The biggest no-fun moment in sports media is talking to a team after a season-ending loss. Some players snarl. Others shake their heads. Many disappear before you can even ask a question.
It’s one of those moments both parties wish didn’t have to happen. It’s somber. Downbeat. Sometimes tearful.
But never encouraging.
For 22 seconds last weekend, that changed. In a press conference immediately after his team’s tough 27-23 playoff loss to Buffalo, the coach of the Jacksonville Jaguars, Liam Coen, took a question from a native Detroit woman named Lynn Jones, now a white-haired, 64-year-old associate editor of the Jacksonville Free Press.
It wasn’t really a question.
“I just want to tell you, congratulations on your success, young man,” Jones said. “You hold your head up, all right? You guys have had a most magnificent season. You did a great job out there today. You just hold your head up, OK? Ladies and gentlemen, Duval (County), you’re the one. You keep it going. We got another season, OK? Take care and much continued success to you and the entire team.”
As she spoke, Coen mumbled “thank you” and “appreciate it.” Near the end, he even pushed up a smile.
But not everyone was smiling.
A pretty sad state
The exchange went viral after an ESPN reporter posted it and called it “awesome.” And of course, once anything is posted, the world has to weigh in.
While many fans gave a thumbs-up, some reporters decried the moment as unprofessional, including one who wrote, “Uplifting the head coach after a loss is not part of a sports reporter’s job.” Another wrote, “Reporters should be in PR if they want to carry on like this.”
An AP reporter called it “embarrassing for the people who credentialed her” and “a waste of time for those of us actually working.”
These sentiments were met with a barrage of criticism from the other side, including media-haters, media critics, and former athletes like Pat McAfee, who posted: “Love seeing these sports ‘journalists’ getting ABSOLUTELY BURIED for being curmudgeon bums.”
Now, McAfee, a former punter who makes around $17 million a year from ESPN and pays quarterback Aaron Rodgers over $1 million to appear on his show, doesn’t live the life of a typical sports media member.
And, no, that one reporter wasn’t wrong, uplifting losing coaches is generally not part of the media’s job.
On the other hand, if we’ve reached the point where someone being kind to someone else — for 22 seconds — is worth damning them publicly, we’re in a pretty sad state.
‘Like an auntie’
So I reached out to Jones, who, it turns out, grew up by Livernois and Warren, “near the White Castle,” and used to walk to Tiger Stadium as a kid.
“I lived in Detroit until I was 30 years old,” she told me. “Then we went to Jacksonville Beach on a vacation and oh my God, we had the most magnificent time.”
After her father passed away, Jones said, “he left me a check” and she quickly moved to Jacksonville full time. One of her first jobs there was working for the Jaguars, so she has a history with the team. She later went into journalism and now writes and is associate editor for the Jacksonville Free Press, a weekly newspaper and one of several hundred serving Black communities in the United States.
“Now that I think about it, the room did get a little quiet. I know some people feel I should have asked a question. But is there a protocol? I didn’t get a sheet telling me I can’t say congratulations.”
Jones said she knew something was up when moments later she got a nice text from a colleague who said, “You sounded like an auntie.” Then more texts followed. Then her phone blew up.
Next thing she knew, she was doing interviews across the country.
And today, if you go to the Jacksonville Free Press’ website, they are selling T-shirts with her words on it, with the profits, they say, going to scholarships.
Making room for kindness
Since this happened, I’ve been asked many times for my opinion, perhaps because I’ve been in postgame press conferences for more than 40 years.
Well, T-shirts aside, I’d say both sides need to lighten up. What Jones did was kind, empathetic and uplifting, and I refuse to find fault with anything described by those three words.
Was it normal? No. Did it belong in a “media” conference? Probably not.
Then again, the nastiness that marks virtually every White House press conference these days doesn’t belong there either. But we seem to be tolerating it. And if we’re willing to tolerate such ugliness, why not make room for some unusual sweetness?
At the same time, critics like McAfee jumping all over sports reporters is also inappropriate. They don’t, as McAfee suggested, hate sports. Quite the contrary. They likely got into the field because they love sports.
But the people who populate sports today — players, coaches, general managers, owners — frequently hate the media. They insult them. Blow them off. Treat them disrespectfully. Lump them as “you guys.”
And for the most part, the media tolerates it. Silently. Dutifully. Begrudgingly. That’s no fun, either.
So both sides could take a lesson from Jones, who is merrily cruising through all this, knowing that when you’re on the side of kindness and optimism, you don’t have anything to be ashamed of.
“People have been calling me fake media,” she said. “I haven’t even responded to that.”
Nor should she have to. After all, it was a guy named Grantland Rice, who, more than 100 years ago, penned the phrase “Wait until next year.”
He was a sportswriter.
Contact Mitch Albom: malbom@freepress.com. Check out the latest updates on his charities, books and events at MitchAlbom.com. Follow @mitchalbom on x.com.
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