Interviews are best done in groups of 2

A friend texted me Tuesday and I replied 'I'm in Ames now. Press conference in 5 minutes.”

His reply: 'What a life, you lucky stiff.” And he meant it. I was at the introductory press conference for Iowa State men's basketball coach Steve Prohm, and he thought that would be great to attend.

Me, not so much. I tend to believe none of what I hear and less of what I see at introductory press conferences. The new coach is always fabulous, and he or she was always the first choice and best choice of whomever hired him or her. The right values, the right skills set, the right fit. Always. Uh huh.

My friend was right, of course. I have a great job. You'll never hear me say otherwise. Whether you have a great job or not, I don't know. I hope you do. But there's a 99.9 percent chance I wouldn't find your job appealing. I don't know you do it, to be honest.

Oh yeah, there's also a 99.999 percent chance I couldn't begin to do your job.

But I digress. Times when I don't feel like a lucky stiff are when I'm at press conferences. Not postgame press conferences, but other press conferences. Press conferences to name new coaches, weekly press conferences to talk about the most-recent game played and the next game coming up, press conferences to discuss virtually anything.

The absolute worst are Media Days. They're meaningless. They are looks at the season ahead, and they're often full of wide-eyed optimism by the players and tempered optimism from the coaches. What good is tempered optimism? If you're going to be optimistic, be optimistic.

I have yet to hear a player at a Media Day say 'We'll have to get a lot of breaks to have a winning season,” or a coach say 'If we don't screw this up, we ought to win a boatload of ballgames.”

Sports press conferences are brutal, soul-crushing. First and most troubling, the vast majority of reporters are male. There should be signs posted in every city that say 'Don't trust anything that's predominantly male.”

* All the U.S. presidents and vice presidents have been male.

* Virtually every serial killer has been a man. You never hear of a 'Daughter of Sam.”

* Every main character in 'Entourage” is a male.

* Everyone who plays fantasy football is a male.

The questions at sports press conferences aren't great. And yes, pot, kettle, black. I've offered plenty of inane queries over the years. However, I'd rather have a coach mock me for a dumb question than give a meaningless platitude.

But my skin tries to leave its bones every time I hear someone pose this to a coach or player: 'Talk about (such-and-such)” or 'Tell us about (something-something).”

Oh, the fun I'd have and the disgust I'd induce from the press corps were I the one at the podium and someone said 'Can you talk about (so-and-so)?”

'Yes,” I'd say. 'Is that sufficient, or do you have an actual question?”

Ask a question. Better yet, ask a direct question. Many questions at press conferences are more winding than the Colorado River. When I hear someone respond 'I'll answer the third part of your question first,” I wish I was on a raft on the mighty Colorado, far, far from that press conference.

Of course, coaches or sports administrators who give revealing and interesting replies to direct questions aren't exactly overpopulating the planet. Which is understandable, because what they do is the of the highest importance to our civilization. Secrets and insights absolutely cannot be shared with the public. The damage that could cause is immeasurable.

Sports aren't a matter of life and death. They're much more important than that.

But I kid.

Truthfully, reporters who have a line of specific questioning they're eager to pursue would rather not do it in front of their colleagues and competitors. For one thing, the moment an interesting answer is given, the wolf pack is tweeting it out for the world, and your good question has been used to help others look like the beacons of breaking news.

One-on-one interviewing is always the best. If a coach or athletic director or athlete doesn't get comfortable being themselves in that setting, nine times out of 10 it's the interviewer's fault.

I can't think of two more-different people than Larry King and Howard Stern, but they've both done countless interviews with famous people who don't typically do interviews. I think a big reason is they ask direct, interesting questions, things you and I want to know. They're not phoning it in, and thus, the subject is less prone to do likewise.

I don't know if I'm any good at it, but I love interviewing people one-on-one. Just several weeks ago, I called the baseball coach at the University of Arizona, Andy Lopez. He led national-championship teams at Pepperdine and Arizona.

We had never met, never spoken to each other. But I was thinking about writing about coaches who had come back from heart surgery, and relate what they said to what Fred Hoiberg seemingly was about to do at Iowa State. So I did a little Googling and learned Lopez had such a surgery in 2013.

The more we talked, the more he started admitting it was harder to do the job than it was pre-surgery, it was harder to be as effective as a coach. He wondered if he was beginning to cheat his players.

He told me he was saying things he hadn't expressed to anyone but his wife. It was like he needed to say them out loud to someone else. He drew me and my experiences and observations into the conversation like we were old friends instead of interviewer and subject.

It was the most-remarkable interview I've never used. That's because the Hoiberg story turned into something else, a coach who was leaving Iowa State for the NBA.

A few weeks after we talked, Lopez retired. He cited health concerns.

'God, it hurts me to say this,” at his press conference, 'but I need to get away from games.”

So, yes, sometimes coaches do speak candidly at press conferences.

'I have never enjoyed covering any coach as much as Lopez,” said Daniel Berk of the Arizona Daily Star. 'Even as a beat writer, he taught you plenty about life.”

I got more personally out of listening to and talking with Lopez on the phone for a half-hour than anything I've done professionally this calendar year. A lucky stiff? Yeah, my texting friend was right.

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