“LaMichael James is at the podium.”
As soon as I heard that announcement from Oregon Assistant Athletic Director Dave Williford last Thursday night, I made a dash for the conference room. I had spent the preceding minutes interviewing running backs coach Gary Campbell, Chip Kelly and anyone else who would have information about the elbow injury that knocked James out of the game in the fourth quarter. I never had any inclination that James himself would speak.
Neither did many of the other reporters. It took until the very last moment for someone to even request James for post game interviews. “Good luck with that,” I thought. At that point, we weren’t even sure whether he was in the building or not.
But there he was, about 20 minutes later, sitting at the podium in an oversized grey Oregon sweatshirt and — smiling? His eyes were a little red, but he sat upright, answering questions with a cocked grin that seemed to defy reporters from questioning the extent of the injury.
What followed over the next five minutes was one of the more memorable press conferences I’ve ever been involved in.
The questions came in rapid-fire succession and James answered each one without hesitation. Throughout, he conveyed a subtle air of confidence and even a sense of humor that few of us had seen before.
When asked how he would deal with the pain without the aid of medicine, since he doesn’t respond well to medication, James responded without missing a beat, with a four-word response:
“Talk to the media.”
The room erupted in laughter, perhaps not so much in response to the joke itself as to James’ disarming calmness in a setting that could have been downright macabre.
James went on to describe, in a hilariously matter-of-fact tone, how he popped the elbow back in himself before trainers could get to him and made it clear he that he will be back in the near future.
“I could tear all of my ACLs and I’ll still play.”
As sports writers, we constantly fight a battle to keep things in perspective. These games, these athletes we dedicate every waking moment to, don’t have any bearing on the life and death issues of the world today. They don’t fix corruption on Wall Street or end violence and warfare throughout the globe. Yet, at times, we grant them this importance in our writing, in part to justify our own single-minded dedication. Just yesterday, ESPN’s Skip Bayless described a Pittsburgh Steelers victory as a “gutty, courageous, die-for-cause home survival.” Are we talking about a football game or the Battle of Gettysburg?
So I’ll spare you the dramatic platitudes about James’ press conference on that misty Thursday night. It wasn’t life changing and patiently sparring with the media after an injury doesn’t make James into some sort of hero.
Rather, it exemplifies something everyone can acknowledge and relate to: James is an unbelievable player and one of the fiercest competitors the NCAA has ever seen. Those bruising runs, when James lowers his shoulders and pounds through linebackers twice his size, or carries multiple defenders for a precious few extra yards, they can all be taken as part of a broader picture now.
How long he is out and how effective he is when he does return, are irrelevant to this picture. James could never play another down as an Oregon Duck and his legacy would be firmly secured.
Sometime down the line, when I’ve graduated and James is (presumably) playing on Sundays rather than Saturdays, I’ll be able to reflect on a career that I watched up close and personal for three years. I’ll remember those 70-yard runs and vicious open field cuts, sure. The Heisman campaign was fun, as was that trip to the national championship game.
But mostly, I’ll remember that press conference, when we learned everything we needed know about LaMichael James, the fierce competitor and loyal teammate.