Padecky: Interviewing athletes is a tricky and unpredictable business

The minute Irv Favre took out his toenail clippers, I knew this wasn’t going to be the usual, typical, how-are-ya interview. Sometimes interviews go sideways when the unexpected happens, and adjustments need to be made immediately.

In this case, my adjustment was to ignore Irv’s clipping his toenails while we talked. It was Jan. 22, 1997. It was a few days before the Packers were to play the Patriots in Super Bowl 31 in New Orleans. Irv’s son, Brett, was Green Bay’s quarterback. I was fortunate enough to get an interview with his dad at the family home in Kiln, Mississippi, about an hour’s drive from the Superdome.

Irv was the country boy I expected. Polite, burly, Mississippi twang in full bloom, barefoot Irv guided me to the kitchen table. After the customary pleasantries, Irv took out the clippers and started to hack. I always wondered if he did this to shock a “city” boy.

But Irv was quite casual about it, not self-conscious at all. He crossed a leg, rested an ankle on the opposite knee. Snip. Snip. Snip. Did he bother to retrieve his shorn keratin? Nope. Did he pause between clippings? Nope. Irv was a real pro. I immediately liked him.

It helped that I had been down The Toenail Road before. I thank the 1988 Chicago Bears for that. A few days before the Bears were to play the 49ers for the NFC championship, I was in the Bears’ locker room looking for material.

I had to stop to talk to Chicago defensive tackle Steve McMichael. Why? McMichael had his ankle resting on a knee, like Irv’s, clipping his toenails. The locker room was full of players and media and there was McMichael, getting ready for the NFC championship in a way that befitted his nickname — Mongo. Mongo helped prepare me for Irv.

Unfortunately, Mongo couldn’t help me with Walter Payton. On that same day in the same locker room, I was leaning in to listen to an interview when all of a sudden I experienced a sharp, stabbing pain in my posterior. I spun around in half-anger, half-surprise and there was Chicago’s Hall of Fame running back looking back at me, smiling. He had pinched my butt.

That Bears team made no pretense at working within the accepted norms of behavior. They were different and they were just copying their coach, the decidedly different Mike Ditka. Depending on his mood, the time of day, the final score, the thrust of a media question or if some spinach was caught in his teeth, Ditka could act like a honey badger or a honey badger with a thorn in his paw.

The day before Mongo and Walter, I was in Ditka’s office. I soft-pedaled the opening, mentioning we both were of Eastern European ancestry. It was a gamble, I grant you, because I didn’t know how the honey badger was feeling at the time. Ditka reached into his desk. Naw, he wouldn’t pull a gun on me.

Ditka set on his office desk a wind-up doll. It was a monkey with a cymbal in each hand. The circular metal plate was perfect for banging.

“Watch this!” Ditka said. He reached behind the monkey’s back and cranked up the toy. Ditka let go it and there I sat in amazement — the monkey skipped across Ditka’s desk banging the cymbals together.

“Look at this little ducker go!” said Ditka with glee, and he didn’t say ducker. Right then, he was 10 years old. Maybe 11. The honey badger was a kid.

Not all such gambles work out. In 1983, the Boston Red Sox’s Carl Yastrzemski was making his last stop in Oakland as he was ending his Hall of Fame career. Yaz was a notoriously difficult interview, especially with out-of-town writers. So I took a gamble as we sat down at the far end of the visitor’s dugout in Oakland. Looking back on it now, I’m surprised he didn’t slap me.

“Since we both are of Polish ancestry, Carl,” I said, thinking myself oh so clever, “I wonder if you know any good Polish jokes. I know a bunch of them.”

Yastrzemski had been staring straight ahead. Now he turned to his left. If I had been butter, I would have melted. He stared straight through me. Unblinking. He didn’t say a word. He just glared. I shrugged. Yeah, Carl, I know that was stupid. That didn’t warm him up. Yaz just turned back to stare straight ahead. Quite possibly The Most Lame Question in the history of lame questions.

I would have had a better interview if I had just spilled hot soup on his cleats.

I’ve done worse. I went into the Houston Rockets’ locker room to interview Moses Malone. The interview was going great. I was surprised. Moses was a man of few words. Anyway. I’m humming along and I get a tap on my shoulder.

“Hi, I’m Moses Malone,” said the real Moses Malone. I could barely hear him, though, the laughter in the locker room was so loud.

Yes, sometimes the lasting memories are self-inflicted, and I still feel the scars from Yaz and Moses. But other times they come quietly without words, without my encouragement, like when John Matuszak placed his hand on my knee.

It was 1977 and I sat down with the Raiders’ defensive end at their facility in Alameda. This would be my first Raider interview. Tooz, I was told, would be the perfect introduction to the Raider culture.

Tooz and his 6-foot-8, 285-pound body sat down on a locker room bench next to me. I said hello. Tooz said hello. I began the interview.

Matuszak placed his right hand on my left knee. And he kept it there for the entire interview. Since I had never had an athlete place his hand on me — it would be 11 years before Walter pinched my behind — I decided it might be best to pretend his paw wasn’t there.

So just as I would do with McMichael and Irv, I ignored the obvious and have to appreciate The Laying of the Hand. I learned how to ask a question without stumbling or blushing. John Matuszak made me a better journalist — and that’s not something you’re going to read everyday.

Don Shula also made me a better journalist when he screamed at me. And it wasn't even to my face. Sounded like a primal scream. It probably was.

The Miami Dolphins and their head coach had called a press conference in 1974 to confirm three of their most key players — Larry Csonka, Paul Warfield, Jim Kiick — had signed a contract with Memphis of the fledging World Football League for the 1975 season.

Their defection was a gut punch to the two-time Super Bowl champions. The press conference was held at the Fontainebleau Hotel in Miami Beach. As I entered the ballroom, I was struck by how quiet it was. At least a hundred media members were in attendance, along with Dolphins officials.

“Damn,” I said out loud, “feels like a morgue in here.”

The words had just left my mouth when I heard from behind me: “YOU’RE GODDAMNED RIGHT IT’S A MORGUE IN HERE!”

I turned to see Shula glaring at me. The sound of his voice carried throughout the ballroom. That’s how I met the Hall of Fame coach. I was the doofus who made the day worse for Don Shula. It was not a strategy to be repeated or encouraged.

Funny, the stuff that sticks with you in this business. Games? Most flow together. Jump shots merge with touchdowns that merge with home run trots that merge with postgame things-went-our-way speeches. But wind-up monkeys? Hand placements? Toenails? Someone screaming? Polish jokes that were offered but thankfully never told? These are the glue that holds it all together. After all, anyone can hit a home run. Not everyone can volunteer to look like an idiot.

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