Mike DeCourcy: “It Was Like Being Given a Ticket to Heaven.”

Mike DeCourcy edited transcript

Todd Jones (00:00):

Welcome, Mike. It's a real pleasure to have you join us on Press Box Access.

Mike DeCourcy (00:06):

Well, it's an honor, really. Considering some of the people that you've had roll through here, I'm honored to even be considered to have a discussion with you.

Todd Jones (00:16):

Well, if you only knew what we paid those people to come, then you'll be hitting me up for the next check. So, thank you, Michael.

Todd Jones (00:22):

In all seriousness, Mike, I want to say you've always been one of my favorites to share time and space with and not just because of a shared love of college basketball and your expertise being a United States Basketball Writers Hall of Fame member, and on and on. Everybody knows college basketball, knows Mike DeCourcy.

Todd Jones (00:43):

But really just being around you, your personality, Mike, you're a happy guy. You're upbeat, you're smiling. I don't know, sometimes are you really a sportswriter? Some of the credence I used to run with-

Mike DeCourcy (00:55):

It's funny, Todd, because really among the reasons that I decided to enter this business, and I decided very young that I wanted to cover sports. Honestly, the main thing that I was worried about ... I got out of school at a time when people talk about, "Oh, this year's not going to be a good year for college graduates."

Mike DeCourcy (01:17):

Well, for my age group, it was like five years. We had terrible economic times. And it was like, so what can I do when I get out of college that I can get a job in?

Mike DeCourcy (01:28):

So, I knew I wanted to cover sports, and whether that meant on the radio or on television or in print, I wanted to do that. And of course, when you were in the 1970s, the first opportunity that you got to do anything similar to that was in print.

Mike DeCourcy (01:46):

And now, a young person in high school can have access to significant television and internet opportunities. And radio maybe seems a little bit sort of like distant in the background, although it's certainly a vibrant medium still. It's just not the cutting edge.

Mike DeCourcy (02:04):

But you have opportunities to do all those things. In high school, it was very rare. We did very little with video in high school.

Mike DeCourcy (02:11):

So, print was where I began really getting into this. And when I did get out of college, that was where the opportunities was for me. I trained myself in college and allowed myself to be trained to handle whatever.

Mike DeCourcy (02:27):

I didn't get as much work in television as I might have, but I did a lot of radio. And I did a lot of print as well. And so, the idea was to be ready for any of it.

Todd Jones (02:41):

Well, I think your career is an example of that. You've evolved into so many different expertise on platforms, TV, podcasts, radio, Big Ten Network. You're a bracketologist for Fox Sports in March.

You've been at The Sporting News since 2000, full time, but you've been there for 29 seasons covering college basketball in total for 37. That's a lot of hoops, Mike.

Mike DeCourcy (03:12):

It is. It is, yeah. But the idea was that when I got out … and I tell young people now that they need to learn three things. They need to learn how to write, they need to learn how to report, and they need to learn how to talk.

Mike DeCourcy (03:26):

And when I say talk, I mean in front of a microphone, obviously, it helps to be able to talk in front of a camera as well, but you're going to need all that now.

Mike DeCourcy (03:35):

And I was fortunate, I went to a school, Point Park University in downtown Pittsburgh, where the major was literally journalism and communications. The idea was to master all of it ... or master's a strong word, but to get experience in all of it.

Mike DeCourcy (03:51):

So, that's how I worked it. And it turned out that print was the entree into the business. But later on in my career, I got the opportunity to do a bunch of television as well. And I've really enjoyed it.

Todd Jones (04:05):

What is it about college basketball, Mike? You've done other sports, and we're going to talk a little bit about first 10 years or so of your career when you did a lot of other sports. But what is it about college basketball that has kept you enthralled for, well, this is your 37th season?

Mike DeCourcy (04:21):

Well, it's interesting because, Todd, I grew up in the Pittsburgh area, and I didn't know these people at the time, but there were a lot of other young sports journalists that were growing up in that same time.

Mike DeCourcy (04:34):

And actually, one of them, I did know Dave Molinari, who became a hockey Hall of Fame sportswriter for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Press. He actually went to my high school. He was three, four years older than me, but he went to my high school. So, I did know Dave.

Mike DeCourcy (04:49):

But then people like Gerry Dulac, and Tom McMillan, Mark Madden, Dejan Kovacevic.

Todd Jones (04:55):

Right. Great journalists.

Mike DeCourcy (04:56):

Yeah. These are all great guys and terrific at the business. And they all grew up absolutely entrenched in hockey. It was everything to them. That was their main sport. And I had very little interest in hockey. It didn't move me.

Mike DeCourcy (05:09):

But basketball, it started with really, I trace it to watching my brother play. My brother was a very good player. He was a good athlete in all sports, but basketball was his love. And it's the one he was best at.

Mike DeCourcy (05:23):

Going to his games in fifth grade, sixth grade, seventh grade, all the way up through he played until he was a junior at La Roche College. Going to those games, I fell in love with the sport. That was one.

Mike DeCourcy (05:35):

And that love that I made evident for the sport, when I was a sophomore in high school, my high school biology teacher was also, assistant coach on the basketball team. And he knew that I loved the sport.

Mike DeCourcy (05:48):

And he said, "Hey, I'm going to go to the Dapper Dan game in April. Do you want to go?" And I'm like, "Are you kidding me?" Like I was this 15-year-old loser, and my high school biology teacher asked me if I wanted to go to this game. I mean, it was like being given a ticket to Heaven. I mean, it was the most amazing night.

Mike DeCourcy (06:09):

And seeing all those great talents ... and it wasn't even really in the end, a great year for the Dapper Dan. It was a pretty down year for them. But it was just like seeing all of that just like opened up the world to me.

Mike DeCourcy (06:23):

And I went to every Dapper Dan Round Ball classic from that year until I moved out of Pittsburgh in '93. It was really an important occasion for me. I got to know Sonny Vaccaro and obviously, Sonny's a good connection to have in this business. So, I've known him now for close to 30 years, 30 years or so. Close to 40 years I should say.

Mike DeCourcy (06:46):

And so, that's really what got me into basketball was those two things. And when I went to the Pittsburgh Press, I think I made it pretty obvious that that was what I really wanted.

Mike DeCourcy (06:58):

And I'll give Russ Brown and Sam Betchel credit, they said to themselves, never out loud to me, but they said, "Well, we're not giving him college basketball until he really learns how to do this stuff." And so, it took me four or five years, full-time at the paper until they finally gave me a college hoops beat.

Todd Jones (07:19):

Well, let's talk about that. You joined the Pittsburgh Press in 1983, and you ended up working there for 10 years in your hometown paper. And you didn't do college basketball right away. You did a little baseball, you did some boxing, auto racing.

Todd Jones (07:32):

What was it like when you first started out? I'm really curious about this. What type of machine did you use to write your stories?

Mike DeCourcy (07:41):

My first machine was what we called the TI. It was the Texas Instruments. It looked like a typewriter, and it had a roll of thermal paper that when you typed, the words would come up on the screen … not on the screen, but on the paper.

Mike DeCourcy (07:59):

The thermal paper would take the heat from the key, and it would put the letter into the thermal paper. And that was how you knew what you wrote. But it was all recorded in a machine.

Mike DeCourcy (08:10):

And it had couplers on the back. It had these two little rubber phone receptors. And you would put the phone into it, and then that would transmit the story.

Mike DeCourcy (08:23):

That was my first machine. And I worked on that for two or three years, maybe four tops before Radio Shack came out with the Trash-80.

Todd Jones (08:34):

Oh, the Trash-80, yes. If you bumped the table and you had couplers, your story was screwed. Right? It was gone.

Mike DeCourcy (08:43):

Yes.

Todd Jones (08:43):

So, you had to be have everybody around you quiet. But then when you got the Trash-80, you could throw that thing out of the press box into the street, and it would still send.

Mike DeCourcy (08:54):

Todd, do you know how many sports writers, if they had just bought like maybe 200 shares of Microsoft the first time they pressed the button and it said copyright Microsoft. We would all be among the wealthiest people in America, but none of us did it.

Mike DeCourcy (09:09):

"Like Microsoft. What is that?" And then we would just go on and type our stories. But it came up every time. It was like, "Buy Microsoft, people."

Todd Jones (09:17):

You could only see four lines of copy though.

Mike DeCourcy (09:19):

Yes, yes.

Todd Jones (09:20):

So, you would write these paragraphs that had like 900 words in them. You didn't realize it because you couldn't see your copy, but it would send every time.

Mike DeCourcy (09:30):

In 2016, my wife and I went to Washington, DC for a week for vacation, and we went to the museum which is-

Todd Jones (09:43):

Yeah, I went there.

Mike DeCourcy (09:43):

It might have closed, I'm not sure.

Todd Jones (09:44):

It did close. Which is kind of an indictment to a whole industry, right?

Mike DeCourcy (09:48):

Yes. That's sad. But when we were there, one of the things that we saw was the Trash-80 that was like to show you like what newspaper business used to look like.

Mike DeCourcy (09:58):

And it was a big upgrade when they ... I think they called it the 200, I can't remember for sure. But it had a flip up screen, and now, you've got like 8 lines or 12 lines of copy. It was a bit real.

Todd Jones (10:07):

When the Cincinnati Post gave me one of those, and I could actually flip my screen up, I thought, "Okay, I made it. They're not going to fire me."

Mike DeCourcy (10:14):

There you go.

Todd Jones (10:17):

Alright. I love the old machines. But those early days of being a young reporter, what did it teach you? What did you learn?

What sticks out in your memory about being a young reporter trying to find your way?

Mike DeCourcy (10:29):

Well, the first thing that I realize now, in looking back on my career, and I realized that not that long afterward, the hard part for me was learning how to report. That was the hard part. Not to report a story. I was really good at that.

Mike DeCourcy (10:43):

You said, "Okay, here's what you need to get in the paper tomorrow." I could do that.

Mike DeCourcy (10:48):

But the intricacies of the beat, learning how to know who the right people were, and who would talk to you, and who would tell you the things you needed to know, and staying ahead of the competition and all that, that's what Sam and Russ were waiting for before they gave me the college basketball beat.

Mike DeCourcy (11:03):

And it was hard, honestly, on my first beat, which was Penn State Football, to do all of that, because one, it was two and a half ... well, it was really almost three hours removed from where we were based.

Mike DeCourcy (11:16):

Penn State College University Park when I started, it was a four hour drive. Then they kept opening up little pieces of highway. And by the time I finished on the beat, nine years later, it was like 2 hours and 40 minutes to get there.

Todd Jones (11:29):

Yeah. It took a while for the wagon train to get there.

Mike DeCourcy (11:31):

Yes, exactly. So, that was always an obstacle. But then there was Joe. And Joe was the most difficult person I've encountered in 43 years of doing this now.

Todd Jones (11:43):

Alright, let's talk about Joe Paterno. He's the most difficult person you encountered in 40 years of doing this. Why?

Mike DeCourcy (11:50):

Because it was interesting because the narrative about Penn State Football and Joe Paterno when I took over the beat in 1984, was that he did everything right, and everything was wonderful, and everything was great. And nobody ever had a problem. And it was all granted. He was St. Joe.

Mike DeCourcy (12:08):

And there were a lot of accomplished national media people who perpetuated that. And so, I went up there thinking that. And then as with each passing year, he tried to make my job more difficult.

Mike DeCourcy (12:24):

And he didn't treat me with much respect. I was young and I get that, but I was trying to do a good job and with a little bit of guidance ... I mean, and I think a coach has to interact in a way that offers guidance.

Mike DeCourcy (12:40):

If you want your team to be covered a certain way, then you have to respond in that certain way. You have to interact with the people who cover you in a way that promotes that. And he-

Todd Jones (12:52):

What did Paterno do?

Mike DeCourcy (12:53):

Basically, it was just keep closing doors. It started with when they closed their practices off, the practices were closed well before. It's standard practice now, and it's unfortunate, but back then it was ... he was among the pioneers in that. And not telling the truth about injuries and that sort of thing.

Mike DeCourcy (13:13):

When I started doing it, I used to go up on Thursday before for a Saturday game for home games, and the locker room would be open to reporters on Thursday afternoon after practice. And I was the only one who took advantage of it.

Mike DeCourcy (13:31):

And after I think two years, maybe three tops, he said basically, "Well, that's it. We're not doing this anymore." And then they would bring players out to a player lounge or whatever for me to interview.

Mike DeCourcy (13:46):

And that was less productive, but you had to live with it. And then after that that shut down and you can only talk to players on a conference call. And honestly, I got to know some really bright, engaging young people by doing the interviews in the locker room, or even to a lesser extent, in the interview area.

Mike DeCourcy (14:13):

By the time my last team that I covered, I didn't know a single player on the team because I didn't get any chance to do it. And I remember Ken Denlinger followed that team, had like an inside the program kind of deal with Joe and he did a book on it.

Mike DeCourcy (14:31):

And I remember reading the book and thinking, "I finally got to meet all these guys that I covered and didn't know."

Mike DeCourcy (14:38):

He was hostile to the media in a lot of ways, except when it was a big national and they would come to town and do an article on him. And it bothered me while I did it. And it bothered me for years afterward that he was that difficult to deal with.

Mike DeCourcy (14:57):

But I look back maybe 15, 20 years later, and I realize it was the best education I could have ever gotten, because it made me realize, don't just accept what's on the surface. Don't accept what everybody is saying about somebody. Find out for yourself. Is this really the person that they say it is? Is this really the program that they say it is?

Mike DeCourcy (15:18):

That's what I learned from covering Joe and Penn State Football. And I really believe that it made me a much better journalist having gone through that.

Todd Jones (15:30):

Yeah. Make a call, develop sources, get other people. You don't need to get it just from Oz himself.

Mike DeCourcy (15:36):

Yeah. And as well as just that. It is funny, like I mentioned about the national narrative about Joe, and that persisted during my time there. I covered a national championship team in 1986. I covered one that played for it in 1985.

Mike DeCourcy (15:53):

So, they still had very successful teams in that period. So, they still had national people come in, and then they would go back and write, I shouldn't say the same, but a similar glowing article about who he was.

Mike DeCourcy (16:04):

And I would always be sitting there, I talk to myself a lot because I work at home and I'd say out loud, like, "Talk to me. I'll tell you, it's not that's not what it is. This is not how this program is. It may not be necessarily bad, but it's not this."

Mike DeCourcy (16:24):

And no one of course ever did talk to the local reporter about that. But I covered them for nine years. I never had a one-on-one with Joe for all the times that I just got one.

Todd Jones (16:36):

Nine years. Never had a one-on-one?

Mike DeCourcy (16:38):

No. I remember one time, I think it was around the time they played for it the first time we were going to do a big feature on it. We called it our page three in the Pittsburgh Press. And so, I wanted a one-on-one, and I got a four on one with three other reporters. Can't remember who they were.

Mike DeCourcy (16:57):

I could get a one-on-one with Gerry Faust or Lou Holtz when Penn State would play Notre Dame and we'd cover that game. I could get that, but I couldn't get it with Joe.

Todd Jones (17:10):

Wow. Mike, years later when the scandal hit with Jerry Sandusky and it all fell apart there and Paterno was fired at the age of 85, what did you think then, looking back based on your own experiences?

Mike DeCourcy (17:25):

Yeah. What I wrote before he passed, but upon the dissolution of the Paterno program, was that I believe that the secrecy of the program contributed not to necessarily what developed, but to how it was all handled. That secrecy was held as sort of a sacrament in Penn State football program over the course of that time.

Mike DeCourcy (17:51):

And I think it ended up being ... again, I'm not asserting that Joe knew anything or anything like that, but I do know that once it was on his desk, he could have been a hero. He could have said, "This is horrible. We got to stop this." And that didn't happen.

Mike DeCourcy (18:08):

It could have happened immediately, because he was the most powerful figure in the state. And if he'd have said, "This is horrendous, and we've got to do something about this."

Mike DeCourcy (18:21):

If he'd have gone to his bosses at Penn State and said, "This happened, it's bad, but we have to put a stop to this and we have to make sure that we get out in front of it." I think he could have been a hero of sorts. And he did not choose that course. And Penn State did not choose that course in that circumstance.

Todd Jones (18:41):

It sounds like the experience of covering Joe Paterno really shaped how you went on to cover college basketball itself. You went from football to basketball, but you learned a lot of lessons from being around Paterno.

Mike DeCourcy (18:54):

It did. And I think one of the lessons … look, Bob Huggins career did not end the way we would've liked it to. But you covered Bob for a period of time. Probably about as long as I did. I only covered the beat for four years before I was able to get The Sporting News as a full-time job.

Mike DeCourcy (19:14):

But that program was not as malevolent as it was being portrayed nationally when I entered the beat. I mean, the young men that I covered, people like Kenyon Martin, and Melvin Levett, Steve Logan-

Todd Jones (19:30):

Danny Fortson. Those guys, yeah. Good guys.

Mike DeCourcy (19:34):

Yeah, exactly. But it was not the way it was portrayed nationally by a lot of important people and important publications when I joined it.

Mike DeCourcy (19:44):

And so, again, that goes back to that don't accept what everybody else says, accept what you learn through your own personal experience and reporting.

Mike DeCourcy (19:53):

At the time, especially not long after I left the beat, I understood that Bob had issues that he needed to deal with at times. But I still felt that he was more open and honest about who he was and what his program was than the person I dealt with previously.

Todd Jones (20:20):

Let's talk a little bit about that. Our paths did cross in those days. You had left Memphis, you had went to Pittsburgh to Memphis, where you covered college basketball from '93 to '97, and then you moved to Cincinnati at the Cincinnati Inquirer.

Todd Jones (20:33):

I was just at the end of my tenure at the Cincinnati Post at the time. And so, we're both around Huggins I think in that '96, '97 season might have been.

Mike DeCourcy (20:43):

Yep.

Todd Jones (20:43):

What do you recall about covering a guy like that who has a reputation, this narrative that's formed nationally, but on a day-to-day basis, how did you find covering Bob as a reporter day-to-day?

Mike DeCourcy (20:57):

Yeah. I mean, I've covered coaches that I enjoyed covering more. I mean, I loved covering the Memphis Tigers and Larry Finch. He was open and less volatile and that sort of thing.

Mike DeCourcy (21:09):

But I found covering Bob to be a pleasant experience. The teams were entertaining. We talked about the young men that were on those teams. I enjoyed dealing with them. The program was well liked in the community.

Mike DeCourcy (21:24):

Not every single day was perfect, and I remember that one player got suspended in my second year, I think, or third year on the beat. And they just would not say why that player got suspended. I remember being frustrated by that.

Mike DeCourcy (21:45):

But I think in general, it was a good beat to be on. And again, covering it with people like you and Jeff Shelman as the competition, I enjoyed that. You are both terrific reporters and made me be on my toes and fun to be with when we go to dinner on the road and that sort of thing.

Todd Jones (22:09):

Yeah, I think I learned a lot of lessons. I was still learning how to be a reporter myself at that time. And I think I was a little young trying to figure out, like you said earlier, like who’s who, what's the chess board here? Not just the checkers. Who are the real players and what's actually going on?

Todd Jones (22:27):

And so, I thought that was very educational for me too, because I go into a beat thinking in generalities, and then on a day-to-day basis dealing with somebody like Huggins, it was challenging for me as a young guy.

Todd Jones (22:47):

Every day was a little tough for me personally, but then I think it did make me a better reporter. And years later I had a good reporter with Bob. We crossed paths and we would talk. But I look back on it saying sometimes a reporter is just learning on the job.

Mike DeCourcy (23:03):

Yeah. Oh, absolutely. I mean, that's one of the things that has always made me a little crazy about our business is that no one teaches you how to do this other than maybe your peers or your immediate bosses might say, "Hey, do that."

Mike DeCourcy (23:15):

But like we don't have beat writing seminar in Ponte Vedra Beach or something. You know what I mean?

Todd Jones (23:23):

Right, right.

Mike DeCourcy (23:24):

You just don't have that. Like they expect you to be able to do it. And if you can't do it, they'll find somebody else.

Mike DeCourcy (23:29):

They have all these things in businesses and different enterprises, like the dentists all go learn how to be dentists or better dentists at some convention in some nice place. They don't have that for us. And so, it's one of the challenges of this business.

Todd Jones (25:02):

Okay. So, you covered college basketball in Memphis for several years, and then in Cincinnati, you're with the Bearcats and Bob Huggins, and then you started writing for The Sporting News. And then you moved to Full-time at The Sporting News in 2000. So, now, it's college basketball, national beat.

Todd Jones (33:25):

I was wondering how challenging it was to approach a subject when you had to write about somebody like that, that you didn't have the day-to-day with. But then you also, were forming opinions or reporting on news about somebody who already had this huge national reputation.

Mike DeCourcy (33:41):

Again, I think it goes back to that, that I approached everybody with an open mind and how did they treat me? How did they behave in front of me? What was their work like? When I'd get access to people, I would form opinions based on that.

Mike DeCourcy (34:00):

A good example of that was when I was covering Hugs and at the time, Skip Prosser was the coach at Xavier. And Michael Perry was covering Xavier for the Inquirer. And he used to write all these wonderful stories about Skip.

Mike DeCourcy (34:22):

And they seemed almost fantastic because like nobody could be that good a guy, and that bright and that well read. It all seemed so performative from covering at the time, the bad guy in town. Or the guy that so many people looked at that way, the black hat. And it did seem performative.

Mike DeCourcy (34:47):

And so, this is what I say, you got to get to know people. Because then I met Skip, and he was that guy. He was the best person you could ever meet.

Todd Jones (34:59):

He was great. He was probably my favorite coach I ever covered.

Mike DeCourcy (35:02):

Yeah. I mean, you just couldn't meet very many better people than Skip. And he was everything that Michael portrayed him to be. But as I said, at the time, it seemed like it couldn't be real. But you go into it and then I meet Skip.

Mike DeCourcy (35:15):

And great story about that. Maybe my favorite story that I ever did for Sporting News Magazine was about Jay Williams, who's now at ESPN. He was then in 2001 and 2002, the best guard in college basketball.

Mike DeCourcy (35:28):

And in 2002, he was on his way to National Player of the Year. And we wanted to do a story like kind of a, we were very much a nuts and bolts kind of thing. We did much more with the actual games than our competitive publication did, which was more into the people.

Mike DeCourcy (35:50):

And so, we wanted to do a story about what was it like to prepare to play against Jason Williams, now, Jay Williams. And I called four different schools that were on their schedule in January. And every one of them turned me down. I didn't get turned down for anything.

Mike DeCourcy (36:08):

Like if we wanted to do a story, like people are like, "Okay, the door's open, come on in." And no one ever turned down The Sporting News at that point. And so, we wanted to do that, and they all said no. And then, okay, what's next? Skip's Wake Forest is on the schedule.

Mike DeCourcy (36:25):

So, I call Skip, and he's like, "Oh, yeah, come on down. It'd be great." And he opened the door and he did all this stuff for me. And he let me sit on their meetings and all the rest of that. And they ended up giving Jay about 31 points or something and losing at home. But he was like a regular person.

Mike DeCourcy (36:42):

And I still love that story because I think I did a good job writing it, but also, because it meant I got to spend three days with him chatting about basketball and the Steelers and all sorts of other things.

Todd Jones (36:53):

Yeah. I remember Skip, I got to know him well when he was an assistant for Pete Gillen, and I was covering Xavier basketball. And so, you get to know the assistants, that's how you're learning your beat. And so, we ended up talking about literature and his beloved Steelers.

Todd Jones (37:08):

But again, you got to know this person. And then when they become this thing that's a public figure as a head coach, you have enough education about who they are and where they're coming from. I think there's a mutual respect that's built up. So, then when you're recovering the beat, you have a little bit of understanding of what's going on.

Mike DeCourcy (37:30):

Exactly, exactly. So, the opportunity to get to know those people over time. And when you're doing a national circumstance, you do get a lot of doors opened. I'm not going to pretend that it hasn't made my life easier, so to speak, to be at The Sporting News since 2000 or since '95.

Mike DeCourcy (37:54):

There are people that will take my phone calls that maybe wouldn't have taken it three years earlier when I was in Pittsburgh. It has opened a lot of doors.

Mike DeCourcy (38:06):

I had so many one-on-one conversations with Mike Krzyzewski over the years that when it came down to his final year, and his final year was '21, '22. So, we're just really coming toward the end of the worst parts of the pandemic. And he's not really all that eager to do a series of hey, I'm saying goodbye kind of articles.

Mike DeCourcy (38:29):

I was able to get one because I had built up a relationship with him over those, what I guess 20 years or so that I'd gotten a chance to got to know him. And we had so many good conversations. And I think I built up respect with him.

Mike DeCourcy (38:47):

So, he only did a few one-on-ones. I think he did one with The News & Observer, The Rolling Paper, and he did one with me, and not many beyond that.

Mike DeCourcy (38:57):

And so, I feel like that was again, part of building up that rapport through knowing the game, loving the game, communicating that I love the game and want it to be the best it can be.

Mike DeCourcy (39:09):

And then also, just getting to know Krzyzewski on his terms and not on, well, this is what everybody says about him. So, what everybody says about him must be true, so that's the approach to take.

Todd Jones (39:24):

What do people get right about Krzyzewski and what do they get wrong?

Mike DeCourcy (39:28):

I think they get right that he's a terrific coach. I think they get wrong that … I think the sideline demeanor, a lot of times this is true probably in basketball more than anything, because you see the coaches so intensely and there's so many sideline shots of them that people think that how a coach comports himself on the sideline is who he is. And I can give you scores of examples of that. And he's certainly one.

Mike DeCourcy (39:57):

Mick Cronin from UCLA, he's a pretty fiery guy on the sideline. And people think that's who he is. He's the most laid back guy. And then there was Gene Keady with Purdue back in the '90s and 2000s. And everybody thought that he was the most miserable person in the world, because he seemed like it on the sideline.

Mike DeCourcy (40:17):

And Gene Keady, when I finally got to meet him, he is the biggest teddy bear there's ever been. Like he is just the sweetest guy. And it just was complete opposite of his sideline demeanor. So, I think that's probably a lot of Mike, about what people think of him in terms of that.

Mike DeCourcy (40:37):

And I think they probably think that because he coached Duke, that he's more elitist than he is. I mean, that's not really who he is as a person. That's not the way he is. He's much more down to earth than that. Loves his family above all. And I think that's a big part of why he coached as long as he did.

Mike DeCourcy (40:58):

I wrote about this probably around 2016, 2015, something like that, that when everybody would ask him every year, "Are you going to retire?"

Mike DeCourcy (41:10):

And I knew him well enough that he didn't have a ton of hobbies. He wasn't a golfer, wasn't a tennis player, wasn't like a guy — like Roy Williams will tell you straight to your face, he loves to shoot craps. And he loves to go to casinos and stuff. And that's not Mike either.

Mike DeCourcy (41:29):

For Mike, while his girls were growing up, one of the things that they'd love to do (because I ran into him on a trip like this one time) he would take his girls and his wife, Mickie to Broadway, and they would go see two, three, four shows, whatever they could squeeze in. That was something he loved.

Mike DeCourcy (41:44):

But then his three daughters are now, all grown up and married and have their family. So, that's not really that feasible now.

Mike DeCourcy (41:51):

So, he's very engaged with the family. So, he basically integrated a lot of his family into the program, and various enterprises that he's involved with.

Mike DeCourcy (42:04):

And so, that kept him close to his family while he was continuing to work on being Duke's basketball coach. It didn't take him away from his family, they were closer because of it.

Mike DeCourcy (42:15):

And so, that's why he lasted as long as he did as head coach, until finally I think he and Mickie sat down and realized that it was time to tap the brakes a little bit.

Todd Jones (42:26):

All the conversations and time you spent with Krzyzewski, do you have a favorite anecdote behind the scenes story? Even if it's just you and Mike somewhere on the road or something?

Mike DeCourcy (42:38):

Yeah, I think honestly, the one, ... it's going to sound somewhat — some people might not think it reflects well on me, but this was right after I started at The Sporting News full-time, 2000.

Mike DeCourcy (42:53):

And I had been part-time from '95 until 2000 doing the one column a week to the start. Eventually it became two because this thing called the internet became a thing. And so, I would write one for that.

Mike DeCourcy (43:09):

I hadn't been in the gym with Duke. I hadn't done anything specific with them. I'd covered their game against Carolina in early February. That one was at Cameron. But I hadn't had any one-on-one time with them or anything. And then they won the national championship in 2000.

Mike DeCourcy (43:29):

And I was walking alone through the tunnels at the Metrodome in Minneapolis. And I saw him in his golf cart and he was being driven. And I just said, "Congratulations." And he said, "Thanks, Mike." And I know this is sound bad, but that was a big moment for me because that meant he knew who I was. It really meant a lot to me.

Mike DeCourcy (43:56):

And the reason it meant something to me was because he had to have seen something I did. And he must have liked it enough to note who I was. Because it wasn't that he and I had conversed or I had interviewed him or anything like that.

Mike DeCourcy (44:09):

It was something that I wrote must have meant enough to him to say, "I got to remember who that guy is." And I know it sounds silly, but it really meant a lot because it meant I was making an impact.

Todd Jones (44:25):

Okay. 1992, East Regional Final, Philadelphia, we're talking Krzyzewski. It's the all-time college basketball game, or certainly in the debate, Kentucky Duke, the Laettner shot. You're there. Where are you sitting?

Mike DeCourcy (44:41):

I was sitting exactly behind the Kentucky bench on the — for the camera position, it's the near side of the court they're shooting in. I believe that's where it was. Yeah, it was, I was on the near side of the court. Usually they shoot into benches, but in this case, they were not.

Mike DeCourcy (44:58):

So, I was on the side of the court where if you were looking at it, Grant Hill was throwing from the right to the left. And that's where I was behind the Kentucky bench.

Mike DeCourcy (45:12):

And it's funny, because I remembered being there, and then during the pandemic when CBS was showing old tournament games to cover the time because they didn't have anything else to show, there was one time out that you could see me.

Mike DeCourcy (45:26):

And I froze it on my DVR and took a picture of it and put it on Facebook. Because yeah, that's where I thought I was. And there I was, and I was looking a lot younger then too.

Mike DeCourcy (45:37):

But the reason I got to be at that game was I had always been assigned to do it. I was covering Pitt at the time, and they did not make the tournament.

Mike DeCourcy (45:44):

And they got put into the NIT and they had a road game at Penn State, and I thought it felt like it was a trap for them to go up and get their tails kicked. And then Pitt might think about firing their coach at the time, Paul Evans, because I knew that the athletic director didn't really like him.

Mike DeCourcy (46:02):

And they'd come off making the tournament, I think every year that Paul had been there, except one where one of his starters got hurt and then this one. So, I thought it might be something.

Mike DeCourcy (46:15):

But they went up and they beat Penn State. Well, that meant I had to cover an NIT game I think it was on the Monday of that regional week.

Mike DeCourcy (46:24):

So, Florida came up to Pitt to play them. So, my whole goal in my mind was, Pitt needs to lose this game, but not by too many points so that that firing thing doesn't kick up and I have to deal with that.

Todd Jones (46:38):

Sportswriters, we were always cheering for ourselves.

Mike DeCourcy (46:41):

Yes. Because if they win, they've got to get on a plane and go to Purdue-

Todd Jones (46:47):

Yeah, you don't want that.

Mike DeCourcy (46:48):

... and play a road game on Wednesday.

Todd Jones (46:50):

No, you don't want that.

Mike DeCourcy (46:51):

Which once that happens, I'm probably out of going to Philly to cover the East Regional. And so, it was a close game. Florida gets ahead. They're up by three with about four seconds left. Pitt advances the ball.

Mike DeCourcy (47:06):

Sean Miller, now the coach at Xavier, coach at Arizona for a long time, was the point guard. And he got the ball to about mid court, and he heaved the ball up and it caught the back rim and bounced out.

Mike DeCourcy (47:18):

And it was a perfect ending because it was an easy story to write. That was the ending of Sean's career. So, it was easy to write. I got done with that story. They weren't going to fire him. And I got in a company car and drove it to Philly the next day.

Todd Jones (47:31):

You're playing with house money. That's great.

Mike DeCourcy (47:33):

Absolutely. And the trip to Philly was amazing on many fronts. Again, those chance meetings, Len Elmore, the great Maryland player. Terrific analyst for CBS at the time. Now, working various different outlets. He has been at times a colleague of mine at Big Ten Network. A wonderful guy.

Mike DeCourcy (47:55):

I didn't know Len. I met him like during the press time. And again, I just said hello. And he knew who I was from my work at the Pittsburgh Press. So, that was important to me.

Mike DeCourcy (49:29):

And those are the connections that you make various different ways by being there. And I think it all goes back to loving the game and caring about the game.

Mike DeCourcy (49:39):

Todd, I remember when they started the Nike All America camp, and it was in Princeton, New Jersey for the first couple years. And I'd hear all these stories about all these players being there. And I'm like, "I got to be there, but my paper's not going to pay for me to be there. I got to be there."

Mike DeCourcy (49:57):

So, one, they moved it to Indianapolis and I went to my wife and I said, "I want to take vacation time, and I want to go pay for myself to go to this thing." And she said, "Go for it."

Mike DeCourcy (50:08):

And so, I stayed in the cheapest hotel I could get. And I went to the Nike camp for four or five days, and I saw Corliss Williamson and Rasheed Wallace, and got to sit with all the coaches.

Mike DeCourcy (50:20):

And this is the kind of stuff that I was willing to do because one, I loved being there, but also, I wanted to invest in my career and basketball was where I wanted to be.

Todd Jones (50:33):

Now, before we drop the subject of Kentucky Duke, you're sitting in the row right behind the bench, the Kentucky bench. Can you hear the huddles? And why didn't you say, "Guard the inbounds pass.”

Mike DeCourcy (50:49):

Well, I could not hear the huddles, but I will tell you that I remember distinctly, it was a fabulous game, even without the Laettner finish. It was a tremendous game. It was breathtaking for nearly two and a half hours.

Mike DeCourcy (51:04):

And when Sean Woods dribbled across the foul line and hit the half hook over Laettner, it was an amazing shot. And I remember distinctly saying to myself, and getting ready to write on this idea, "What an amazing way to end this great game."

Mike DeCourcy (51:20):

That's what I thought. I thought the game was over, 2.2 seconds left. What can you do in 2.2 seconds? And I found out what you could do in 2.2 seconds.

Mike DeCourcy (51:30):

And afterward talked to various people at Duke. And they were saying that Krzyzewski was really confident in the huddle that they could pull it off.

Mike DeCourcy (51:38):

And Krzyzewski, you could say that he was just trying to pump his guys up. But in the end, he was right. They were able to pull it off. Should they have guarded the inbounds pass, I think it would've made it easier. But really what they should have done is guarded the guy who received it.

Mike DeCourcy (51:56):

You remember Deron Feldhaus and John Pelphrey both backed away, especially John, because they were so conditioned not to foul in that circumstance and so concerned about fouling. And they allowed him to shoot basically an uncontested shot. And that's what made it really easy.

Mike DeCourcy (52:15):

If you're going to have two guys guarding the player who's most obviously going to catch the ball, they have to actually guard him. But they worried more about fouling. So, I guess in the end, you're much less likely to foul the inbounds passer. So, at least make the job hard for him.

Todd Jones (52:30):

Now, I did not cover that game. I was at a different regional. I was with the Cincinnati Bearcats in Kansas City, and I was watching that game. But I have learned a detail about that Laettner play here in Columbus. Gimel Martinez was a big man for Kentucky on that team.

Todd Jones (52:46):

And Gimel lives here in Columbus. And I got to know him a little bit over the years, and we'd run into each other. And we inevitably talked about that game a little bit. And Gimel had fouled out.

Todd Jones (52:57):

And he said that at the end of that huddle before they took the court, the very last thing that Pitino said to the players was, "Don't foul."

Mike DeCourcy (53:06):

There you go.

Todd Jones (53:07):

And Gamel said, "That to me, was just the wrong message." He wasn't criticized of Pitino, who was obviously a great Hall of Fame coach, but he felt like that was a message to be passive and not aggressive. And he said that was the very last thing that Pitino told the players going on in the court, “Don't foul.”

Todd Jones (53:27):

And like you said, if you look at the way Feldhaus and Pelphrey reacted when Laettner caught the ball, is they backed away. They say they didn't want to foul.

Mike DeCourcy (53:34):

Yes, they backed away. The don't foul message clearly resonated. Rick is as good a coach as there has ever been.

Mike DeCourcy (53:43):

I always use this descriptor. When I was a little kid, they used to have this thing called the International Race of Champions, IROC. And they would take drivers from all the circuits and they would basically give them all the same cars because the idea was try to find out who was the best driver.

Mike DeCourcy (54:01):

And if it were an IROC race, I always say that Rick Pitino and Larry Brown would be the guys that I would have my money on.

Mike DeCourcy (54:11):

They're the guys that there are different things that each of them doesn't do the best in terms of operating a program. But you put five guys in front of them and them and Bob Knight, and they're going to do the best job of making them into a better team of all.

Mike DeCourcy (54:28):

Mike Krzyzewski still the greatest college coach of all time because of what he accomplished. And he certainly would be in that race as well, and he'd be up near the front. But a lot of his, and like a lot of John Caliparis is getting guys to play together or getting to play for the team.

Mike DeCourcy (54:45):

And that was a big thing for Mike, was the communication. But those guys, they could take you, me and three other guys, and we would be the best we would possibly be.

Todd Jones (54:51):

Wait a minute.

Mike DeCourcy (54:54):

Yep, absolutely.

Todd Jones (54:54):

I don’t know if it's you and me.

Mike DeCourcy (54:56):

Yeah, even us. I'm not saying we'd win championships, but we'd be better than we would've been without them.

Todd Jones (55:02):

Mike, 37 season of coverage basketball, we talked about Duke, Kentucky. When you think about all the amazing moments, is there one in particular that stands out to you besides Duke, Kentucky?

Todd Jones (55:14):

I'm not saying that's your number one, but you have witnessed so many historic moments in college, basketball history, great coaches that you developed rapport with, and players that you've covered.

Todd Jones (55:24):

When you think back on your career, what comes to mind as a personal story?

Mike DeCourcy (55:30):

Well, I think that among the things that I really ... obviously, the Laettner game was the greatest game I've ever seen and ever expect to see and maybe in any sport. It was just an amazing thing. But I thought getting the chance to cover ...

Mike DeCourcy (55:49):

Well, I was in Memphis at the time, so Arkansas was one of our schools. I mean, the state of Arkansas is like I could practically throw a baseball from one side of the river … well, maybe it's kind of a little far, but maybe hit a golf ball from one side of the river to the other. That's how close the state of Arkansas was.

Mike DeCourcy (56:08):

So, Arkansas, their participation in the '94 tournament was very important to the Memphis Commercial Appeal when I was there.

Mike DeCourcy (56:20):

And there haven't been a lot of African American coaches to that point in time that had had the opportunity to be on that stage. So, getting to cover Nolan Richardson, and that run through the NCAA tournament and covering that Final Four, that was big for me.

Mike DeCourcy (56:41):

And one of the reasons that I enjoyed doing it was the fact that at the time President Clinton was from Arkansas, he was governor of Arkansas and all of that, and he was in the building the night they won the championship.

Mike DeCourcy (56:58):

I remember having to go through a security line, and it was such a pain in the butt because he was there. So, everything we went through on an ordinary game was multiplied by four because he was there that night. And he was down on the floor after the game.

Mike DeCourcy (57:14):

So, that was really big. I thought that getting a chance to see Nolan raise that trophy and having the president of the United States in the house, it's the only ...

Mike DeCourcy (57:26):

I've been to other games with the president. Obama was at The Carrier Classic I think it was 2011 maybe in San Diego. He sat a couple of rows in front of me. I can only see the back of his head.

Todd Jones (57:39):

Yeah, he came to a playing game in Dayton that I covered.

Mike DeCourcy (57:40):

That was the other game I was at that the president was at. Yes, I don't remember which year that was, but I remember he was there with the Prime Minister of Britain, I believe, showing him what American college basketball was all about. I think it was Cameron at the time.

Mike DeCourcy (57:56):

So, I've been in the building with the president on a couple other occasions. But that was pretty cool as well. So, I thought that that was really an important moment in college basketball history.

Mike DeCourcy (58:10):

He wasn't the first. John Thompson had won in '84, but it was really important that Nolan won. And I think it really helped as well that he won at a Southern school because I watched some of the things that have been done.

Mike DeCourcy (58:25):

SEC network did a really nice retrospective on the SEC and they did another on the ACC as well, that really delved into what segregation was like in college basketball in the '60s.

Mike DeCourcy (58:41):

When I was growing up at too young to really know about it. I was only six or seven or eight years old when all that stuff is happening. So, in retrospect, that really feels like something that I was glad to be a part of.

Todd Jones (58:57):

I remember being at the Final Four the very next year in Seattle. And Nolan Richardson and his players were on the podium, and they were talking about that trope of no respect.

Todd Jones (59:12):

But because of the history that you brought up, I started to try to think about it differently and think that they're talking about something much more than just the poll. And I felt like at that point in my career, I was able to kind of contextualize and see things a little differently.

Todd Jones (59:30):

I did not know Nolan, what was he like as a coach to cover?

Mike DeCourcy (59:35):

Well, he was easy to talk to about basketball, but not always open about how he felt about what he was going through or had gone through. And later on, he was much more open about it.

Mike DeCourcy (59:51):

But he was someone that very much wore that badge that you talked about. Because one of the things that you notice, especially in that era, was that national narrative concept that would develop around certain teams. And I remember this was true of Duke, Vegas in 1990.

Todd Jones (01:00:20):

Yeah, I covered that when Duke upset them the next year. And I remember that narrative was still in play the next year.

Mike DeCourcy (01:00:27):

And I remember like because like the Duke guys, the kids were great. And I know some of the players that are on that team now, I know Bobby Hurley, great guy. And Alaa Abdelnaby’s one of the nicest people that you could ever meet, so generous.

Mike DeCourcy (01:00:40):

So, there wasn't anything wrong with how they were portraying Duke, but it was the emphasis on the contrast. And I remember sitting there, and I'm 30 years old and I'm listening to this, and the questions of the UNLV players were so much different than they were to ...

Mike DeCourcy (01:01:00):

And it was clear that what they were trying to present was the Duke players are this upstanding student athletes and all that, and these Vegas kids are these renegades.

Mike DeCourcy (01:01:13):

And I remember thinking, Greg Anthony's as bright as anybody in this building, let alone not just the players, but the people. I mean, you could tell the guy was going to have a significant career. He was so sharp, he was so bright. What difference did it make what school he went to?

Mike DeCourcy (01:01:28):

And the same thing was true two years later when we were at the Final Four in Minneapolis with Cincinnati, Michigan, Duke, and Indiana. And when the Cincinnati Press conference was held, if everything that happened could be condensed into one question, it would be, what are you JUCO losers doing messing up our Final Four?

Mike DeCourcy (01:01:58):

That would've been the question if you condensed the entire nature of the conversation between the reporters who covered that Final Four and Bob and his players, that would've been what it would be condensed to, because that's how it used to be in covering those sorts of events.

Mike DeCourcy (01:02:17):

Because remember, a lot of the people who would show up at the Final Four weren't necessarily people who covered college basketball day-to-day.

Mike DeCourcy (01:02:24):

You go to a Final Four now, you don't see a lot of those people. You mostly see people who live in the sport, either with the four teams that are there, or people who do what I do for various publications.

Todd Jones (01:02:38):

Yeah. I was at that '92 Final Four, and I remember it just being so unfair. Again, like the generalization, and really, let's get down to it, it's race. Race involved in so much of this.

Todd Jones (01:02:50):

And I just remember thinking like, "This is not what people who know, know." But this narrative is being formed and that narrative is tough to overcome.

Mike DeCourcy (01:03:06):

Oh, absolutely. There's still people who if you mention Bob Huggins, the word zero graduation rate will come up.

Mike DeCourcy (01:03:14):

And I remember when I was in Memphis and I was writing for The Sporting News at the time, I talked to the people at Cincinnati after that was made public.

Mike DeCourcy (01:03:26):

And the way they figured the graduation rate at the time was if you were a transfer, you didn't count no matter you graduated or not. If you were junior college and you graduated, didn't matter, didn't count. If you were a walk-on it, didn't matter, didn't count. It only mattered if you signed as a high school recruit.

Mike DeCourcy (01:03:46):

So, in '92, the team we're talking about, the JUCOs that nobody wanted in the building, '92, that team, they had five seniors and four of them graduated, and their rate for that year was zero, because Anthony Buford was a four-year transfer from Akron or Toledo.

Todd Jones (01:04:04):

Akron, I believe.

Mike DeCourcy (01:04:04):

Yeah, Akron. Mike Rekeniker was a promoted walk-on. And then you had three other players that were junior college recruits, and only one of them didn't graduate. So, 80% you had, but the rate for that was zero.

Mike DeCourcy (01:04:24):

And people will look at what they come up with the GSR, the graduation success rate that the NCAA promotes now. And people make fun of it. And there are problems with it, but it's certainly a big step back from when you could graduate four out of five seniors and get a zero rate.

Todd Jones (01:04:47):

Well, Mike, I think what you're talking about really for me is something that I appreciate in your work all these years. And that's being able to contextualize, being able to go past the surface and understand the background story or the bigger picture.

Todd Jones (01:05:05):

And I think it's shown in your work over the years. You do it all, do columns, long form, breaking news, analysis, podcasts, radio, TV, Big 10 Networks, Sporting News, Fox Sports in March.

Todd Jones (01:05:19):

And I think we need that. We need that ability to be versatile and to bring understanding. And everything isn't just black and white. There's a lot more gray in the world than we want to know sometimes.

Mike DeCourcy (01:05:32):

Yeah. I'm big on that. That's always been a big part of what I do, is try to look at something. There are very few occasions when I will just slam into something because there's usually some nuance behind it.

Mike DeCourcy (01:05:50):

And my directive has always been to try to find the nuance in something and think critically. Not just think what's going to be the most popular opinion, that sort of thing. What everyone else thinks.

Mike DeCourcy (01:06:10):

I'm often going to go against the grain because I try to look at things analytically, and critically, and independently.

Mike DeCourcy (01:06:19):

And so, I'm going to say LeBron James is the greatest basketball player of all time, even though the preponderance of opinion is that it's Michael Jordan. But I can go and I can give you a real good analytical case about why I'm right.

Mike DeCourcy (01:06:38):

And some people get tired of those kinds of arguments. I think they're the lifeblood of sports. I love them. You can't compare eras. Well, why not? Who loses?

Todd Jones (01:06:48):

Well, two fans sitting in a bar arguing. That's what real sports gets down to, so.

Mike DeCourcy (01:06:52):

Exactly. When I first started at the Pittsburgh Press, there was no internet, there was no Twitter. People would call the press sports department to settle a bar bet. And those were fun calls.

Mike DeCourcy (01:07:10):

So, I absolutely believe in that, but I don't believe in just going along with the crowd that says, “This is the greatest thing of all time.” And saying, "Okay, well, if you say it, then that must be true."

Todd Jones (01:07:28):

Well, those calls to the Pittsburgh Press were fun calls. I used to get them at the Cincinnati Post in the late '80s, early '90s.

Todd Jones (01:07:34):

And this has been a fun call. I am so happy that we were able to reconnect. It's been much too long that since we talked, Mike, and I've had a lot of fun looking at the nuances of your own tremendous career in the last 40 years. And I wish you all the best, and thanks for joining us.

Mike DeCourcy (01:07:50):

Well, as I said, Todd, it's a real honor. I've always been a fan of your work, amazing stuff that you've done over the years, and a good friend. And to be put in the list of the amazing journalists you've talked to over the years, it really is an honor for me.

Todd Jones (01:08:07):

Mike, Thanks. My Venmo is.

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