Nigel Hayes and his Wisconsin teammates are fascinated by the NCAA stenographer
News conferences at the
NCAA tournament are generally the definition of bland. The cliches are flying, every opponent is touted as the '96
Chicago Bulls, the term "student-athlete" is used at least twice a minute.
But every once in awhile, there are genuine flashes of human emotion and non-robotic answers. Case in point: the
Wisconsin Badgers this weekend.
It all started when Wisconsin teammates
Nigel Hayes,
Frank Kaminsky and
Sam Dekker discovered the until-now-anonymous NCAA stenographer after Friday night's postgame presser. They were genuinely fascinated by the process.
From
AP writer Dave Skretta:
Then, with the interview room lights turned down and nearly deserted, the three came bouncing back through the curtains and posted up right behind the stenographer. Like a trio of schoolchildren, they started peppering the woman responsible for transcribing their quotes with questions about how stenography works. Then, they started punching the keys on her machine to see what they would produce.
Whoa! yelled Hayes, when his name popped up on the screen. You got me!
Even coach Bo Ryan ducked back through the curtains to get the low-down on the stenography trade before ushering his boys back to the locker room.
So with that context in mind, read Nigel Hayes' quotes from Saturday's press conference and try not to smile:
THE MODERATOR: The gentlemen from Wisconsin are with us, Nigel Hayes, Frank Kaminsky and Bronson Koenig are here and ready. We are set for questions.
Q. Nigel, obviously if you look just statistically, you've taken quite a leap in the 3-point shooting, to whatever, and in other areas. Can you describe just the steps you took to kind of, you know, raise those parts of your game?
NIGEL HAYES: Hello, it works now. Before I answer that question, I would like to say a few words: cattywampus, onomatopoeia and antidisestablishmentarianism. (Laughs). Now, back to your question. It was just a lot of hard work, teammates giving me great confidence, and when you play with players that are very unselfish like the two next to me who also give you that confidence and involve the team, it's a lot easier to get things done.
Later a reporter followed up seeking clarification on what Hayes was trying to accomplish.
Q. Why did you start off saying those things and then I have to follow-up.
NIGEL HAYES: Well, the wonderful young lady over there, I think her job title is a stenographer, yes, OK. And she does an amazing job of typing words, sometimes if words are not in her dictionary, maybe if I say soliloquy right now, she may have to work a little bit harder to type that word, or quandary, zephyr, Xylophone, things like that, that make her job really interesting.
