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.
Wendell Barnhouse: “It’s the Greatest, Craziest Game I’ve Ever Covered.”
Wendell Barnhouse recalls the pressure of trying to find the right words in the immediate aftermath of the famous Duke-Kentucky basketball game. The overwhelming magnitude felt on press row at that 1992 NCAA tournament classic still lingers. That’s one of many anecdotes Wendell shares in this episode from his three-plus decades as a national college basketball and football writer. Hear about traveling to 27 cities in one season, how Bob Knight made a telephone jump, why Bill Snyder made a call with a surprising reaction, and where Wendell had to write from as a Fiesta Bowl erupted with Boise State’s trick plays. Wendell’s tales from his 50 years in the business also include typewriters, an intimidating first Major League Baseball game, waging an old-fashioned newspaper war alongside legendary sports editor Dave Smith, and finding himself in a unique argument with the copy desk on deadline.
Barnhouse was a media fixture on the national scene of college sports for more than 30 years, beginning in the mid-1980s. After three years as assistant sports editor at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, Wendell became that newspaper’s national college basketball writer during the 1985-86 season, which concluded with the Final Four being held in Dallas. He added national college football to his duties in 1994 and covered both beats – as well as writing a television-radio column – until his 25 years at the Star-Telegram ended in 2008 with the acceptance of a buyout. Wendell served as president of the United States Basketball Writers Association in 1995. He covered 26 Final Fours, 343 NCAA men’s tournament games, two women’s Final Fours, and 14 college football national championship games.
Wendell grew up in Columbia, Missouri, where his first journalism job was a summer part-time gig at the Columbia Daily Tribune in 1972. A year later, he was hired as the sports editor (one-person staff) at the Hannibal (Mo.) Courier-Post. Wendell spent four years as a sports reporter for the Quincy (Ill.) Herald-Whig beginning in 1974. He joined the sports copy desk at the Arizona Daily Star in 1979 for one year, then spent 18 months at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, where he served as assistant sports editor. He moved to Texas in 1981 to edit sports copy and layout pages for the Dallas Morning News. That led to his job in 1983 at the Fort Worth-Star Telegram, where he eventually returned to writing. Wendell worked as a correspondent (writer, TV/video host) for the Big 12 Conference from 2008 until 2015. He then freelanced for seven years, including one season of covering college basketball for The Athletic, before retiring in 2022.
Follow him on Twitter: @WBBarnhouse
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Wendell Barnhouse edited transcript
Todd Jones (00:03):
Wendell, it's a pleasure to have you join us.
Wendell Barnhouse (00:06):
It's great to be here, Todd. Good to connect again. You know that as the years go by and retirement's hit and we failed to meet in press boxes, you lose track of people. And that was one of the highlights of the job, as you well know, was reconnecting with guys every weekend at a game or whatever. So, good to see you.
one thing I must point out though, Wendell, you're a little bit older than me, just a little bit.
Wendell Barnhouse (01:09):
Yeah, yeah.
Todd Jones (01:09):
Now sources tell me that back in the day when you first started, you actually used a typewriter.
Wendell Barnhouse (01:19):
Well, that's because that's what was there. Yeah, yeah. And actually, right when I started out of high school, my first newspaper stories, I would write out by hand and then type them up and take them to the paper. And that was really old school.
Wendell Barnhouse (01:38):
But yeah, until I had been in the business for, I guess about five years when I finally got a job in Tucson, Arizona, at the Arizona Daily Star, and they had computers. And that was the first time I worked on a computer. Before that, everything I typed up all my stories on a typewriter.
Todd Jones (01:59):
They did not have computers at the Bedrock Gazette.
Wendell Barnhouse (02:03):
No, no, no. And my car was powered by my feet.
Todd Jones (02:07):
Fred, Barney and Wendell were all left in our own devices.
Wendell Barnhouse (02:10):
That's right. That's right. Yeah. Barney was a great source.
Todd Jones (02:13):
Well, you did discover computer technology, and you certainly later found a calling in covering national college basketball and football and did so as well as anyone for 25 years at the Fort Worth Star-Telegram. That's how we got to know each other.
Todd Jones (02:29):
I want to go back to those typewriter days, just for a moment though.
Todd Jones (03:20):
So, it's 1974, you're in Hannibal, Missouri, hometown of Mark Twain, by the way.
Wendell Barnhouse (03:27):
Yep, yeah.
Todd Jones (03:28):
No pressure.
Wendell Barnhouse (03:28):
No pressure there.
Todd Jones (03:29):
At the Hannibal Courier-Post. You're the sports editor, a one-man staff, right?
Wendell Barnhouse (03:34):
Yep, yep.
When the job in Hannibal came open, the other candidate was a college graduate who had tragically lost an arm in a car accident. So, they hired me over a one-armed sportswriter.
Wendell Barnhouse (04:42):
And I was 19 when I was first hired, but yeah, it was a little afternoon paper, Hannibal, Missouri and I was sports editor. They gave me a three-month probation, and then they hired me-
Todd Jones (04:55):
Three months. That's it. I had like 30 years of probation.
Wendell Barnhouse (04:59):
Well yeah, I guess they gave it to me a little quicker than three months. But yeah, I was 19. I hadn't been to college, and so I don't blame them for waiting.
Wendell Barnhouse (05:10):
But right around my 20th birthday I got the job. And so, it was interesting. But at the age of 19, there wasn't anything going on in Hannibal. And I don't think we even had a fast food restaurant, which at that time was my breakfast, lunch, and dinner. So, it was kind of hard.
Todd Jones (05:31):
So, there's nothing going on, but this kid who wanted to play shortstop for the St. Louis Cardinals would sometimes drive two hours to St. Louis.
Wendell Barnhouse (05:39):
Yeah, yep.
Todd Jones (05:39):
Now, the very first time that you went to cover a Cardinals game, you go into the locker room. What happened?
Wendell Barnhouse (05:49):
I stood there frozen and scared to death. I grew up a Cardinals fan. Columbia, Missouri was two hours away. Hannibal was two hours away. And it was really amazing that I asked for a press pass. They said, "Oh yeah, sure." So, I like, "Oh wow."
Todd Jones (06:06):
You got two arms. Come on in.
Wendell Barnhouse (06:08):
Yeah, yeah. That's right. Yeah, we don't let one-armed writers in. Anyway, but I go in there, there's Lou Brock and Gibson was still on the team, and these are the guys, like when I was — really, the first time I got into baseball was 1964, when they won the World Series over the Yankees. These are the guys I grew up worshiping and idolizing. And I'm here in the same locker room with them.
Wendell Barnhouse (06:33):
And I think the first time I didn't talk to anybody; I was scared to death. And finally, I kind of got my courage up and started talking to them and trying to interview them.
Wendell Barnhouse (06:45):
So yeah, that was a weird thing because it wasn't like I was a 23 or 24-year-old. I was like, just out of high school. And here I was in the Cardinals locker room. So, that was-
Todd Jones (06:56):
It was like being in a classroom, right?
Wendell Barnhouse (06:57):
It was strange.
Todd Jones (06:59):
Learning from the other reporters.
Wendell Barnhouse (07:00):
Well, yeah. Yeah, I don't know if I was that. I was just like, "Can I ask Lou Brock a question? Oh, my God." And I was actually in there one time, I guess it must have been '73. I went to a Cardinals/Mets game and went in the Mets locker room the Mets won. Willie Mays was there. I was standing like right next to Willie Mays and next to Felix Millán.
Wendell Barnhouse (07:30):
But he wasn't a Cardinal, but it was Willie Mays for God's sake. And I'm standing there. I didn't ask him anything, but it was just like, I don't know if any of the players noticed or paid any attention, but they must have said, "What the hell is this guy doing?"
Todd Jones (07:49):
Well, you had two arms, but you were on mute.
Wendell Barnhouse (07:52):
Exactly, yeah. I was scared. I was totally intimidated.
Todd Jones (07:56):
I got to say that, I grew up in the Cincinnati area when I started in the business in the late 80s.
Wendell Barnhouse (08:01):
Yep.
Todd Jones (08:01):
Going into Riverfront Stadium and the manager's, Pete Rose. And I used to have a Pete Rose poster on my wall as a child. And I'm asking Pete-
Wendell Barnhouse (08:08):
Yeah, exactly.
Todd Jones (08:10):
For the daily double, actually asked him for the pitching rotation. It was a little strange. And you had to get used to that. But you did. You learned how to do your craft. You learned how to interview, you learned how to develop sources. You went on to cover 26 Final Fours, 14 college national title games in football.
Todd Jones (08:31):
But prior to that time of covering college football as a writer, you actually spent a few years on the desk as an assistant sports editor.
Wendell Barnhouse (08:40):
Yeah.
Todd Jones (08:40):
At some places. You were in Arizona, Atlanta, the Dallas Morning News, designing pages, editing stories. What did that experience do for you as a writer when you turned to writing full-time?
Wendell Barnhouse (08:55):
Yeah. And I'm not trying to be humble here, Todd, but as a writer, I always thought of myself just as a craftsman, not an artist.
But I think being on the desk, first of all, it really showed me more of the inner workings, particularly in Arizona, was the first time I'd worked at a morning paper. So, I was in there at night.
Wendell Barnhouse (09:53):
The deadlines, there's deadlines that afternoon papers, but deadlines for morning papers’ a little bit different. There's a little bit more pressure. So, I learned a lot about putting pages out and screaming at writers for missing deadlines.
Wendell Barnhouse (11:50):
And a lot of what I learned when I got out to be a writer, was understanding what the desk was going through with you weren't the only writer filing on deadline. There are other writers coming in with stories and it's a little bit like an air traffic controller where you're saying, "Well okay, well this game went extra innings. Okay, well, what are we going to do now?"
Wendell Barnhouse (12:15):
Or like when Villanova beats Georgetown in the National Championship game, you got to maybe rip up the front page for what you thought you were going to do and say, this is one of the biggest stories in college basketball history. How are you going to display that?
Wendell Barnhouse (12:32):
And so, that was a lot of what I learned as far as just kind of the inner workings of a ... I knew about headlines and pictures and layouts and all that kind of stuff, but I think when you're in there, particularly at night, when you're the guy that's kind of in charge of the section, you kind of understand how this all works.
Wendell Barnhouse (12:51):
So, when I got out as a writer, we always used to have the handcuff theory where there'd be a lot of editors that hadn't been out writing. It was like, "Well, why couldn't you have interviewed that guy before he shot his free throws to win the game?"
Wendell Barnhouse (13:07):
It was almost like that. It was just like, "Okay, we're going to handcuff you and take you into a locker room and let you stand around for 10 minutes." It's like you've been there, you're on deadline and they take 15 minutes to open the locker room. And you're sweating to get quotes and the editor says, "Well, how come you were ...
Wendell Barnhouse (13:28):
It's like, did you want quotes in the story or not? It's like there are-
Todd Jones (13:32):
So, it gave you a perspective? You understood the process.
Wendell Barnhouse (13:35):
Right, exactly.
Wendell Barnhouse (13:35):
You understood that people were bleeding at both ends of the process; in the newsroom and at the arena, at the stadium.
Todd Jones (14:45):
You also, as an assistant sports editor at the Dallas Morning News from 1981 to '83, experienced a good old fashioned newspaper war.
Wendell Barnhouse (14:55):
Yeah.
What was it like participating in a newspaper war?
Wendell Barnhouse (15:14):
It was very interesting. In 1981, I was at the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. I had gotten to know one of our writers, Dan Barreiro, who has now up in Minneapolis and has become a talk radio legend, Minnesota Radio Hall of Famer. He went to The Morning News to cover the NFL. And at that time, he was one of the first hires that Dave Smith-
Todd Jones (15:38):
Legendary Dave Smith.
Wendell Barnhouse (15:39):
Sportswriter made. David, yes. Dave at The Boston Globe had like the oral series with the Reds in '75, or was it '75? It was 75, the Red Sox, Red’s World Series. He turned sports coverage on their head. He sent 10 writers to the games to cover all the angles. And it was revolutionary.
Wendell Barnhouse (16:02):
And he got The Morning News sports editor job, and the guy that was in overall charge of The Morning News had been the executive editor at the AP. They hired him. And his goal was to beat the Times Herald with the coverage of sports and business. And Dave Smith got carte blanche, got all the space he wanted all the money he wanted. Could hire anybody, staff, do whatever.
Todd Jones (16:25):
Wasn't he a former marine? Yeah, yeah. Right.
Wendell Barnhouse (16:28):
Yes, yeah. And he was a tough guy to work for, very demanding. I always said when I would lay out the paper and go through all the stress of getting everything together, and it was a large section, and you were landing planes at LaGuardia and rush hour kind of stuff.
Wendell Barnhouse (16:45):
And he would mark up the next paper every day with a grease pencil. And I always thought that with Dave, you'd get 99 out of a hundred things done correctly, and he'd want to know about the hundredth thing you screwed up, really. And he wouldn't talk about the 99 things.
And it was amazing what The Morning News turned into under Dave Smith. The Sunday sports section would be 24 to 30 pages.
Todd Jones (18:34):
Think about that. 30 pages of sports cover.
Wendell Barnhouse (18:36):
Yeah, and that is what now today ... and we live in Dallas and we subscribe to The Morning News. There are many days when the regular sports section is six to eight pages. Back then, if we had a less than a 20-page daily section, it was like, “Oh, we don't have enough space for all this stuff.” Because they covered everything. The 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles, they sent 24 writers to cover the Olympics.
Todd Jones (19:06):
I remember one time being in Dallas covering probably the NCAA tournament, and I picked up the Dallas Morning News and I counted 14 different date lines in the sports section.
Wendell Barnhouse (19:17):
Yes.
Todd Jones (19:18):
And I'm not talking datelines from Texas, I'm talking around the globe.
Wendell Barnhouse (19:21):
No.
Todd Jones (19:22):
So, this was the height of newspapers with revenue, with staff, resources, ambition. It was a real meat grinder of a fight, right?
Wendell Barnhouse (19:35):
Yeah.
Wendell Barnhouse (21:20):
So yeah, it was crazy. It was the height of newspapering.
Todd Jones (21:47):
The height of the newspaper war and era was also the time that you eventually switched over into full-time writing. So, you moved over to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram in 1983 as an assistant sports editor.
Todd Jones (21:59):
In 1986, the Final Fours come into Dallas, and you're still a desk guy, their news sports editor, Bruce Raben comes to you and says, right, we want you to start writing about college basketball, national college basketball. Why did you decide to make that switch then?
Wendell Barnhouse (22:20):
Well, he was the boss and he asked me. So, it wasn't so much my choice. I had worked with Bruce at the Morning News. He had been an assistant sports editor there when I worked there.
Wendell Barnhouse (22:57):
They brought in Raben to say, look, we want to compete with the other two papers. And so, they gave him more money and space, that kind of stuff.
Wendell Barnhouse (23:07):
And I asked Bruce about this, years later, but I actually thought that Bruce didn't want me to be an assistant sports editor anymore. And so, that's why he made me the college basketball writer.
Todd Jones (23:16):
Oh, you thought you being demoted, huh?
Wendell Barnhouse (23:19):
Well, yeah. I loved college basketball. I'd really gotten into it. And he knew that. And I'd kind of said, "Well okay, if that's what you want."
Wendell Barnhouse (24:07):
But yeah, Bruce, and he was serious. He sent me everywhere almost. I was traveling like every other day. It seemed like, starting with basketball season, all over the place.
Todd Jones (24:21):
Okay. So, let's think about this. You go from going to the office every night.
Wendell Barnhouse (24:25):
Yep.
Todd Jones (24:26):
And in the fall of '85 you switched to become the National College basketball writer. What were the next five months like? Until the Final Four was held in Dallas in March of '86?
Wendell Barnhouse (24:39):
It was a complete blur.
Wendell Barnhouse (25:34):
But here I was, all of a sudden, I'm walking into Madison Square Garden, this little kid from Columbia, Missouri, basically, it's like, wow. And just going all over the place. I spent a week in Tobacco Road. He wanted me to do a big story because North Carolina had won it in '82, the North Carolina state in '83.
Wendell Barnhouse (25:53):
And here, Krzyzewski's Duke team was one of the best in the country, at the Dean Dome, had his first game where it was Duke versus North Carolina, I was able to cover that game.
Wendell Barnhouse (26:04):
So, and I didn't have any idea what I was doing as far as covering a beat. He'd say, "Okay, we want two notes’ columns a week." Okay well, whatever. And I'd throw stuff together and he planned out most of my schedule.
For five months you were pretty much just traveling all over the country, right? Oh, yes.
Wendell Barnhouse (27:06):
Yeah. It was amazing. I really had never traveled that much. I learned about American miles and Marriott points, which eventually a couple years later, my wife and I kind of had our second honeymoon and went to Maui, thanks to American and Marriott points. So, there was a couple of perks.
Wendell Barnhouse (27:25):
But Bruce was great at scheduling and looking ahead and saying, “Well, we probably need to go to this game. And when you make this trip, either talk to somebody there for a feature or figure out.” He was great at getting the most bang for the buck as far as trips are concerned.
Wendell Barnhouse (27:44):
But that season was just — I remember we got to the Final Four and even that was the first weekend I was in North Carolina, there were first and second round regionals in Greensboro.
Todd Jones (27:57):
Sure. Why not?
Wendell Barnhouse (27:58):
In Charlotte, which are like three hours from each other. And they were Thursday, Saturday, Friday, Sunday. So, Bruce's great idea was well just drive back and forth and cover them all.
Wendell Barnhouse (28:08):
So, it was like 14 games in four days. And it's like okay and I got done with that. He actually gave me a break. I didn't cover Regional Final. We had other writers-
Todd Jones (28:21):
I think you said you had gone to like 27-
Wendell Barnhouse (28:25):
And then I get to the Final Four and I was toast and I've still had ...
Wendell Barnhouse (28:35):
Yeah. In the first month, like at the end of November. He even helped me. I had one-
Todd Jones (28:42):
You got the special forces.
Wendell Barnhouse (28:43):
Where the Cowboys were playing at the Bengals in Cincinnati. And he said, "Well, next Sunday, why don't you go help us cover the Cowboys?" Sure. Bruce, whatever.
Wendell Barnhouse (28:54):
And it wasn't related to basketball, but I covered a Patriots/Raiders playoff game in LA where that was just ... we were covering everything. And it's like, "Okay, this is a playoff game. We don't have anybody to cover it. Wendell, book a flight and go."
Todd Jones (29:09):
Louisville on with freshmen-
Wendell Barnhouse (29:11):
So yeah, the championship game was quite something. Louisville-
Todd Jones (29:18):
And it was such a shocking thing, to see a freshman do that.
Wendell Barnhouse (29:22):
Yep. And yep. Yep, yes. Yeah, yeah. That was back in the days when that wasn't ... yeah, I think there was a guy back in 1944 for Utah that was the most player. And Pervis was the next one to do that. So, it was just unheard of.
Wendell Barnhouse (29:46):
And of course, for a long time, freshmen were ineligible. And when you're on deadline, the main thing is getting your lead. You want something that's going to grab somebody. And-
Wendell Barnhouse (30:02):
Nice.
Wendell Barnhouse (30:03):
Something I came up with, I'm not exactly a biblical scholar, but I came up with, and a child shall leave them. And the next day I think it was somebody from — I think Dave Anderson from the New York Times was there covering the Final Four as a columnist. And that was his lead.
Todd Jones (30:25):
And you made it.
Wendell Barnhouse (30:26):
I didn't plagiarize him because it's not like I wrote a second day story with that.
Wendell Barnhouse (30:29):
But I remember I got a note from Bruce saying, "Yep, it's pretty good lead. Look what Dave Anderson wrote." Yeah. So, I was like, "That's one." You know?
I think you covered 343 NCAA tournament games.
Wendell Barnhouse (31:18):
Yep, yep.
Wendell Barnhouse (31:18):
That's amazing. What was March like for you as a sportswriter?
Wendell Barnhouse (31:24):
Right. Yes, exactly. Again, it was hectic, but as the years went by, it was always kind of a challenge to ... you may get to this in a minute, but for the first 10 years of covering March Madness, that's basically what I did. And then 1994, they added National college football to my list of beats. Because I had written about a lot of NCAA stuff in the off season from college basketball and gotten into all the — 48 stuff and the title IX and all those issues.
Wendell Barnhouse (32:05):
And they said, "Well, you're getting all this NCAA stuff. Why don't you just do college football too?" And "Oh sure, why not?"
Wendell Barnhouse (32:10):
So yeah, exactly. Let Mikey try it. Mikey lead anything, google that commercial kids. Anyway, so that meant I'd start in July and end in early April. But for me, March Madness was a challenge because I got to the point where I wanted to figure out a way to get as much coverage as we could, as cheaply as we could.
Wendell Barnhouse (32:39):
Because one of the challenges of the NCAA tournament, particularly the first weekend, you don't see the bracket until CBS lets you see it, Sunday evening at five or six o'clock. And then you see, oh, look at this regional, oh, well this ... maybe TCU has made a tournament. We got to send somebody there.
Wendell Barnhouse (33:00):
And if it's a Thursday game, you pretty much have to travel Tuesday to get there for Wednesday's news conferences. Which means Sunday night you got to try to find flights and-
Todd Jones (33:13):
Right, yeah. Selection Sunday was one of the craziest days of the year for-
Wendell Barnhouse (33:16):
A tournament in Denver first round or in Florida, good luck finding a flight because they're all booked. Yeah, yeah.
Todd Jones (33:26):
Right.
Wendell Barnhouse (33:27):
So, I always tried to plan ahead and since Bruce had taught me, well about, oh, you can cover two sites in a weekend, in the first round, I would try to look at places and say, well, there's a good chance this team might get sent here, so maybe I can piggyback-
Todd Jones (33:43):
Like being on a wagon train.
Wendell Barnhouse (33:46):
Which usually involved driving in three to four hours of each other and there were Thursday ... yeah, exactly. I just drive back and forth and-
Todd Jones (33:57):
You know how you're going to get the odds eventually.
Wendell Barnhouse (33:59):
And so, yeah. That was the challenge to me, was trying to plan it out. You knew where the Final Four was. You could book that, that was fine, but yes-
Todd Jones (34:10):
Well, you certainly did get to some good games. You think about those-
Wendell Barnhouse (34:14):
And the early rounds I was just trying to hopefully you got lucky and got somewhere where there's some good games.
Todd Jones (34:19):
There's the 92 East regional final Duke versus Kentucky often called the greatest college basketball team ever. Christian Laettner with the last second shot after the full court pass from Grant Hill in overtime. Where were you sitting that night, in Philadelphia?
Wendell Barnhouse (34:35):
Yep. I was probably second row of press row beyond the baseline, and Laettner was down there. So, if I'd have had my binoculars, I'd have been in great shape.
Wendell Barnhouse (34:59):
But I was about as far away on press row from Laettner as you could be. And that was one of those games where it was over. And you know it's the greatest craziest game you've ever covered. And you sit there, and I was just, I don't know how to write this. I don't know what to say because it was a game that had two game winning shots, Kentucky scores with 2.1 seconds on a great drive, to take the lead. And then Laettner kills them with his shot.
Wendell Barnhouse (35:32):
So, in the space of just over two seconds, you had two game winning shots. Kentucky was a great story-
Speaker 3 (35:40):
And it was just a fantastic game from start to finish. It wasn't just the end, right? So, as the game was unfolding, as a writer did you grasp that this was not a normal day?
Wendell Barnhouse (35:50):
Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I'm sitting there, this is the previous year. I'd seen Duke get run out of the gym by UNLV in 1990, then come back and upset them in the semi-finals the next year which again, an unbelievably great game that nobody thought Duke had a chance to win.
Wendell Barnhouse (36:17):
And here they are trying to become the first repeat since UCLA, and I had written during the season, they're not going to do it. You got six games of 40 minutes, there's going to be a five-minute stretch where you're not going to have it.
Wendell Barnhouse (36:57):
Again, sometimes when you've seen the replay of the play a hundred times, it's easy. But when you're sitting there watching it live, I say, “Here's Grant Hill taking the pass out of bounds. He's Calvin Hill's son, okay, he's a great sophomore.”
Wendell Barnhouse (37:14):
Or it's like, well okay, well I didn't look at whether or not got the … which a lot of people criticized Pitino for. It's like, what? I guess they're going to try to get the ball to Laettner. But again, it's just like, I think honestly at the time I was kind of blanking out. Not really. I was just kind of watching what's going to happen. I didn't analyze it and it was like, oh my God, he hit the shot.
Todd Jones (37:42):
What was it like in the arena-
Wendell Barnhouse (37:43):
And it was one of those things where something happens in the blink of an eye and you blinked and you kind of like, I don't know if I ... what happened. It was bedlam. People were going crazy.
Wendell Barnhouse (37:59):
And another thing that I didn't realize later, there's this great shot from CBS right after Laettner shot, which I think embellishes and shows what March Madness is about. Thomas Hill for the Duke was not on the floor for the shot.
Wendell Barnhouse (38:19):
And there's a picture of him on the sideline and he's like this. But it's like they lost. It's almost like he's in tears from that one-
Speaker 3 (38:31):
Where did you go for the post game-
Wendell Barnhouse (38:31):
Clip, half second shot of him. He can't believe they made the shot, but it's almost like, if you just saw that, you'd say, “Well, that guy's team lost.”
Wendell Barnhouse (38:43):
I went to the press conferences; I went to the Duke locker room and tried to get what I could. And Todd, I'm being totally honest. I'd been doing it for a while, covered college basketball. I honestly didn't know what to do.
Wendell Barnhouse (39:01):
I remember sitting in the press room looking at my laptop and I asked the desk, I said, “Can I do a little sidebar in addition to my game story?” Because I wanted to cover as much as I could.
Wendell Barnhouse (39:11):
And I was just sitting there thinking, I don't know where to start. I don't know what I'm going to — and the funny thing was, I've gone back and read my story, it wasn't that bad. But Pat Forde was there, Rick Bozich was there because they were covering Kentucky guys that I'd gotten to know and all these great writers were there. And I'm kind of looking around, I say, "I wonder what the heck they're going to write." I'm not being humble or modest. I was-
Todd Jones (39:36):
Well, as a native of Kentucky, I can-
Wendell Barnhouse (39:38):
I'm like, "I'll try." But I felt the pressure of trying to have a story.
Todd Jones (39:44):
And the very next day you go from sitting courtside for that loss in Philly to you are in Lexington, Kentucky the next day.
Wendell Barnhouse (39:51):
Yes, absolutely.
Todd Jones (39:54):
To cover the Fab Five versus Ohio State in a Regional Final. What was it like in Lexington the very next day when you got to town?
Wendell Barnhouse (40:00):
Yep, yep.
Wendell Barnhouse (40:07):
Yes. That's one of my trips that I had planned to say, okay, I can fly from Philly to Cincinnati fairly cheaply and then drive to Lexington.
Wendell Barnhouse (40:21):
But I was up late. I remember getting in a cab with the Syracuse athletic director who was on the committee the morning after the game. We were both going to the airport from the same hotel. It was like, I was up at like 5:00 AM, I probably got three hours sleep. I got to Cincinnati, checked into my hotel room, I took a nap. Again, I was out of gas trying to get there.
Todd Jones (40:41):
You were trying to survive in advance.
Wendell Barnhouse (40:42):
I don't remember what the feeling was as far as Lexington and I had to do a Final Four preview for the paper for Monday, in addition to covering and yeah. Yeah. And Michigan/Ohio State was a hell of a game. Here's two teams from the same conference. It was the Fab Five as freshmen.
Wendell Barnhouse (41:06):
And I'm sitting there and it's like, oh well, hey, another game. But it's like yesterday's game was a little better. But I think it went overtime too. So, I think two straight overtime games to go to the Final Four. Those are the things that when you get through covering March Madness-
Todd Jones (41:23):
You’re trying to make sense of it and beat your deadline. And that's all you're really kind of focusing on. I know myself, when I look back on it, I have a little different thoughts about if I've witnessed a moment like that.
Todd Jones (41:35):
You were there in 1987 when Keith Smart hits his final shot to win the national title for Indiana. And this is only a couple years into your tenure as a national college writer. What was it like on a Monday night at the end of a championship game trying to write that story?
Wendell Barnhouse (41:57):
Yep. Again, and I did have a good view of that. It was down at my end of the floor. I was in the second row of press row, so I was kind of elevated. The interesting thing, the first Final Four I ever went to, when I was working in Dallas, that Final Four in '82 was in New Orleans. And I-
Todd Jones (42:22):
Yeah. But you don't have to write that one, this time you got to write.
Wendell Barnhouse (42:25):
That was Michael Jordan against Georgetown in the championship. I saw that game and Jordan’s shot was about 10 ...
Wendell Barnhouse (42:32):
No, no, no. I got ... yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, hey, I'm just a fan. But Jordan’s shot was about 10 feet away from Smart's and obviously it was Knights turned out to be his last national championship. And maybe I'll set you up for some Knight questions.
Wendell Barnhouse (42:52):
But I remember going to that Final Four and knowing Knight's reputation with writers and in the group press conferences, when we're all sitting there in the audience and raising our hand to ask a question, I made damn sure that my questions for Bob Knight were practically written down because I was not going to have him chop me into little pieces about what a stupid question that was.
Wendell Barnhouse (43:19):
And I felt like I was in a professor's class for that.
Todd Jones (44:20):
So, you wrote down this question for Knight and you rehearsed it and you asked it. What kind of response did you get?
Wendell Barnhouse (44:28):
It was actually pretty good. I want to say that I remember him at least saying, "Oh, that's a good question," or whatever.
Wendell Barnhouse (44:36):
But I was prepared. And as you well know, and I know this is kind of your motto, it's like failing to prepare is-
Todd Jones (44:47):
John Wooden.
Wendell Barnhouse (44:47):
Preparing to fail. That's the John Wooden and I didn't pick that up early in my career, but I picked it up as I went along and saying, you know what, you need to be ready-
Todd Jones (44:57):
Plus, a week before, you were in Cincinnati for the Regional.
Wendell Barnhouse (45:01):
Yeah, yeah.
Todd Jones (45:02):
And Indiana was playing LSU and Bob Knight and Dale Brown, LSU coach, were big enemies. And there was a moment there where you're sitting in press row. What did you see?
Wendell Barnhouse (45:13):
I saw Knight after a call, slam the phone. They had a phone at press row, believe it or not, an actual phone, like this phone I guess for the officials to call wherever or whatever. It was a red phone. I don't know. Maybe it had something to do with the President.
Wendell Barnhouse (45:30):
But anyway, Knight was upset with a call, and he was sitting … it was right in front of the members of the basketball committee get to sit at the official scores table. And I think the phone was right in front of one of those members of the committee.
Wendell Barnhouse (45:43):
And Knight picked the handset of the phone up and slammed it down on the receiver, and the phone jumped up off the table. And he didn't get a technical and LSU which was a very under seeded, underrated team and Indiana, was one of the teams that, I think they were probably a one seed, but they were favored to probably win the national championship.
Wendell Barnhouse (46:04):
They barely beat LSU. And at that time, Dale Brown had the reputation, the previous year he'd gone to the Final four, I think, with 11 seed. And so, he had this reputation of messing teams up that were better than his team. And he was a very adamant enemy of Knight as far as his bullying.
Todd Jones (46:26):
Yeah. He used to just call Knight a bully, which was unheard of for another coach to say that type of thing.
Wendell Barnhouse (46:31):
Yeah. And in all honesty, as it's turned out over the years, Dale Brown was right about that, I think. But yeah. So, that had kind of set the tone for the Final Four of ... Knight previously had thrown the chair across the floor, and he had had a number of either on court or off court temper tantrums where he had become terrible Bobby Knight. So, yeah. That incident at the Regional Final was a good precursor to that Final Four.
Todd Jones (47:06):
Well, '87 was kind of the height of his power. He won, that was his third national championship.
Wendell Barnhouse (47:10):
Exactly.
Todd Jones (47:13):
He won; he took the U.S. to the gold medal in '84. He was the guy, this is only a couple years into the three-point shot, which he never really adapted to.
Wendell Barnhouse (47:21):
Yes. So, he was rolling the game at that time, and so he was just always in the news and always copy for writers.
Wendell Barnhouse (47:31):
Yep. And his last Final Four was in '92.
Todd Jones (47:36):
Yep. I was there. Yep.
Wendell Barnhouse (47:37):
When Duke repeated, Duke beats Indiana in the semi-finals, close game. And it was famous for after that game. Here's Krzyzewski. He's already won a national championship, former Knight assistant-
Todd Jones (47:52):
Played for Knight at Army.
Wendell Barnhouse (47:54):
And played for Knight at Army. He was a coach Knight guy. And in the handshake line, Knight gave him the drive-by. The handshake, it wasn't like stop and put your hand on the guy's shoulder saying, nice job, good luck in the championship game.
Wendell Barnhouse (48:09):
He was just like, handshake, keep going. He goes down to the end of the bench and one of the ... he wasn't an assistant coach, but Knight knew him. And he spent more time chatting with that guy at the end of the bench than he had with Krzyzewski's former assistant. And it was a virtual slap in the face to Krzyzewski. To me it was like, my pupil is now the teacher, and I don't like it.
Wendell Barnhouse (49:29):
A grudge was one of the things Knight did more than a lot of people. He did some nice things for some people, but he had a long list of grudges and you just happened to end up on-
Todd Jones (49:42):
Wendell, how did you take a guy like Knight when you were writing about college basketball and not let personal feelings impact what you were writing? What was the challenge of that?
Wendell Barnhouse (49:54):
As it went on, in '87, not so much in '92. If I'd have had an opportunity to write a column after the Duke/Indiana game in '92, I would've probably torched him.
Wendell Barnhouse (50:10):
I remember when he got fired, I wrote a column for the paper. And by that time, I had gotten to the point of realizing that this is a guy who was basically a hypocrite because what he demanded of his players, he couldn't do himself, which was control his temper. He wanted his players to play perfect game. And he got on them, he was even angry at his son when he played for him, if he made a mistake.
Wendell Barnhouse (50:42):
He was a guy that instead of being able to control his emotions like he expected his players to, he couldn't do it. And to me, that was the reason why … and I wrote that, I said, here's the irony of Bob Knight, who one of the greatest coaches ever, was that he didn't practice what he preached.
Todd Jones (51:05):
Yeah, yeah.
Wendell Barnhouse (51:05):
And so, I don't know if that was personal, but that at the time was like I guess maybe I had more of an epiphany thinking, "Okay, this is what this guy is and you have to understand it, and this is why he doesn't coach at Indiana anymore."
Todd Jones (51:21):
I always thought Knight was just kind of representative of a certain era of a coaching style.
Wendell Barnhouse (51:27):
Yes.
Todd Jones (51:27):
He played basketball at Ohio State in the early 60s when Woody Hayes was the football coach. Bob was from Ohio. He understood the whole Woody Hayes thing. And I just think in those days, coaches could get away with that type of thing. Not to excuse it, it was just different.
Wendell Barnhouse (51:44):
No. Yeah, yeah.
Todd Jones (51:45):
It was just fascinating to see how that type of coach, not just Knight, but other guys of that ilk could behave and be excused. And that's looking back in a perspective now years later when things have changed, but it never ceased to be a fascinating topic for writers when they were there in the moment.
Wendell Barnhouse (52:05):
Yeah. And the thing is that the world we live in now with Twitter and social media, and whether or not it's a viral video or not, Woody Hayes punching the Clemson player went viral, but it was only on TV.
Wendell Barnhouse (52:24):
Now, you can imagine the commotion that would've created in this modern day if it had been all over Twitter. He did lose his job over that.
Wendell Barnhouse (52:36):
And again, the video doesn't lie. Knight choking Neil Reed in practice was again, one of the nails in the coffin for him that showed his Woody Hayes type behavior toward one of his players. Not to an opposing player, but one of his players, in the time when he looked like he kicked his son on the bench. Those kind of things. And then he would make fun of it by bringing a whip to the Regional Final or Final Four-
Todd Jones (53:05):
That counterbalance, the 900 wins and national championships and everything else.
Wendell Barnhouse (53:10):
Yeah.
Todd Jones (53:10):
And again, Knight wasn't alone. There was a lot of coaches like that.
Wendell Barnhouse (53:15):
Yep.
Todd Jones (53:16):
Jackie Sherrill had a bull castrated in front of his team to try to motivate them. So hey, you had to be tough. It was different.
Wendell Barnhouse (53:28):
Yeah. Can I tell a story about the bull castration-
Todd Jones (53:32):
We will take all stories about bull castration by Jackie Sherrill. Go for it.
Wendell Barnhouse (53:37):
You had mentioned I was at the '92 Regional Final in Lexington, and I was doing a Final Four preview also because that was the last game of the regional Elite Eights. And I was kind of doing a little bullet notes thing, and Mississippi State or maybe this probably wasn't the right way. Anyway, Mississippi State had got to the Final Four, and so it wasn't in '92, I'm getting my dates mixed up because I'm old.
Wendell Barnhouse (54:06):
But anyway, Mississippi State had won and got to the Final four, and Sherrill was the coach. And not too long before that, he had done the thing where he had castrated the bull because they were getting ready to play Texas, the Longhorns, and he wanted to motivate his team.
Wendell Barnhouse (54:22):
So, they were going to be playing Syracuse in the Regional, or in the Final Four semi-finals.
Todd Jones (54:28):
Still one of my favorite stories.
Wendell Barnhouse (54:30):
And so, you tried to be a little smart-alecky or snarky. So, my little paragraph thing was, hey so, Texas gets to play Syracuse in Saturday semi-final, no word whether Jackie Sherrill is going to show up and castrate an orange.
Todd Jones (54:50):
I see what you did there.
Wendell Barnhouse (54:53):
Yeah, yeah. It's like-
Todd Jones (54:56):
But did the desk see what you did there?
Wendell Barnhouse (54:58):
Oh, no. No. And I think it was the Sunday before the Final Four. I'd been covering two weekends of the tournament. I was worn out; I was finishing the Lexington. I was one of the last people in the press room.
Wendell Barnhouse (55:13):
And so, I'm getting ready, I'm packing stuff up and back in those days before cell phones, you had a rule, like before you were saying, okay, I'm done. You would call the office and say, has anybody got any questions for him?
Todd Jones (55:26):
Right.
Wendell Barnhouse (55:26):
Did they screw up something or did ... whatever. So, I called the desk, said, "Hey, everything okay?" And he said, "Oh yeah, so and so wants to talk to you." Said, "Get him on the phone." And he said, "Wendell, you can't castrate an orange."
Wendell Barnhouse (55:42):
And I'm like, okay. It's like, oh my God. And it was like, it's a good thing to want … I wasn't yelling at him, but I got very animated saying, “Do you understand like irony or humor or anything?”
Todd Jones (55:54):
You turned into-
Wendell Barnhouse (55:58):
No, no, I wasn't. And people that know me will be surprised. I didn't cuss. I didn't yell.
Todd Jones (56:06):
You just tried to explain that this is a player on-
Wendell Barnhouse (56:07):
You just tried to explain that this is-
Todd Jones (56:10):
The Syracuse orange-
Wendell Barnhouse (56:12):
Yes, yeah. It's like, yes, I know you can't castrate an orange, but do you understand? And maybe he was thinking, well, people don't understand about the Jackie Sherrill reference, but if you have to explain about him castrating-
Todd Jones (56:23):
In Texas.
Wendell Barnhouse (56:24):
The bull, well that, and it's like, you can't ... that ruins the joke. So, it stayed in, they actually went with it, but it was like a five-minute conversation of my frustration and being worn out, tired, trying to say — at some points I would've just said, "Okay fine, just take it out."
Todd Jones (57:05):
Alright. Well, you mentioned football. I mentioned football and you started covering the national college football in 1994, which happened to be the same year you were president of the Basketball Writers Association of America. So, you had a lot on your plate.
Wendell Barnhouse (57:18):
You started covering college football the way you did basketball by traveling around to the big games. And just like in basketball, you got to see some amazing moments. And you're at the Nebraska/Missouri Flea Flicker. You were at the USE Notre Dame Bush Push. Ohio State/Miami for the national title. You were also there for the Boise State/Oklahoma Fiesta Bowl. I was not there, but this involves a trash can, I do believe. Please explain.
Wendell Barnhouse (57:49):
Yeah, yeah. Okay. I had gone in, because Oklahoma it's not one of our schools basically, but Oklahoma was in the same conference, the Big 12. So, it was like, that was a school that the Star-Telegram paid attention to. We would cover some of their home games based on whether it was important, that kind of thing.
Wendell Barnhouse (58:36):
Told the editors that I'm going to go out and cover the Fiesta Bowl. So, I flew out that day, nobody expected Boise State to hang with Oklahoma. It was Adrian Peterson's probably last game. He was a junior. And that was part of the reason to be there.
Wendell Barnhouse (58:51):
And so, and I was going to write a column about Adrian Peterson's career in addition to writing a game story. Because as I said earlier, if I went to the game and the paper was paying the money and I could possibly do it, and they had the space, I said, look, I'm going to give you as much as I can on deadline.
Wendell Barnhouse (59:10):
And so, I could get a column done. I kind of sort of write it ahead of time and then kind of massage it and update it, and I'll do a game story and you'll be so happy that I did all this.
Wendell Barnhouse (59:20):
So, Oklahoma's behind, they get an interception, touchdown return. They go ahead and those, as you well know Todd, most of the time with a college football game, particularly on deadline or at any time with five minutes to go, they'd say, writers you can elevator to go down in the field. So, you would be on the field for the last couple of minutes, which was a blessing and a curse because sometimes something would happen.
Wendell Barnhouse (59:45):
Now, if it was a two-touchdown game, you didn't worry about it. You knew the game. But-
Todd Jones (59:49):
But this particular game, something happened.
Wendell Barnhouse (59:52):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, it did. First of all, Boise State's ahead in the elevator going down. They had the radio on, Oklahoma gets an interception, return for a touchdown, goes ahead with like a minute 10 to go, okay, Oklahoma's going to win. Okay. And I wanted to try to get Peterson on the field for a quick quote.
Wendell Barnhouse (01:00:11):
So, I had my laptop with me. So, I get down there and then all of a sudden Boise State does every play in their playbook and scores the touchdown it goes overtime.
Wendell Barnhouse (01:00:22):
But anyway, I had to update my story. I had my laptop, I'm on the sideline, and you have to have a flat surface for your laptop. I wouldn't have done the story on a phone, but I didn't have enough.
Wendell Barnhouse (01:00:35):
So, I find one of those flat top trash cans and I sit my laptop down on it to try to work on updating my story. Bill Hancock who is now in charge of the ... yeah, he remembers seeing me-
Todd Jones (01:00:54):
In charge of the world.
Wendell Barnhouse (01:00:55):
Yeah, yeah. It's like, hey. Yeah, exactly. And he says, "Wendell, I always remember seeing you working on your story on that trash can." And it's like, some people say, well, that's very appropriate that your story was done on a trash can. But anyway, so, and then, Boise-
Todd Jones (01:01:11):
Doing all these trick plays, you are typing on top of a trashcan.
Wendell Barnhouse (01:01:16):
Yeah, yeah. And then I got down to the end of the field where they do overtime. Peterson runs in a touchdown on the first play. And you think Oklahoma's going to win then-
Todd Jones (01:01:26):
Right.
Wendell Barnhouse (01:01:26):
Boise State ties it with another trick play, and then they go for two with the Statue of Liberty and they win it. And the guy that scores the touchdown proposes to his cheerleader girlfriend. And it's like, how much other takes could happen in this game?
Wendell Barnhouse (01:01:37):
So anyway, luckily the photography room, which is just off the tunnel going into the locker rooms had Wi-Fi. So, I could go in there and finish all my stuff up and send both my stories in. And one of the things that-
Todd Jones (01:01:52):
Did you take the trashcan with you?
Wendell Barnhouse (01:01:53):
Excuse me? No, no, no. I found a table in the photography room to work on.
Todd Jones (01:02:00):
Okay.
Wendell Barnhouse (01:02:01):
I only used the trashcan once. No, I didn't carry-
Todd Jones (01:02:03):
Had trashcan, more trouble.
Wendell Barnhouse (01:02:03):
It was too big to carry. Yeah, yeah. That's right. And one of the things that I always envy the guys, at this point, internet was a big thing. The great thing that an internet guy has over the newspaper deadlines, you had the time, you didn't really have a deadline. You did want to get your story done, but because I go in the Boise State locker room, I was going to do a false story.
Wendell Barnhouse (01:02:26):
And it's like, oh, I wish I could have had some of this stuff for my story. Because I think Bryan Harsin was the offensive coordinator at that time from Boise State, and we were talking to him and he said, “That was the last play we had. We didn't have anything left.”
Todd Jones (01:02:42):
Nothing left in the arsenal.
Wendell Barnhouse (01:02:44):
We had used every trick play, every special kind of play. That was the last thing we had. And it's like, okay, my story's already gone and it's no, I would've loved to have had that, but whatever.
Todd Jones (01:02:57):
Well, I just love the fact that you found a trashcan and you improvised and were able to use it as a table to write, as someone who wrote many things that many people reminded me should have been thrown in a trash can.
Wendell Barnhouse (01:03:11):
Yep.
Todd Jones (01:03:12):
Thinking of you typing on that trash can just brings a lot of joy to my life, Wendell.
Wendell Barnhouse (01:03:16):
Yeah. That's the perfect story for my career.
Todd Jones (01:03:22):
Well, I think it does show the fact that you could adapt, you could find a way to get things done. And also, you were always looking out for the other writers, the good of the other writers. You did it as president of the Basketball Writers that year.
Todd Jones (01:03:36):
But you also did it in 1998 at a football game. Number two, Kansas State beats the defending champ Nebraska. Kansas State coach Bill Snyder at this great moment, probably the best win in Kansas State history. He decides he is not going to let the media talk to his quarterback, Michael Bishop, a Heisman Trophy candidate, right?
Wendell Barnhouse (01:03:59):
Yes. That was a huge story for ... I covered national college football, but the Big 12 was a big part of that. And Kansas State had been awful. And Snyder had come in there and in a few years had turned it around.
Wendell Barnhouse (01:04:15):
Here's Nebraska the big bully of the Big 12 coming to Manhattan, Kansas State, I think was maybe number one then, or number two. And it was a big weekend for Kansas State and Manhattan, and they played a great game. Michael Bishop played a great game. They upset Nebraska, place is going nuts. It's whatever. They tear down the goalposts.
Wendell Barnhouse (01:04:37):
And after the game it's like, well, it'd be nice to talk to Michael Bishop. But he had been off limits all season. Snyder wasn't letting him talk to the media, which okay, but it's like this game, come on, can we talk to him?
Wendell Barnhouse (01:04:52):
Well, it turned out that Tim Layden of Sports Illustrated-
Todd Jones (01:04:53):
Great reporter and writer.
Wendell Barnhouse (01:04:55):
Was able to talk. Yeah. Oh, great guy. And it's Sports Illustrated, which back then folks that was big. It's si.com now, it's a website. Sports Illustrated is no longer Sports Illustrated, but whatever.
Wendell Barnhouse (01:05:10):
So Layden, gets a chance to talk because Bishop was a Heisman Trophy candidate. He was one of the finalists that went to New York. He didn't win it.
Wendell Barnhouse (01:05:17):
But so, Layden, I find out Layden got to talk to him. I don't know, somebody, maybe Dennis Dodd or some other writer friend of mine said, "Layden got to talk to Bishop." And one thing my wife will tell me that I am a donkihote as far as going after windmills. And I get angry about little things and say-
Wendell Barnhouse (01:05:40):
Well, I was just like, "This isn't right." If you don't want to talk to media, fine. But you’re playing favorite. So, I type up a letter and I faxed it because it was 1998.
Todd Jones (01:05:53):
I love it. The fax machine.
Wendell Barnhouse (01:05:55):
Well, it was an email. So, I faxed him, faxed a letter to the football office. “Dear Coach Snyder, I don't think it's fair or correct that you allowed Bishop to talk to Sports Illustrated when the other writers couldn't talk to him. I just don't think,” whatever.
Wendell Barnhouse (01:06:12):
About 30 minutes later, the phone in my home office rings, pick it up. "I have Coach Snyder on the line for you." And I'm thinking, "Oh boy, here we go. I’m going to get yelled at."
Wendell Barnhouse (01:06:24):
And he came on and said, "Wendell, I got your letter, you were right. I'm sorry, that was wrong. I shouldn't have done that." Yeah, yeah. He apologized and said I'm going to make sure Michael talks to the media the rest of the season.
Wendell Barnhouse (01:06:40):
And it's funny, ever since then ... and we didn't have a lot of interactions, and Snyder had this reputation of being a guy who was — he'd controlled the type of butter that his team would have for a pre-game meal. They had one pat of butter. Seriously, seriously. He controlled-
Todd Jones (01:06:58):
I wish I had him in charge of-
Wendell Barnhouse (01:06:59):
Everything about that program. Well yeah, and that's one of the reasons K State got to be where K State was. Because he was saying, this is how we're going to do it. And I don't like to get into the idea of being friends with coaches or whatever, because you really aren't friends.
Wendell Barnhouse (01:07:16):
But ever since then, he was so nice and cordial with me, honestly not because, hey, I want you to write a story about so and so. But he would say, "Hey Wendell, how you doing and everything?" We'd have a brief but nice conversation.
Wendell Barnhouse (01:07:30):
And I respected him for the fact that rather than being what most coaches would've done and either ignored what I said or call me up and say, “How dare you tell me how to run my program.” He admitted that he had made a mistake in this case and was going to correct it.
Wendell Barnhouse (01:07:48):
And that was like, well okay, once again, that's two. You know what I mean? So, that's as much a Bill Snyder story as it is one of my stories.
Todd Jones (01:07:59):
I think that's really interesting that somebody would acknowledge that they were wrong when it's not typical-
Wendell Barnhouse (01:08:05):
Yeah.
Todd Jones (01:08:06):
For a coach to acknowledge that they're wrong to the media.
Wendell Barnhouse (01:08:07):
Exactly. And I didn't write the story about it. I didn't say, "Oh, well here's what happened with me and Bill Snyder," which again, in this day and age, I think a lot of people might have blogged about it or whatever, but I didn't consider that a story to write, and I didn't particularly consider it a victory or whatever. It was just like-
Todd Jones (01:08:28):
Well, I think it shows you the kind of working relationship you could have because of the access that you had in those days, right?
Wendell Barnhouse (01:08:34):
Yes, that is true. That I was able to get through to Snyder. These days, I guess you could still send a fax to a coach, but I still think even if you send an email, it's going to probably go through an SID and unless you're congratulating him on a victory or his retirement or career, that coach is never going to see that.
Todd Jones (01:08:56):
Well, it also shows too, Wendell, so much about what you were about as a well-respected reporter, just the thoroughness, looking out for what you thought was right or wrong, looking out for other writers, and you did that for so many years, so productive, cranked them out for many, many years. And you were always there.
Todd Jones (01:09:16):
I knew if I was at a game and it was a big game, that Wendell Barnhouse was going to be there, and it was always good to chat with you and see you.
Wendell Barnhouse (01:09:25):
Same here.
So, I appreciate this. Wendell, it's been of real treasure to spend time-
Wendell Barnhouse (01:10:05):
It has been. I really enjoyed this-
Todd Jones (01:10:06):
And thank you so much for sharing the stories that you have shared with us today. And wish you all the best.
Wendell Barnhouse (01:10:14):
Todd, I appreciate it. Same to you. And these podcasts you're doing, I've seen the list of people you had, this is a tremendous collection of oral histories, basically as far as sports writings concerned. So, kudos to you for doing this. And I hope that it gets preserved in a number of places for anybody that wants to learn about how the business used to be.
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