MORGANTOWN, W. Va. — It’s April 6, 2007 and Bob Huggins stands alone on a stage in the middle of the WVU Coliseum floor in his introductory press conference announcing him as the 21st coach men’s basketball coach for the Mountaineers.
Among the throng of media that day was Chris Richardson, who was working then for the Blue & Gold News.
Even 14 years later, Richardson can’t escape the memory of one of his questions he asked Huggins that day.
“It was something like, ‘Now that you’re coaching at your alma mater, will that change your approach on how you coach?’ ” Richardson said. “As soon as it came out of my mouth, I wanted to take it back. That’s when I learned not to ask a question just to ask a question.”
His years spent at the publication took him to bowl games covering the likes of Pat White and Steve Slaton and NCAA tournament games covering Mike Gansey and Kevin Pittsnogle.
Before that, Richardson got his first glimpse of sports writing as a stringer working for the Charleston Daily Mail while he was still in high school at George Washington.
Fast forward to 2020. After 11 years of working his way up the totem pole from volunteer assistant to graduate assistant to assistant coach at numerous small schools across the country, Richardson is in the middle of his first season as the head men’s basketball coach at Wheeling University.
The Cardinals are currently on pause, after some positive tests for COVID-19 within the program.
He may be a trailblazer of sorts, as one of the few basketball coaches to ever experience a press conference from both sides of the podium.
“I can’t imagine there have been a lot of others who took the same path as me,” he said.
A passion for the game
Writing was fun. Getting into the games for free was even better, Richardson said.
“That part was always great,” he said. “For me, working for the Blue & Gold News was a way to stay close to college athletics and earn a few extra bucks while I was in college.
“My heart was always in coaching, though. I knew that’s what I wanted to become one day.”
Getting one’s foot in the coaching door is not necessarily easy. Richardson said he thought about becoming a student manager while in school at WVU.
“The thing was, college kids always need money,” Richardson said. “Writing and reporting provided that and it was a great opportunity, too.
“It gave me a great feel for what journalism means. One of my jobs was to usually go to the visitor’s locker room. I remember always feeling bad for the losing coaches. It’s hard to explain yourself to a room full of strangers after you just lost a game.”
His last official day as a journalist came during the 2009 NCAA tournament with West Virginia’s first-round loss against Dayton.
From there, he was a volunteer assistant at Fairmont State and held an internship with the Memphis Grizzlies.
He caught on as a volunteer assistant at Arkansas Tech with Morgantown native Mark Downey and he followed Downey to the University of Charleston.
He went back to Fairmont State in 2011 as a graduate assistant, before being hired as an assistant coach at Delta State in Cleveland, Miss.
He also spent six seasons as an assistant coach at Central Missouri under Doug Karleskint, before Wheeling gave him his first opportunity to be a head coach.
Even while working his way up the ranks, journalism never completely escaped Richardson.
“Part of my internship with the Grizzlies was working in their media relations department,” he said. “It’s funny, but when I was working as an assistant coach, I would sometimes write the press releases for our camps or when we signed a recruit, just to take some of the pressure off of our (sports information director). At the smaller schools, the SIDs are some of the most hardest working and underpaid people there are, so I would help out when I could.”
The media-coach relationship
Spending 11 years as an assistant gave Richardson ample time to learn the trade.
How and where to recruit, how to break down a 2-3 zone and how to build a good program was all part of basketball coaching 101.
How to handle the media? Richardson said that is the part of being a head coach that is rarely, if ever, discussed and passed down from mentor to pupil.
“It is a big part of being a head coach, but it’s really never talked about much,” he said. “For me, it’s never really been a major concern, because I guess that part comes natural to me from all the time I spent working in the media.”
It is two professions intertwined, that being a head coach and a sports writer.
Sometimes the tough questions are unavoidable, especially in a sport that is currently navigating through one recruiting scandal after another and where players are transferring at record rates.
Those instances can sometimes take the intertwined reporter-coach relationship and turn it into a frenzy.
“Since becoming a head coach, I’ve thought a lot about being accessible,” Richardson said. “I’ve thought a lot about the trust that goes into your relationship with the media.
“I’ve been there. I’ve been the one calling a coach to work on a story. I understand that reporters have a job to do, I probably know that better than anyone. I’ve thought a lot about trying to stay transparent, but also understand there may be times when I have to say, ‘Hey, I can’t really talk about that, but I understand the need to ask.’ ”
A hypothetical moment is thrown Richardson’s way on handling the difficult task of removing a player from the team after an unfortunate situation arises.
Generally, those moments are covered in a short press release Richardson saw dozens of times as a reporter stating the player simply violated team rules.
“As a reporter, sure I wanted to know more. That’s the job,” Richardson said. “As a coach, I don’t think people understand just how much your hands are tied.
“I mean, you never want to do anything that’s going to further embarrass the kid. You never want to make an already tough situation worse.”
Is there a desire at all by coaches to simply get ahead of the story, talk about it and move on?
“I think there may be some coaches who feel that way, but coaches are also limited as to what they can say depending on the situation,” Richardson said. “I think there is a line to be drawn sometimes. There are privacy issues that you have to consider. Even if you have to remove a kid from the team, you don’t want to make him look bad on his way out the door.”
The other side of the media-coach relationship can be found in hours of clips on YouTube. Richardson has seen plenty.
“Absolutely, you could get lost for days watching them all,” he said.
Whether it’s the stern Bill Belichick, “We’re getting ready for Cincinnati,” the combative style of Bob Knight, “I try to help you young guys in this profession you’ve chosen that’s one or two steps above prostitution,” or simply an old-fashioned Mike Gundy blowup, “Come after me. I’m a man. I’m 40!” there are days when the media-coach relationship reach a boiling point.
“I don’t think you’ll ever see me on YouTube for something like that,” Richardson said. “I really try to not be an overly emotional guy.
“Maybe if I was a baseball coach. Those guys make it an art form with how they get kicked out of a game and yell and scream at the press.”
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