Day 1 of the National Pac-10 Media Tour - Or How Yellow Fever is the Worst Journalist Ever

I proceeded to go get my hors'deourves (6/10, as I mentioned) only to find that my previous seat was taken by these two rather large guys that I didn't recognize. I didn't mind a great deal as I had some tweeting to do, and waited for Sandy and Tedford to address the crowd...

...wherein Tedford revealed that the two large guys who took my spot were Steve and Eric Levy. Well then! For what Sandy and Tedford talked about, you can take a look at the previous link to Bears with Fangs, as he has a great recap there.

After Tedford and Sandy made their prepared remarks and answered a few questions, it was back to mingling with the proletariat of bear territory. I tracked down Sandy again to ask her what her thoughts were on the recent university report condemning the athletics department (though my exact words were, how do you feel about the university task force report throwing the athletics department under the bus?), and her response is that it is a legitimate issue, and it's an age-old question - how many resources should an institute of higher learning devote to athletics? But it's not her job to question that, and it's just her job to work with what she gets. If the university decides to cut funding, it's her job to let the chancellor know that the performance of all of the teams affected is likely going to suffer, and there's no way around it.

I had thought about talking to Levy and asking for an interview, but decided that it looked like he was enjoying himself, so I'd track him down later...

...like Tuesday. I should probably mention up front that I wasn't expecting to get into this thing, and I was completely unprepared. I spent most of my day working on the aforementioned convertible bond and putting a memo together before deciding I'd make the short walk to the W Hotel and crashing the party. I wasn't confident that I would get in, but we'd heard through the grapevine that our buddy Paragon SC would be there, so I thought it would be worth a shot.

I ran into Sandy again outside the ballroom, and she either didn't recognize me, or was confused about how the hell I got in. After all, I hadn't told her that I write for CGB, only Tedford. I ran into Paragon in the waiting room after we signed in, and this spared me having to explain what was going on to Sandy. We collected our media guides, USB drives, Pac-10 pens, and notepads, then sat down and marveled at the Pac-10 wives in attendance.

So that was nice. Other thoughts - Ted Miller looked like a cool guy, Stewart Mandel is really quite short in person, and I couldn't pick Andy Staples out of a lineup. Miller's recap of the event indicates that he was there...but I honestly couldn't recognize him. Dude must not look like his SI.com picture.

Everyone was herded into the main room, with all of the coaches sitting up front with Commish Larry Scott, and five tables labeled with coach names, arranged by rival (Cal/Furd, Oregon/OSU, UCLA/USC, Arizona/ASU, Washington/Wazzu). I almost sat down at the Washington table along with Paragon - then when he realized he'd rather talk with Kiffin I took a powder on the thought of sitting with Paul Wulff and sat over at the Furd/Cal table.

We opened with the new Pac-10 media video, and I was sufficiently awe-inspired to want to clap at the end. But I didn't. I tell you, it was hard to fight the instinct, because I've just been trained to clap after that sort of thing at any type of corporate event whatsoever. But thankfully, Stewart Mandel and his death stare reminded me not to do that.

Scott went through some prepared remarks about how the Pac-10 brand is one of athletic and academic greatness, how the conference will be mathematically correct (Pac-12 on the way!) and how the conference is poised to increase its awareness and presence nationally through it's national media tour. And with that, each coach was headed off to his table to speak with individual reporters.

Uh oh. I was expecting a panel discussion similar to what happened during Pac-10 media day where I could just blend into the crowd, raise my hand every now and then, and let other reporters run the show. I wasn't prepared for this.

I looked back at the table. I didn't have any questions prepared. Everyone else got up. I was gathering my things, when Harbaugh walks up to me.

Now, I've never been a reporter for anything in my life. Not even a fake reporter. I've never even interviewed my dog. The most difficult question I ever asked a sports personality was asking Jarvis Hayes when he would take Bobby Simmons' starting job. Right in front of Bobby Simmons. And here comes Jim Harbaugh. I'm telling you, it's easy to sit back and say, "YES! Ask him the tough questions! What's his deal! LOL~~~~".

Yeah, it's not that easy. I mean, he's probably not answering that if I'm an asshole, you know?

I stammered out that I write for the Cal SBN blog (no signs of recognition), a couple questions about how he likes his team ("very much"), whether he thought Gerhart should have gone higher (not so important when he went, but it's good that he went to a team that's a good fit) and whether the passing game will pick up this year (yeah, we're seeing some things)...then I slunk off into a corner to regroup.

This was not a good start. I walked off, surveyed the landscape, introduced myself to Ted Miller (Hi, Uncle Ted!) and regrouped. What kind of questions was I going to ask? Who did I want to talk to? What the hell am I doing here?!

Then Tedford sat down with Steve Levy. Thank Tedford! He graciously offered to give me the number of the member of the sports department who handles credentials. Another step towards conquering the white whale! But rather than take up more of Tedford's time (who did recognize me), I figured it would also be great to talk with 2005 Big Game hero, Steve Levy.

Tremendous guy. Here's what I asked him about:

• How he ended up at Cal: Steve was a late recruit, as he was just busting his tail trying to get offers later in the recruiting season. He'd heard of Tedford's reputation as a QB guru, and cited Joey Harrington as one of his favorite college QBs of all time. (I didn't ask about whether his pro career had any impact on that, though I thought about it.) Cal agreed to bring him out for an official visit, and it was actually the first time Steve went out to California. But the visit was so nice, the campus so great, that he committed during that trip.
• What he's up to now: Working as a personality for the MSG Network covering all kinds of New Jersey high school sports. It's something he's looked at doing for a while and something that he wanted to do ever since high school, what with the network having covered his games at Don Bosco Prep and all. It just seemed like it would be interesting being on the other side of that some day.
• How it happened: After his playing career ended, Steve bounced around a couple of arena leagues and even went to the EFL (I'll be honest, I'd never heard of it up until this point), but eventually ended up in the sports media, doing spots here and there for local ABC affiliates. He'd always imagined he'd have to stay in the Bay Area since that's where he'd made his name, but then MSG called, so here he is.
• What's the long-term goal: Working for ESPN with a job similar to the one held by Craig James. I brought up how I would have imagined most analysts want to be on GameDay with Herbstreit and Corso, but Steve would rather focus on one game a week and provide in-depth analysis, as opposed to kind of more mainstream stuff that Herbstreit does.
• (EDIT: Straight from Steve upon reading the first cut)

Great stuff!! the only thing I would change is where I see my self being at the top of my career.The Craig James comparison is on key... . In a perfect world I would like to do 1 game a week(Thursday) and sit in a studio ALL DAY Saturday breaking down all of the games for pre game, half and post game analysis. Kirk is the man and Love him, but I see my self more like James and that's what he does.

• By the way, Craig James is a family friend. These Levys get around.
• Has he ever met the ESPN Steve Levy?: Yes! We even reminisced over how Sportscenter's Top Plays the night of the Big Game featured Levy wearing a Cal helmet as if he were in the one QBing the Bears. Steve (our Steve) emailed ESPN Steve to say he thought the bit was great, and that he'd be interested in meeting him. ESPN Steve wrote back and said it would be great and that they'd love to give him and his brother a tour of the studios and show them around. So that's what they did the next time they came back to New York.
• How exactly did he end up making the switch from QB to FB and back?: First, the switch to FB was all his idea. He looked at the depth chart in 2004 and saw, well, I'm probably not getting a whole lot of playing time with all of the QBs here and coming in. And besides, he'd been an all-state LB. He just wanted to help out the team in whatever way possible, and was promised if things happen, he'll still get a look at QB. Then he hurt his shoulder. The next year when Rodgers left early, there was a spot for a third QB, and he made the jump back. Then circumstances (BOOYA!~) came in and let him play, and there he was.

• Is DeSean as much of a jerk as everyone says he is? I asked this when Tedford turned around and was otherwise occupied, saying that I'm not sure how that would affect his answer. But speaking only from personal experience, he's always found DeSean to be a good guy personally, to him. Which isn't to say that he wasn't a bit of a different guy (take that to mean what you will) but he always played hard and cared about winning. On a personal level, Steve's visited DeSean's house in Philadelphia and they have a good relationship. As far as anything that happened after Steve graduated in 2006, well, he wasn't there so he can't speak to what happened then.
• What the heck happened during the 2006 Holiday Bowl?: Steve and Ayoob (BOOYA!~) were splitting time, and just killing the clock, when the team found itself at the doorstep of the goal line after an interception by Sean Young with less than three minutes left. And you remember what happened here:

C 1-G  T05   CALIFORNIA drive start at 02:25 (4th).
      C 1-G  T05   Hampton, B. rush to the TA7, fumble by Hampton, B. recovered by CAL
                   Schutte, Bryan at TA5.
      C 2-G  T05   Holley, Brian rush for 2 yards to the TA3 (Featherston, M.).
      C 3-G  T03   Schutte, Bryan rush for 3 yards to the TA0, TOUCHDOWN, clock 00:28.
                   Schneider, Tom kick attempt good.

Of course, we all know it's not Tedford's MO to run up the score (as witnessed by the 2004 Southern Miss game) so this seemed a bit odd at the time. Also, exactly who scored was also a bit strange. So I'll let Steve take it from here:

Tremendous guy. Can't say enough about him. I'll even have to start watching MSG now, even though I hate the Knicks. Go Bears. Oh, and if you're reading this Mark Levy, we'd appreciate it if you'd say hi. Your son says you read all of the boards and the blogs, so we'd love for you to say hello!

I gathered myself. I'd successfully pulled off my first interview! This was exciting. I still didn't have a recorder, or even a suit, but every little bit helps. I slunk back into the corner and overheard bits of Harbaugh's conversation with another report (Andy Staples? Like I said, I'm still not 100% sure he was there, though Miller says he was), and Harbaugh was discussing his four steps to winning.

But I didn't want to just stalk the guy after my abysmal failure. So I looked around to see who was unoccupied.

• Kiffin: Swamped by multiple guys, and besides, Paragon was all over him.
• Neuheisel: Occupied.
• Scott: Occupied by a bunch of guys.
• Kelly: Occupied.
• Riley: Occupied.
• Wulff: BINGO!

YES! Another good job. I was on a roll. I reevaluated the room:

• Neuheisel: Now being accosted by Paragon.
• Kiffin: Accosted by Ted Miller.
• Harbaugh: Still talking to the same guy from before.
• Stoops: Nada. Time to move.

I thanked Mike Stoops for his time and wandered for a bit. Collected my thoughts. And saw that the only coach not occupied was Harbaugh.

Uh oh. Ok, breathe. I consulted with Steve over my faceplant with Harbaugh and he gave me a few tips on what to ask. So I did. And I talked to him again.

• Do you have anything you'd want to say to Cal fans who may not have the best opinion of you because we're all biased? (death stare) (silence) (more silence) (continued death stare) (pause) (another pause) (pregnant pause) (death stare) "...No."
• Well, this was going just great!
• How do you come up with your tweets? What tweets? You know, the recruiting ones. Yeah, they're not all about recruiting. Oh. I mean, just because some writer for SI says they are doesn't mean they are. (laughs)
• OH MY GOD WHEW MY FIRST QUESTION THAT WASN'T A FACEPLANT
• So what about the hype for Andrew Luck? He's being talked about as a potential number 1 overall pick - do you feel like the hype is justified? And what has to happen for him to get there?: Harbaugh can see why the hype is there, and it's justified. He's got all of the tools, and at this point it's about incremental improvements. But yes, he can definitely see him being the number one pick. And he doesn't have all that far to go.
• Any thoughts about him staying another year? Any discussion at all? They'll cross that bridge when they get there.
• Some guys like Ted Miller are picking you as darkhorse national championship contenders. Thoughts?: It's time to play the games. Hype is just that.
• No, I didn't ask what's his deal. I'm leaving that for Berkelium97.