Q-and-A with Gary Parrish of CBS Sports

Gary Parrish's column at CBSSports is a must-read for any college hoophead. He's knowledgeable and insightful, he has as good of a grasp on today's basketball landscape as anyone, and he is not afraid to voice his opinion. That, and he's quite funny, as you'll find out in this interview. Parrish lives in Memphis, and covered the Tigers beat before heading over to CBS. Hit the jump to see what Parrish thinks about WWTDD vs. Perez Hilton, his use of twitter, and why he hates my friend the Syracuse fan.

You can follow Parrish on twitter @garyparrishcbs or read his work here or on his blog. He also has a radio show in Memphis.



Q: As a journalist, you’ve had a chance to work as both a beat writer, covering the Memphis Tigers for The Commercial Appeal, and as a national columnist at your current gig for CBSSports.com. Which role do you enjoy more? Is one more difficult than the other?

A: I enjoy the columnist role much more because it fits my personality better. My job as a beat writer consisted of sitting through two-hour practices, writing about shooting slumps, turned ankles and the occasional bar fight. Preview a game, cover a game, rinse and repeat. It was great, and I enjoyed it. But I've always had opinions, and this job allows me to share them daily.

Which is more difficult?

My current role, certainly.

Rather than really know one team and 13 players, I'm responsible for the entire nation. I don't need to know every little thing that happens everywhere, but it's important to try. So I try, and my goal each day is to write columns that appeal to the nation rather than just one particular fan base. That's not always simple, and I'm not dumb enough to think I always succeed. But I've grown more comfortable in this role every year I've been in it, and my bosses at CBS have given me the freedom to try and do whatever I want. They trust me. I've never worked for better people. They took a chance when they hired me given the list of other writers from bigger papers and web sites who applied. My goal was always to prove them right. I'm not sure I've done that, exactly. But they seem happy. So that's good.


Q: You brag about being one of Mississippi’s best tweeters, but what people may not know is that you grew up a Memphis fan. Was that a dream come true covering the Tigers? Are you still a Memphis fan at heart?

A: The Memphis basketball beat is the best beat at The Commercial Appeal. So getting that beat was a dream come true in the sense that my dream was to be successful. The fan part of it -- and I think most writers will tell you this -- just kind of goes away over time. It's not intentional. It just disappears because you get too close and see everything in a different perspective. I still buy my mother season tickets, and I have a great relationship with Josh Pastner, his staff, and most the people over there. But that team winning or losing doesn't affect my mood one way or another, and it's hard to call yourself a fan when you aren't emotionally attached to the outcomes of games. Obviously, it's better for me if Memphis is good because I live and host a radio show here. But at this point in my life, I'm a fan of airports without rental car shuttles and hotel rooms close to elevators. Basketball teams, not so much.


Q: As a columnist, your role for CBS is, in part, to offer and argue an opinion. If you rip a coach or a program in a column, what is it like the next time you have to face that coach? Have you ever had a situation where someone tried to exact revenge, so to speak?

A: All of that is as much a part of the job as going to games or Tweeting or whatever. You can't be good at this job without pissing people off some of the time, and you can't be afraid to do it when it's necessary. The only standard I hold myself to is this: Believe what you write and be able to defend it when the phone call comes, because it's almost certainly coming. I don't duck coaches or fans or players. Everybody knows how to get in touch with me. So I plan on talking to the coach the next day before I even file the column, and I imagine how I'm going to react when he comes at me. If I can't honestly defend my position, I won't write it. So when that call comes, I'm always ready. And though I don't always get the coach to see it my way, I think in most cases I leave him with at least an understanding of why I thought what I thought and wrote what I wrote. If he doesn't agree, that's fine. But he's going to know before he hangs up that I didn't just write it off the top of my head, that I knew what I was doing, and I had reasons for doing it. Most guys respect that, or least that's the impression I get.


Q: I was talking to a friend of mine, a Syracuse fan, about this opportunity to ask you a few questions, and his exact response was “That’s awesome. Ask him why he hates Syracuse.” True or false: Someone is your role is better at their job the more fan bases they piss off?

A: I don't think that's true, exactly. But the problem with your friend is that he's got it all backwards. Fans, like your friend, think every writer is biased, but the truth is that the fans are the ones who are, by definition, biased. Your friend loves Syracuse, so he can't see things clearly when it comes to Syracuse, which doesn't make him unique, by the way. Those people exist in every fan base. There are more of them in Kentucky, obviously. But they are everywhere, for sure.

So anyway, tell your friend I don't hate Syracuse.

In fact, tell your friend I can't think of a single institution I hate.

Are there coaches I like more than others?

Of course.

I'm human.

But I don't "hate" any schools.

I just hate stupid fans.


Q: You’ve worked for both a newspaper and in an online setting. Do you prefer one over the other? How do you feel about the shift from print journalism to online journalism?

A: Writing online trumps writing for a newspaper in every possible way. I'm not limited by boxed-in lengths or stupid deadlines, and most Americans simply don't buy printed papers anymore. I know I don't. I have most relevant newspapers bookmarked on my laptop, desktop and iPhone, but I can't tell you the last time I actually bought a printed version. In time, I imagine the printed versions will start disappearing, and we'll have more online-only newspapers in major metropolitan cities. That's the way of the future, for better or worse. If I'm lucky enough to someday have grandchildren, they'll never believe I used to write stories that were printed on paper and delivered to people's driveways in a truck. That'll be the wildest thing in the world to them, same way the idea of somebody riding a horse across the country is pretty dated.


Q: Be honest: What is your opinion of blogs in general? What about the role of twitter in breaking news?

A: I don't think you can have an opinion of blogs in general any more than you can have an opinion of TV channels in general. MTV is obviously different than ESPN just like one blog is different from the next. Some are good, others are embarrassing, and they tend to separate themselves into one of those two categories over time. People read TheBigLead.com because Jason does a great job with it. People read Deadspin.com because it's entertaining. I read WWTDD.com because the guy who writes it consistently cracks me up. I don't read PerezHilton.com because the guy who writes that seems like a self-important hypocrite, and he's never made me laugh. So I judge everything on a case-by-case basis. That's the only way to do it, I think.

Twitter?

I love it and hate it.

I love it because I don't really need to click around to 15 sites every morning anymore because anything I need to see will likely be in my timeline. I hate it because I'm now a slave to it, and I'm constantly checking it -- during dinners, movies, my kid's soccer games, etc. Either way, I'm glad it exists because I think it's a valuable tool that helps me connect with readers and keep myself better informed. And, absolutely, it is the place to break news these days. You break something on Twitter, people will know you broke it. Twitter makes it much harder for others to steal scoops.


Q: You have an impressive track record when it comes to breaking news stories. Your Bruce Pearl scoop is still fresh in the college basketball world’s consciousness, but you also scooped the Albert Means story, which resulted in a man being sent to prison. What goes in to breaking that kind of news? Why is it so difficult to do?

A: Relationships and hustle are the most useful tools when it comes to breaking stories. The hustle is something you either have or do not have, and the relationships are created over time. But that's the winning combination, and, as you noted, I've gotten lucky a few times. It's always a nice feeling, and the Albert Means story was really what launched my career. I don't think I'd be here if not for that story 10 years ago. It changed my life. But what people forget is that Milton Kirk's willingness to talk with me is the only thing that allowed me to get that story, and it also cost him his career and ultimately led to him having to plead guilty to a felony charge of conspiracy. So that's why it's difficult to get stories like that, because they're incredibly hard to prove without cooperation from somebody involved, and the people involved usually have to be willing to sacrifice themselves to cooperate.

Milton was willing to do that.

Most folks aren't.

Quick-hitters:

- Which college hoops writers are your must-reads?

A: Everything is a must-read for me, given my job. But if I were telling fans how to keep up with college basketball, I'd tell them to go to Luke Winn if they want to read intelligent takes on the sport, to Jeff Goodman if they want information, and I'm not sure anybody is consistently better than Dana O'Neil at spending two days with somebody and then writing about it. (Jason King is good at that, too, now that I think of it.) Eamonn Brennan is just terrific at what he does, a great hire by ESPN.com. Seth Davis obviously has a huge presence. Pete Thamel, too. I guess what I'm saying is that there are a lot of talented people writing about this sport. If you want to read everyday for hours, you can.

- What about outside of college hoops?

A: I read everything from Wright Thompson. He operates on a different level than most of us. Because of where I grew up and where I live, I've always read Geoff Calkins, a really talented columnist who's remained in Memphis despite countless offers to leave. Dan Wetzel, for my money, is the best all-around columnist working today. "You've got to read Wetzel's column," is something I find myself saying all the time. Gregg Doyel has done as good a job as anybody of carving out a niche and really understanding online writing. He's always fun. Adrian Wojnarowski has made a big impact on the NBA. I think our guy, Ken Berger, is really good, too.

- Which player, and which coach, have been the best quote?

A: Billy Richmond, a former Memphis player, was the absolute best. Cal came close to killing him many times.

Coach?

On the record: John Calipari is really good (as long as you don't have to hear it everyday.) I love Tom Izzo because there's very little BS. He's got no problems badmouthing his own guys when they deserve it, and I like that. Off the record: Nobody has more stories -- and tells them better -- than Bob Huggins. Matt Painter is hilarious, another great story teller.

- All-time favorite college hooper to watch?

A: Carmelo Anthony's one year was pretty special. I saw his first and last game in person. Kevin Durant was a lot of fun, and John Wall captured the nation with the way he began. All of those guys were great.

- To cover?

A: While on the Memphis beat, Chris Douglas-Roberts was really cool, easy to deal with, fun to chat with. Antonio Burks, too. And, of course, Joey Dorsey. He's an all-timer. Nationally, Durant was good. I spent a couple of days with him at Texas before he ever played a game. There was no doubt in my mind that he'd be a star. He deserves everything he's getting.