You know you've been covering sports a long time when you've had dealings with pretty much every coach on the search list.
Of the five early names being tossed around to fill Brent Guy's position at Utah State, UCLA assistant DeWayne Walker is the only one I've never met. I don't know any of them well. I know Utah defensive coordinator Gary Andersen from interviews surrounding Utah games. I covered South Florida assistant Chico Canales several times when he was a quarterback at Utah State. I did a number of interviews with John L. Smith when he was USU's head coach in the mid-90s, though I can't say we were close acquaintances. ( I did razz him about the ?Black Bart? getup he wore to a press conference when he was at Louisville. He was wearing black belt, shirt, pants and boots.)
A well connected source tells me Smith has been the No. 1 consideration, but that could change if he tries to string the Aggies along while he looks into other jobs like Wyoming and New Mexico.
But the interaction I remember best was one with Kent Baer, currently a defensive coordinator at San Jose State. In 1983, he was an assistant at USU. The Aggies lost to BYU in Provo, 38-34, in a game decided in the waning seconds.
I went into the USU locker room after the game, and as I did, I heard someone growling, ?(Expletive) sports writers, never around, don't show up until we lose, then they show up in the (expletive) locker room!?
When I looked over to see who it was, Baer was glaring at me. I told him the sports writers didn't lose the game for him. He started on another rant, same as the other, before being talked back into the locker room by cooler heads.
The following Monday I was at the newspaper office when I got a phone call.
?Brad?? he said. ?This is Kent Baer.?
He went on to apologized for his behavior, saying the emotion got the best of him two days earlier. Before I give him too much credit, I should point out that I had called USU's sports information office 10 minutes earlier to say I didn't expect to be verbally assaulted by coaches after they lose games.
I was tempted to consider it a forced apology ? OK, I know it was. Still, I'll have to give him credit. A week or two later I was in Logan to cover the Aggies' season-ending awards banquet. I ended up in a buffet line next to Baer. He apologized again, and this time it seemed truly sincere.
Besides, compared to some of the meltdowns I've seen by players or coaches before and since, it wasn't really a big deal. And my daughter tells me all the time how annoying I am. So maybe he had a point.