeah, he put that on you, like that was supposed to be up to you. Wow.
Diane Pucin (07:53):
Yeah. And I didn't have the nerve to say no. So, they all went in, and I stood out there for about an hour and a half and got like two horrible quotes and realized, "Okay, this is not as easy as it's going to appear to be." But that's how it was.
Todd Jones (08:08):
Yeah. So, when you moved to Cincinnati, like I said, I bring up this article, and it's like basically the city's like, "Oh, we're not going to stop from discriminating against women."
Todd Jones (08:17):
You were around the Reds and Bengals somewhat. What was it like in 1978 to try to cover an NFL or a Major League Baseball game if you were a woman?
Diane Pucin (08:30):
The only good part probably at that time was The Post was an afternoon paper. So, I did have the benefit of a lot of lead.
Diane Pucin (08:40):
The deadline situation was such that I could afford to wait outside locker rooms and try to get people. I didn't have to at least file a story within 10 minutes or something. So, that was probably the only good part of working for an afternoon paper.
Diane Pucin (08:58):
But I wasn't like the rubble kind. I wasn't women's lib. That wasn't me. I grew up pretty conservative and I just didn't think about storming the gates of locker rooms kind of thing.
Diane Pucin (09:13):
So, I would just try to do whatever I could to talk. And I think it actually ended up serving me well because I would try to find different people to talk to. Anybody who came out of that locker room like I'd talked to. And sometimes it worked out to my advantage, actually.
Todd Jones (10:32):
But you talked about waiting outside the locker room. I mean, wasn't there a time where you had to like wait for Franco Harris or something for a long time? I think there was like an incident, like a-
Diane Pucin (10:42):
I waited for Franco Harris forever. I waited one time it was Reds. When I was in Columbus, actually, I was waiting outside the Braves locker room and Dale Murphy, who was a very, very much a religious, and he wouldn't even talk to ...
Diane Pucin (10:58):
So, I waited and waited and waited for him specifically. And he walked out and said, "I'm not talking to any woman who even wants to come in our locker room, because that's so un-Christian and against my beliefs."
Todd Jones (11:12):
What did you say to him?
Diane Pucin (11:15):
Again, I said, "Thank you for your time." I mean, I was not the one that was going to sue people or bust in.
Diane Pucin (11:23):
And at that time in Cincinnati, the sports editors weren't exactly breaking down the door. They didn't want to storm the gates on my behalf. In fact, Earl Lawson, who had covered the Reds forever. And he was wonderful to me, he was great. But he retired when I was there.
Diane Pucin (11:45):
So, the beat opened up for the first time in forever. And they asked us anybody who was interested to let them know. So, I did, not that I was dying to cover baseball, that was not my thing, but I thought, “I need to do this.”
Diane Pucin (12:02):
And was told by the sports editor, "We can't have you. We're not going to rock the boat basically, and demand that the Reds let you in and cover it. So, no, you'll not be covering the Reds but thank you very much for your interest." Kind of thing.
Todd Jones (12:19):
Wow. Well, this is not an issue that changed overnight by any means. I mean, you-
Diane Pucin (12:24):
No, it took-
Todd Jones (12:24):
It took many years.
Diane Pucin (12:27):
It took a long time. Yeah.
Todd Jones (12:28):
How did it change and when did it start to change?
Diane Pucin (12:34):
It was a gradual thing. So, it did become much to the dismay of many male reporters, I was doing a lot more college coverage. I ended up doing Xavier basketball in Miami University football while I was at The Post.
Diane Pucin (12:51):
And this isn't a good thing, but they decided, "Okay, we're not going to let anybody in the locker room and you're all going to have to wait outside," which wasn't great, but that was the solution. And you just learn to deal with it kind of. So, that was happening more and more.
Diane Pucin (13:11):
Some sports were better. Pro basketball and pro football seemed more amenable to having women in. And I attribute that a little bit to those guys had all mostly at least spent some time in college.
Diane Pucin (13:29):
Whereas baseball, a lot of those guys had never gone to college. And were less open to some of those ... my worst experiences in locker rooms were all baseball related.
Todd Jones (13:42):
Yeah. It was a very insular environment.
Diane Pucin (13:46):
Yeah. And the writers sometimes were as bad as the players.
Diane Pucin (15:01):
My worst experience, the year that I got the column in Philadelphia was the year that the Phillies ended up ... it was Mitch Williams, Lenny Dykstra, the horrible, horrible, horrible clubhouse. Jim Fregosi was the manager. He was not a good guy.
Diane Pucin (15:19):
And that year, they sent me on a road trip just to fill in to Montreal. It's still so clear in my mind.
Diane Pucin (15:28):
So, I go get to Montreal and I go to the visitor's clubhouse the first day I'm covering it. And Fregosi and the three other beat writers are standing in there waiting for me.
Diane Pucin (15:40):
So, I walk in, and Jim Fregosi said, "I've been waiting for you. I have a question to ask you. I need your opinion. What would you do in this situation? I paid for my ex-wife's tit jobs, and since I paid for those, shouldn't I get to touch them whenever I want to, because I paid for that tit job. So, they're mine, right?"
Diane Pucin (15:59):
And that's one where you're just, I'm standing there. I thought of all kinds of witty, good responses later, but I don't even know what I blurted out. And it didn't bother me what Fregosi said it was that those three guys stood there giggling like this was a setup.
Diane Pucin (16:20):
So, there was that kind of stuff that did not make it comfortable at the time.
Todd Jones (18:13):
When I think about the early start of your career and what you had to deal with, it seems crazy now. But you were also there for some crazy moments in sports.
Todd Jones (18:25):
And I want you to take us with you to February 23rd, 1985. That's one thing about being a sportswriter, there are certain dates that you know exactly where you were. You tell us where you were on February 23rd, 1985.
Diane Pucin (18:42):
I believe that would be Bloomington, Indiana. And one of the good things back then was we got seats right on the court. Our press seats were not up in the nether regions of the stadiums like they are most of the time now. So, we were right on the court, the beat writers anyway.
Diane Pucin (18:58):
And it was IU-Purdue game. And it was-
Todd Jones (19:02):
And you were there for the Louisville Courier Journal, correct?
Diane Pucin (19:06):
Yes. I was there for — IU was my beat for the Courier Journal. So, again, we did all the home and away games. It was pretty much a big deal.
Diane Pucin (19:17):
So, I'm there. Bobby was not ever thrilled about having a woman there. And he would use me to pimp writers. Sometimes I would ask a question in the post game and he would stop the press conference and say things like, "See, it takes a woman to ask a good question I'm willing to answer." So, he was both pimping me on the other [crosstalk 00:19:37].
Todd Jones (19:37):
And for the record, we're talking about Bobby Knight.
Diane Pucin (19:41):
Knight, yeah. He doesn't need a last name.
Diane Pucin (19:43):
So, this particular game wasn't going well. It was Purdue and it was a wild atmosphere anyway. And a couple calls Bobby was not pleased with, and a couple of players he also wasn't pleased with.
Diane Pucin (19:56):
And all of a sudden, he got up and he heaved that chair. I mean, it was a good throw. It wasn't just like a little kick or a little toss.
Todd Jones (20:10):
It was a 9.7.
Diane Pucin (20:11):
And that thing clattered across the ... I mean, it was a noisy, I'm surprised it didn't rip up the court. It was a real throw.
Diane Pucin (20:20):
And all you're thinking at that time is, “Oh, crud. It's deadline and the game suddenly is not important anymore. I think I have to rewrite the lead here that I was going to have.” And I don't even think at the time, I realized how big a deal that it was.
Diane Pucin (20:40):
And needless to say, he did not come and talk to us after the game about that little incident. But that was Bobby, that was every game. You just didn't know what was going to happen.
Todd Jones (22:35):
But you did see the chair, you saw Bobby throw the chair.
Diane Pucin (22:39):
I definitely saw the chair. Oh, I saw the chair. It was like slow motion almost. As that chair was skittering across the floor, it's like all time stopped. It became silent almost for a minute. It was one of those, "Oh my God, what am I seeing?"
Diane Pucin (22:57):
And then the chair stopped, and then the noise started. And you're rewriting your lead, obviously, because that's where we were.
Todd Jones (23:06):
Did you end up writing two different stories or just one?
Diane Pucin (23:11):
You know about writing running. So, I wrote a running story, which just how to, as a lead and some game running crap on the bottom of a tack down. And then rewrote it with as many quotes or reactions from people in the stands who of course thought Bobby had every right to throw the chair.
Todd Jones (23:33):
The place was going bonkers. Right?
Diane Pucin (23:35):
Yeah, yeah. Now, you look back on it and you think, “Okay, if that happened today, they probably would've stormed the court.” If there had been internet back then, I think the internet would've broke. I mean, at that moment-
Todd Jones (23:53):
Yeah. I don't think the game-
Diane Pucin (23:54):
… with that man.
Todd Jones (23:55):
The game probably wasn't on television. I think you're the first writer I've ever spoken to who actually was at that game.
Diane Pucin (24:01):
Was at the game, yeah. And that was part of the fun of writing sports back then, honestly, because you were actually describing things that most people had not seen live.
Todd Jones (25:31):
Well, the Big 10 really came down hard on Bob. They gave him a whole one game suspension.
Diane Pucin (25:36):
Yeah. And I'm surprised he got that much at that time.
Diane Pucin (25:44):
One of the IU seasons, they ended up going to the NLT, he had a bad year. And that season, Bob quit talking to the media at all after Christmas. It was Jim Crews, his assistant, was dispatched to talk to us after every game.
Diane Pucin (26:02):
And about midway through the season, he was the lame duck assistant because he was going to take the Evansville job.
Todd Jones (26:09):
Which he did. Yeah.
Diane Pucin (26:10):
Which he did. And IU didn't make the NCA tournament that year. They went to the NLT and they made it to New York. They got to the Final Four. And Bobby hadn't talked to us since Christmas to the local media.
Diane Pucin (26:20):
We get to New York and everybody's there. The lupicas is of the world, all the big everybody. And the press conference they had before the tournament, he sat there for two hours.
Diane Pucin (26:33):
And that was the sad thing. He could be so great when he talked to you. It was really good. It was so frustrating because he actually would have good things and interesting things to say, not just about basketball, but life in general.
Diane Pucin (26:51):
And he entertained them for two hours. And all these guys, the lupicas, wrote these glowing columns about the great Bobby Knight and all these wonderful. And us local beat writers are pulling our hair out because he hadn't spoke to us since Christmas. Thanks, Bob. But well done.
Todd Jones (27:09):
Did you ever have a one-on-one and a particular good conversation with Knight during your time as a beat reporter?
Diane Pucin (27:15):
One-on-one, no. The most would be sometimes in the middle of the week he would talk to the three or four of us who were there all the time. But no.
Todd Jones (28:34):
Now, I want to ask you about this, because we talked about the craziness of Bob Knight throwing a chair. And you were there.
Todd Jones (28:47):
You were also there at the Lillehammer Olympics. By the way, were you there at the US Figures Skating Championships in Detroit?
Diane Pucin (28:52):
In Detroit. At Cobo Arena. Sure was.
Todd Jones (28:55):
So, you were there for the actual whacking?
Diane Pucin (28:57):
For the actual whacking. The funny thing, Jere Longman had been The Enquirer Olympics writer till shortly before this happened. And he had taken the New York Times job. So, I got the Olympics piece. So, we were all in Detroit.
Diane Pucin (29:13):
And we're in the media room at Cobo Arena, and somebody comes running in and said, "Somebody just attacked Nancy Kerrigan." And Jere being a little bit of a smart said, "I'll bet it was Tonya Harding." Ha ha ha and we all laughed. And it turned out in effect, it was Tonya Harding.
Todd Jones (29:33):
He was right.
Diane Pucin (29:34):
He was right. So, again, that was another one of these, “What do you mean attack, like pushed her?” Well, as the story kept coming up more and more, you keep thinking it, "No, this can't be real." If you made this up and tried to sell it as a TV show, they'd say, "No, this is a joke. No, this couldn't happen."
Todd Jones (29:58):
And this is 1994. It's really like the earliest days of the internet starting to creep into our lives.
Diane Pucin (30:05):
Yeah. It wasn't oh, tweet this out immediately. There was no putting it out immediately. You had time to kind of try to report it out.
Todd Jones (30:16):
So, this became your life, though, for several weeks on through the Olympic games, which were like seven weeks later.
Todd Jones (30:22):
So, you were enmeshed in this on a day-to-day basis. What do you recall being a journalist at the frontline of that story?
Diane Pucin (30:35):
And it was, again, where newspapers had tons of resources. The Enquirer sent me out to Portland to write about where she came from, Tonya, the trailer trash kind of story.
Todd Jones (30:46):
You went to the trailer park?
Diane Pucin (30:48):
I went to the trailer park, I went to Portland, talked to people who went to the rink where she trained at, talked to people who knew her chain smoking, heavy drinking mom. Went to try to track down the family of her no-good low-class husband.
Diane Pucin (31:03):
I mean, it was pretty much day and night for two months before and during the Olympics, it was all Tonya, Tonya, Tonya, Nancy, Nancy, Nancy, get to Lillehammer. Every minute of that Olympics was going to every single practice, every single moment that Tonya and Nancy ...
Diane Pucin (31:27):
Writing the first time Tonya and Nancy were on the ice at the practice rink together. How close did they skate to each other? Did they look at each other? Did they talk to each other?
Diane Pucin (31:37):
Tonya ended up coming late to the Olympics because they had to have a whole hearing whether she was going to be allowed to compete.
Todd Jones (31:50):
That's right.
Diane Pucin (31:51):
And she was, because technically she claimed she didn't know that her fiance and his merry band of miss crayons had actually whacked Nancy. So, she ended up getting approval to go.
Diane Pucin (32:04):
So, when she arrived in Norway, it was just a mess. It was unbelievable.
Todd Jones (34:51):
Did you come to resent the story in the moment, because I know you loved the Olympics, and all of a sudden this became its own event? Or did you thrive on the idea of like you're documenting this crazy story hour by hour, day by day?
Diane Pucin (35:07):
I think I enjoyed the story because you knew everybody home, that's all anybody wanted to know about. I mean, people actually did want to know, what was it like ... they would practice, you would get ice time at a practice rink at like 3:00 in the morning. That's where we'd all ...
Diane Pucin (35:25):
I was lucky I had gone to Hamar all of it early to do some stories for The Enquirer on the games in the Scandinavia and how big they were. And I had a car that I got to keep during the Olympics, which is unheard of. And we had a parking pass.
Todd Jones (35:43):
Also unheard of at the Olympics.
Diane Pucin (35:44):
Also unheard of. And it was great because to get to these 2:00 and 3:00 AM practices, the bus system wouldn't take us there necessarily at that time.
Diane Pucin (35:56):
So, I had this Volvo, I love this little Volvo, and it was like a clown car, as many people as we could cram into the Volvo.
Todd Jones (36:04):
How many writers can you shove into a Volvo?
Diane Pucin (36:06):
Could you fit in a Volvo? To drive over to the practice rink in Hamar and open it up and like eight of them would spill out with everybody's winter coats and boots.
Diane Pucin (36:14):
Because they said it once the practice rink was full, however many was allowed by the fire department, whatever, then it would be shut. So, if you weren't there really early, you wouldn't get in. So, we were all there really early every ...
Diane Pucin (36:35):
Partly, I was sad I wasn't seeing other events. Partly it was kind of a rush to be covering this story that everybody at home hung on every word that you wrote about it.
Todd Jones (37:02):
Right. Well, you mentioned Lillehammer. I hear from writers all the time of what a great winter Olympics that was. I hear about Barcelona, your first Olympics.
Diane Pucin (37:13):
Barcelona was my first.
Todd Jones (37:14):
1992. Your work there, by the way, was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize.
Todd Jones (37:17):
What is it about the Olympics when you look back, you covered seven of them? As a journalist, what did you find challenging and what did you enjoy?
Diane Pucin (37:32):
I enjoyed it because you got to tell stories that everybody in the world didn't already know. When you cover a Super Bowl or a World Series or — and I love the Final Four too, but when you do things like that, it's really hard to tell a lot of stories that aren't told already.
Diane Pucin (37:53):
You're always looking for a different angle, but there's so many people covering it and it's hard to find things that everybody doesn't know about.
Diane Pucin (38:03):
With the Olympics, and even I know it's not amateurism per se, and I know there's a lot of bad things, stuff that's involved with it. But so many of the athletes, it is their be all and end all. This one moment is so massively important to them.
Todd Jones (42:22):
So, Diane, when you reflect back on the Olympics, what story or moment that you were able to witness as a journalist still stays with you all these years later?
Diane Pucin (42:35):
It was Lillehammer again. The way that the Olympics happened, the speed skating followed figure skating in the same arena. So, after Tonya, Nancy was done, speed skaters took over.
Diane Pucin (42:47):
And it was Dan Jansen's last Olympics. And he had been the best speed skater in the world for over eight years.
Diane Pucin (42:54):
This was his third Olympics yet he had never won an Olympic medal. He had every world record in the 500 and the 1,000 meters. He won every other thing you could win. He had not medaled at the Olympics. He had horrible falls.
Diane Pucin (43:08):
One Olympics, his sister, who ended up passing away, was battling leukemia. And he was just distraught over that. Horrible luck.
Diane Pucin (43:19):
So, we come to this last Olympics, and again, he had the world record by a lot in the 500. The 500 meters was his best. And he skated the 1,000 also. So, 500 is up first, he is going like gangbusters and the final turn, and he falls again.
Diane Pucin (43:36):
And the Norwegians adored speed skating. And they loved him. They got him. They loved him. They were rooting so hard for him.
Diane Pucin (43:47):
And he fell on that final turn, and he threw his hands up and covered his head. And there was dead silence in that arena. And he skates off and everybody's devastated.
Diane Pucin (44:00):
I mean, he was a really good guy. Everybody loved him. Everybody knew his story.
Diane Pucin (44:04):
So, the thousand meters was going to be a couple days after. And at first, he said he wasn't going to skate it. He didn't think he could win the 1,000 anyway. And he was really upset.
Diane Pucin (44:15):
Well, his coach talked him into skating it, but he didn't have great hopes. And the way that they skate, they skate in pairs and you're going by your best time previously at the worlds or whatever. I don't exactly remember.
Diane Pucin (44:31):
But he didn't skate in the final pair because a 1,000 wasn't his best. He skated earlier in the grouping, and he skated probably the best he'd ever skated the 1,000. But you didn't know if his time was going to make it because all the best skaters came after him in the 1,000.
Todd Jones (44:51):
Right. Would it hold up? Yeah.
Diane Pucin (44:53):
Would it hold up? Would it hold up? And it kept holding up and it kept holding up and it kept holding up.
Diane Pucin (44:59):
And right before the final pair went, Bill Glauber, who was a buddy of mine who covered the Olympics for the Baltimore Sun, he and I looked at each other and we decided we'd make our way around to where his wife and his baby, who was named Jane after his dead sister.
Todd Jones (45:17):
You're talking about Dan Jansen's wife and baby?
Diane Pucin (45:19):
Dan Jansen. Dan's wife and his little daughter who was a baby. We go over to where they're sitting and we get there just about the time that the time helds up and the place erupts. And when you win, you get to skate a lap with your flag and you get that whole moment.
Diane Pucin (45:43):
So, he skates over to where his wife and the baby are in the stands and he is gesturing … well, they passed baby Jane down to him and Bill and I got to hold Baby Jane and pass Baby Jane.
Todd Jones (45:56):
Oh, you were holding the baby.
Diane Pucin (45:57):
We were holding Baby Jane and handing Baby Jane to Dan as he-
Todd Jones (46:02):
I mean, talk about getting close to a story.
Diane Pucin (46:04):
So, he's got the flag in Baby Jane and he's skating. And I mean, both of us were like balling like babies. And you're supposed to remain neutral. And sometimes you just, the goosebump moments, I call them. And when you have a goosebump moment like that, it's really special.
Diane Pucin (46:24):
And again, describing that was special because people did not see it live. They saw it eight hours later at night when it was on the TV show that was produced by NBC. What made it almost better is they heard about it, but they didn't see it. And you got to tell them.
Todd Jones (46:44):
I mean, you got to tell them, "Hey, I'm holding the baby."
Diane Pucin (46:47):
I'm holding the baby Jane. J-A-N-E.
Todd Jones (46:51):
Well, those are the kind of moments that make the Olympics so special. And especially for a writer. And I know how much you loved covering the games. The same as I felt very fortunate to have had that experience as a writer.
Todd Jones (47:08):
Another sport you love and covered a lot was tennis. And we haven't talked a lot of tennis on this show.
Todd Jones (47:38):
What did you enjoy about covering tennis during your time?
Diane Pucin (47:42):
Well, and mostly it was the major. So, you didn't cover every tournament around the country. But the majors were two weeks. And stories that you had no idea would be, stories would gradually unfold over those two weeks, and you never knew necessarily what that story would be.
Diane Pucin (48:01):
So, there was a surprise element. I first started covering it in Philly and I covered the first tournament that Pete Sampras ever won.
Diane Pucin (48:12):
And I remember it because the tournament director, Marilyn Fernberger, pulled me aside before the tournament started and said, “You have to pay attention to this Pete Sampras kid. You aren't going to believe how good he is.”
Diane Pucin (48:24):
And Marilyn was a salesman, and she was always prodding you to cover that Philly tournament and write. So, you took a kind of with a grain of salt.
Diane Pucin (48:34):
But then I saw him, and he won that year, and I think he was still only 18. And that was the first tournament he ever won. And then the next fall, this was in the winter indoors and he won the US Open. But I was privileged.
Diane Pucin (48:51):
So, I grew up in Borg and McEnroe and loved watching all of their battles. But I started covering it with Pete and Andre, and Michael Chang and Jim Courier and Americans actually paid attention.
Diane Pucin (49:07):
And during the two weeks of these slams, just you never knew what was going to unfold, what drama there'd be, whether you'd be sitting in the US open interview room and Brooke Shields would be talking about Andre. And then you'd get a transcript of the Brooke Shields press conference at the US Open-
Todd Jones (49:24):
Wait a minute, I got a sidebar.
Diane Pucin (49:26):
... Talking about Andre.
Diane Pucin (49:28):
I actually think I did keep that. I think I still have that transcript.
Todd Jones (49:32):
Well, seeing Sampras at a such a young age. That's like seeing a band in a small bar before that band becomes huge.
Diane Pucin (49:40):
And he probably won that tournament in front of a couple thousand people. And this gangly kind of skinny kid that when he hit the first serve, I saw him hit in person, the sound that his racket made hitting that ball, you're like, "Yeah, this is pretty good. He might be a step above everybody else."
Diane Pucin (50:05):
I was at the John Isner-Nicholas Mahut. Longest match ever, ever, ever, ever at Wimbledon that-
Todd Jones (50:13):
Alright, well, tell us about that one.
Diane Pucin (50:15):
And when you're at a tennis tournament, obviously you cannot be at every match. So, I believe the match started on a Tuesday, and it's John Isner. And you weren't necessarily going to write about him in his first round match against some French guy most of us hadn't heard of yet.
Diane Pucin (50:34):
And it stopped because of darkness. Okay, no big deal. And you go back the next day and you're kind of keeping an eye on it, but you're covering other things that are better and more important. But this match keeps going on, and you keep checking the score and it's still going on.
Diane Pucin (50:51):
And you go out and cover a couple other matches and come back and it's still going on. And it gets dark again and they still haven't finished.
Diane Pucin (51:01):
And so, now, it's become kind of a big deal. And now, the people in the office, even the ones who don't care about tennis and grumble that we're spending money covering Wimbledon, are like all into it now.
Diane Pucin (51:13):
So, I get back to the room that night, and I'm told … and this was in the very early days when our papers were trying everything. And so, we were supposed to blog constantly. Blog everything, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog, blog. So, I'm told-
Todd Jones (51:27):
It's kind of like, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, when you think about it.
Diane Pucin (51:29):
Yep. And that's what it read like. So, I'm told, "Okay, tomorrow we want you to blog every point. We want every point."
Todd Jones (51:38):
Every point?
Diane Pucin (51:39):
Every point.
Todd Jones (51:49):
The LA Times wants you to blog every point.
Diane Pucin (51:54):
Every point. Well, because what they had discovered was our internet traffic went up in the mornings in LA. When people got to the office, people apparently would sneak onto their computers and follow stuff.
Diane Pucin (52:08):
So, Wimbledon, because of the time difference when people were getting to their office in LA in the morning, Wimbledon was going on still. And they knew that they get a lot of traffic at that time in the morning.
Diane Pucin (52:20):
So, they wanted all the people in the office who were trying to sneakily see the results, to see what was happening.
Todd Jones (52:26):
I mean, talk about writing a running story. You're writing every point.
Diane Pucin (52:31):
I'm writing John Isner serves into the net. Second serve, ace. John Isner serves into the net. Second serve return. This was what I wrote till it finally ended.
Diane Pucin (52:48):
By the time it ended, and I had blogged every point of the third day. And then I had to write a story for the paper. Like who cares at this point?
Todd Jones (52:58):
Well, you had enough notes, that's for sure.
Diane Pucin (53:00):
I had a lot of notes.
Todd Jones (53:02):
By the way, I forget, how many games did it go? Do you recall?
Diane Pucin (53:08):
It was, I believe, 71, 68 in the fifth.
Todd Jones (53:11):
Geez.
Diane Pucin (53:12):
And it changed the rule. They changed the rule after that. They changed the whole tiebreaker rule. Basically, it ruined the rest of the season for both of them. They were literally so exhausted. Neither of them did anything the rest of the season.
Diane Pucin (53:31):
But I would love to know if people actually sat in front of their computers waiting for my Isner service winner. Mahut, return net. Because there were no [crosstalk 00:53:44].
Todd Jones (53:44):
It's amazing what papers were trying in those days.
Diane Pucin (53:46):
And it was the most boring tennis because the two, all they did was serve and either hit a return winner or hit a return to the net. There were no rallies, there were no lovely, elegant, long, interesting points.
Todd Jones (53:59):
It was like watching your neighbors play.
Diane Pucin (54:00):
Yeah. Serve nets. Ace, serve net. Return winner.
Todd Jones (54:04):
So, what was the press conference like?
Diane Pucin (54:06):
Neither of them could put a coherent sentence together almost.
Todd Jones (54:14):
Neither could you at this point.
Diane Pucin (54:15):
And neither could we. And Isner heard then he won, so he was going to have to play another match the next day. And he could barely drag himself out onto the court the next day and got pummeled by somebody.
Diane Pucin (54:29):
Neither of them even understood the immense momentous occasion that there is now a plaque on court 18 celebrating this match forever. Neither of them even grasp what they had done, I don't think.
Todd Jones (54:44):
Well, like you said, you just didn't know what you're going to find in a two week period of time. Right?
Diane Pucin (54:48):
That was not on my Bingo card that year when I went to Wimbledon. It wasn't.
Todd Jones (54:55):
Besides Wimbledon, you covered the other three majors in tennis. I'm particularly interested in the US Open in New York. This vast sea of cement. I never had the experience of covering the US Open. How was that different than the other tennis majors?
Diane Pucin (55:12):
Most people say Wimbledon is their favorite. I loved the open, I loved just the loud body, crazy, noisy, everything about it, about the open. Again, you never knew. I was there for the Connors-Aaron Krickstein match, the one where Connor's comes back and wins. And he is thrusting his pelvis at the ...
Diane Pucin (55:36):
And they played forevermore whenever there was a rain delay at the Open until they finally got a roof. Whenever there's a rain delay, they would put that match on. I've seen that match hundreds of times, I think.
Todd Jones (55:48):
1991 when Connors made this unexpected run to the semis.
Diane Pucin (55:53):
He was 39, I believe, he was supposed to be done. And he gets Aaron Krickstein on a Thursday night. It's a night match, of course, deadline like crazy. He's playing the crowd to a tee, and it drove John McEnroe crazy.
Diane Pucin (56:11):
Connors was a punk. He was not a very likable guy, but he sold himself as this gutty play as hard out. The fans loved him, and they hated McEnroe, who was who he was. McEnroe didn't disguise who he was. McEnroe didn't try to hide who he was. And it drove him crazy that Jimmy was beloved and he was hated.
Diane Pucin (56:34):
But anyway, so Jimmy is playing this to the hill. Poor Jimmy Arias didn't have a chance in hell. He had the crowd in his hand, but the theater was great. And he went there-
Todd Jones (56:49):
It was theater, right? It was like you're recovering something on Broadway.
Diane Pucin (56:52):
It was theater. So, you're at night, the crowd is drunk and hepped up and crazed, and it's Jimmy and it's everybody knows this is his last stand.
Diane Pucin (57:03):
And the stands are shaking, everything shaking. They were metal bleachers. You could hear the metal bleachers, people kicking, jumping. It was raucous just beyond description almost. But it was unbelievable theater.
Todd Jones (57:18):
What was it like in the press box?
Diane Pucin (57:19):
That press box was scary because it was basically this metal, not very sturdy structure. And when the stands shook, so did the press box.
Diane Pucin (57:31):
When there were thunderstorms, the press box would sway in the wind when the lightning was hitting. You thinking, "Okay, if we get struck by lightning, we're ..." Literally these thunderstorms would roll in.
Diane Pucin (57:44):
It always seemed like, because it was always over Labor Day, and there'd always be one huge thunderstorm. And like summer would end and fall would come in this one moment, and you'd be in the press box and the thing was swaying in the wind, and you were praying that it didn't fall over.
Todd Jones (57:58):
You were just trying to think of a lead.
Diane Pucin (58:00):
But it wasn't enclosed, so you really were a part of the atmosphere. I mean, you felt exactly what was happening in that stadium. And it was kind of cool.
Todd Jones (58:11):
It made for rich writing. I mean, you could write what it was like to actually experience it.
Diane Pucin (58:17):
Yeah. There was a match. Pete Sampras, it was the quarterfinals, and he got sick and he is throwing up on the court.
Todd Jones (58:24):
Oh yeah, yeah.
Diane Pucin (58:25):
He's wobbling and can barely stand up. And he is heaving his guts out in the corner. And yeah, the open is a little special.
Todd Jones (58:35):
Well, you were at the US Open in 2001, and the Los Angeles Times had sent you on quite a road trip. I think you were gone for like 10 days. You started out covering a college football game at Penn State, and then you went to the second week of the US Open.
Todd Jones (58:52):
And I'm going to bring this up because you have written about this. This is 2001, and the LA Times asked you to stay an extra day to cover the Yankees Red Sox on Monday. I'm going to let you take it from there.
Diane Pucin (59:08):
Yeah. They had called, I think on Sunday, the last day of the Open, my editor said, "Could you change your flight and come back Tuesday instead?"
Diane Pucin (59:18):
Because Clemens was going for his 20th straight win, which was a big deal in and out of itself. And he was going for that 20th straight win against the Yankees, even a bigger deal. “So, stay and do that game and come home Tuesday." So, I was, "Okay, sure.”
Diane Pucin (59:32):
My flight, because I had gotten assigned to this kind of late, and by now, the gravy train was kind of over, and we were always trying to save money, I flew a really crazy — I flew from LA through Boston to Islip, New York because it saved like 2,000 and some dollars on the fair. So, my flight home was Islip, Boston, LA.
Diane Pucin (59:56):
So, on Sunday night, after they asked me, so I'm calling to change my flight back to LA on Tuesday the 11th instead of Monday the 10th.
Diane Pucin (01:00:07):
And at first, I was going to … I'm not a morning person, I never have been. It's just not me. And the only two flights were a 6:00 AM from Islip to Boston to LA or a 3:00 PM. I slipped Boston, LA.
Diane Pucin (01:00:24):
And I was hoping maybe they'd give me a break and they would let me switch it and go just from New York to LA. But no, nope, you got to stay on the route. Otherwise, you're going to have to buy a whole new ticket. So, I said, okay, I'll take the 6:00 AM thinking, “Oh, then I'd be back in LA by noon basically.”
Diane Pucin (01:00:41):
And so, I got assigned and I had tons of miles, and I said, "Can I upgrade?" She said, "Yeah, upgraded seats are available."
Diane Pucin (01:00:51):
So, I had seat 11B in business class, and after she gave me the seat, I'm thinking, "Oh, man. The day will be wasted anyway. And I'll be cranky, and I'll have no sleep. Basically, by the time I get back from Yankee Stadium, it'll probably be 2:00 or 3:00 in the morning."
Diane Pucin (01:01:07):
And so, I said, "I hate to do this, but could you switch me to the afternoon flight, to the 3:00 PM but only if the upgrade will still go through?" And she changes it and said, "Oh yeah, it'll still go through. So, I'll put you on the 3:00 PM flight."
Diane Pucin (01:01:22):
So, Monday comes, and it rains all day, all day, and the game has rained out. So, I didn't see Roger Clemens go for his, that all didn't happen.
Diane Pucin (01:01:33):
And the next morning, so I tell Dan, I could have taken the 6:00 AM but I'm on the 3:00 PM so call me at 11:00 or 12:00 or make sure I'm up."
Diane Pucin (01:01:46):
So, I go to bed and I'm at the Grand Hyatt, which is the media hotel where the tennis always was. And the phone rings and Dan says, "Get up and turn on the TV."
Todd Jones (01:01:59):
Is your husband Dan calling you from Los Angeles?
Diane Pucin (01:02:01):
Yes. Calling from LA. So, "Turn on the TV right now." So, I turn it on, and the first plane has already flown in, but nobody's exactly sure what has happened. And Dan said, "This is unbelievable."
Diane Pucin (01:02:13):
So, we're talking, and as we're talking, the crawl goes on the bottom and it says this flight's believed to be American Flight 11. And that stuck in my mind, because you don't often get a flight 11. And I said, "Oh, wow. That was the flight I would've been on if I hadn't changed my ticket."
Diane Pucin (01:02:30):
And as we're saying this, the second plane goes in, and me being somewhat naive sometimes, like, "Oh wow, this something's really bad with air traffic control." And Dan's screaming, "This isn't air traffic control. This is way more than that."
Diane Pucin (01:02:45):
And the rest is kind of, it was way more than that. But had I not wanted to sleep in, this is one time it really worked in my favor because I would have been on American Flight 11 and flown into the tower. Instead, I was in New York for most of the rest of the week.
Todd Jones (01:03:05):
So, you were booked on seat 15B on flight 11?
Diane Pucin (01:03:11):
Yeah, on flight 11. And I would've been the row behind Muhammad Ada. It turned out. He would've ...
Todd Jones (01:03:17):
Oh, my.
Diane Pucin (01:03:18):
So, 9/11, always ... anybody who ever says bad things about New York, I will always go ... the people in New York were unbelievable.
Diane Pucin (01:03:31):
Everything was, there was no panic. There were all kinds of rumors, all the bridges and tunnels are going to be blocked. Everybody was thinking more horrible stuff would happen. And all people did was go about the business of dealing. You could smell death. I mean, the smell of death was there.
Diane Pucin (01:03:58):
I was trying to call the office, it was hard to get a call through. I had had a limo that was going to be at the hotel to take me to the airport. And instead, I got as much cash as I could and asked him to get me as close as it would get me downtown. And ended up talking to as many people as I could.
Diane Pucin (01:04:21):
We were being told that survivors were going to go to Bellevue Hospital. And got there and there were, it seemed like hundreds of doctors and nurses and emergency personnel waiting. But they were waiting basically for either you survived with kind of not horrific injuries or you didn't survive.
Diane Pucin (01:04:43):
And there was one girl, and I still see her face, and she's talking on the phone to her mom. And so, people who were looking for loved ones were being given forms to fill out.
Diane Pucin (01:04:53):
And she was asking her mom, "Mom, did dad have any scars? They're asking if he has any — like did he have any surgery? Where are his scars? I need to put down exactly what ... did he have a tattoo?"
Diane Pucin (01:05:07):
She was trying to describe her dad who was missing and who probably was dead. And it sticks with me. That day is forever.
Diane Pucin (01:05:23):
And you wonder, after it was over, I'm thinking, "Why didn't I get on that flight? What and why did other people get on the flight?"
Diane Pucin (01:05:33):
And it was the next year when I went back to the open and they had all the ceremonies. And I was sitting in the stands weeping at the open as they bring out the flag.
Diane Pucin (01:05:46):
And I still watch everything. I watch every single thing they have, each September 11th. I feel like I owe the people who died to watch that over and over.
Todd Jones (01:06:00):
Diane, you having a seat on that flight and then changing, did you ever feel a sense of like survivor's guilt?
Diane Pucin (01:06:07):
Yeah. Like why did some poor father with kids, why were kids, their dads never came home. I had Dan and I had our first Glenn, but I didn't have kids. Why should I have not gone down? And yeah, often.
Todd Jones (01:06:30):
You were in New York because you were covering sports and you stayed, I think until Saturday when you were able to get a flight out of Philly.
Diane Pucin (01:06:38):
First flight I could get out of Philly.
Todd Jones (01:06:40):
So, you were writing about it and because you're there as a sportswriter now, you obviously shift and you're covering this huge event.
Todd Jones (01:06:48):
Yet you witnessed sports in New York, even in those first days, right? You were walking to Bellevue Hospital and I think you saw a pickup basketball game going on down at 35th and Second Avenue.
Todd Jones (01:07:02):
What were your thoughts about sports and how it fit into what you were experiencing in New York in those days?
Diane Pucin (01:07:12):
It was clear, the people that were out hitting tennis balls or shooting hoops, they needed some sort of sense of normalcy almost. It was like, "Okay, I need to get out of the house and not watch. There was nothing on TV to watch, but coverage of this."
Diane Pucin (01:07:30):
People needed to be out doing something that reminded them of being normal. And sports was part of that.
Diane Pucin (01:07:42):
And there was a whole discussion when should sports start up again? Should the NFL play? When should the NFL come back? When should MLB come back?
Diane Pucin (01:07:51):
And as I saw people out and about shooting hoops or playing tennis or kicking a soccer ball, I thought probably the sooner the better. Because it will give people a chance to be normal for a moment. And to realize that everything's not horrible. As horrible as it was in that moment. It's not forever going to be horrible.
Diane Pucin (01:08:16):
And it made me kind of feel good that people were out doing that. That sports was able to ease tension, ease fears, just make the day feel a little normal, even if it's just for an hour or so.
Todd Jones (01:08:32):
You went on to write about sports for another 13 years for the Los Angeles Times. Did your experience with 9/11 change how you wrote about sports?
Diane Pucin (01:08:47):
That's a good question and I'm not sure. By that time, it was becoming more and more what I didn't like about sports writing at the end. That everything had to have the more clicks, the better, the more controversial you could make something, the more crazy you could make something.
Diane Pucin (01:09:06):
And I would think sometimes, God, it's almost like people seem to wish that our bosses or editors or what wish that there was a 9/11 every day because you get a lot of clicks.
Diane Pucin (01:09:18):
It seemed like there was less appreciation of the stories I love doing, like at the Olympics with athletes that just loved competing for competing. And it didn't have to be every sorted detail.
Diane Pucin (01:09:35):
And I know people are interested in what athlete is dating who. And I don't know, I'm not doing it anymore, so I don't know if it's still that much, but the pursuit of clicks became really discouraging.
Diane Pucin (01:09:59):
And I don't think as many good stories are being told, because if you have it, what you think is a good story, but it doesn't have some sort of fancy sexy something to it, there doesn't seem to be interest.
Diane Pucin (01:10:20):
And that makes me sad because those are the stories I like reading. Yes, you have to talk about the salary negotiations or this or that, but it seems like sports was the one place where you could also tell good stories. And I don't see as many of them.
Diane Pucin (01:10:37):
That's why it makes me sad the New York Times is losing their sports section because their sports section told the stories that I loved to read more than any other paper. And I have a feeling that's not going to be the case anymore.
Todd Jones (01:10:50):
Well, during the initial days of 9/11, when you were writing about what was going on in New York you had to try to, in your own mind, figure out where sports fit in that moment.
Todd Jones (01:11:02):
Now, when you think about nearly 40 years as a sportswriter, where did sports fit in your life?
Diane Pucin (01:11:10):
It was a major portion of my life. It was the background of my life. It was the rhythms of my life would be like summer would be marked into, okay, it's a French open, two weeks off, then it's Wimbledon. Four weeks off, then it's the US Open.
Diane Pucin (01:11:30):
Come home, it's college football time. Couple weeks after college football and it's college basketball. My favorite time of the year. Many Thanksgivings and Christmas spent on the road at holiday tournaments or football games.
Diane Pucin (01:11:48):
College basketball ends, Final Four, and then it's almost time for the French Open again. My life was divided into those kind of segments and it was kind of cool.
Todd Jones (01:12:03):
It was, right?
Diane Pucin (01:12:04):
Yeah, it was.
Todd Jones (01:12:05):
It was the rhythm of our lives.
Diane Pucin (01:12:07):
Tour de France for a while. That was how I approached life, I think.
Todd Jones (01:12:15):
Well, Diane, I feel this coming across in your voice and I can relate. I'm out of the business now, and I think back on it and I share your feelings and I thank you for sharing your stories, particularly the story about 9/11.
Todd Jones (01:12:30):
I think it's important that we know what it was like to be a journalist in that moment. And I applaud you for sharing.
Diane Pucin (01:12:37):
I hope that people don't forget about 9/11. And I hope that kids today who weren't alive then will watch some of the 9/11 retrospectives every year and just watch and feel.
Todd Jones (01:12:54):
Well, thank you so much for the retrospective about your many, many experiences as a sportswriter. This has been-
Diane Pucin (01:13:03):
You're welcome.
Todd Jones (01:13:03):
... very Interesting to go through a lot of highs and lows and laughs and emotion. And that's kind of what sports is all about, right?
Diane Pucin (01:13:11):
It is, it absolutely is. Good and bad.
Todd Jones (01:13:14):
Diane, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it.
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