You don't want to go there.Your teenage daughter is in her bedroom, door closed, sobbing. Her heart is broken (boyfriend? cut from team?), but she needs her space.
63 times every postseason, reporters file into the post-match press room. One of the teams has just ended its season.
You don't want to go there.
It starts easily enough, as an NCAA representative sets out name placards for the winning team (or, in NCAA-speak, the "advancing team.") The victorious head coach says a few words, the players smile and giggle through their valedictory, then bound from the room.
At that point, you'd like to close the door. Another group of girls (the non-advancing team) is about to enter, and its obvious they need their space.
I've covered dozens of NCAA volleyball post-match press conferences. Without fail, one or more sportwriters with little experience covering women's one-loss-and-you're-out competitions squirms at the sight: red eyes, tear-stained cheeks, distant stares. They're familiar with a certain reaction from defeated male athletes--exhaustion, defiance--but rarely tears. The different display of emotion from female athletes leaves much of the press corps uncomfortable and uncertain. The silence after a women's volleyball match can be deafening.
You can tell a lot about a volleyball coach by comparing how he or she handles these media sessions. Jim McLaughlin (University of Washington) and John Dunning (Stanford) carry themselves almost the same way after either a win or a loss: quiet, understated, focused on the athletes. John Cook (Nebraska) and Russ Rose (Penn State) can be decidedly curt after a loss, though I've never seen either veer into poor sportsmanship. Younger coaches are often estatic after a win and look wiped out after losing.
