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Journalism of Courage
NBA’s widely adored coach Gregg Popovich stepped down this week from his head coach duties of San Antonio Spurs. The 76-year-old had suffered a stroke last November but has returned in capacity of president of basketball operations, while Mitch Johnson takes over.
Popovic or Coach Pop was a formidable figure on the sidelines with his booming instructions for close to 28 years. Never a fan of sideline interviews, he nevertheless always dispensed pearls whenever he spoke.
An adored figure (Shaquille O’Neal said he loved him forever yesterday), Coach Pop would blurt out cutting stuff to all and sundry before truth bombs even got invented in media. Never unkind, even journalists whose questions annoyed him, became his greatest fans.
Here’s three famous things uttered by Coach Pop:
‘Nobody’s happy’
Former TNT reporter David Aldridge thought he was asking Popovich a routine question, in the routine manner of asking. Aldridge asked him if he was happy with his team’s shot selection during a game in 2012. Popovich took off: “Happy? Happy’s not a word that we think about in a game. Think of something different. Happy? I don’t know how to judge happy. We’re in the middle of a contest. Nobody’s happy.”
‘Now ask me couple of inane questions’
Popovich’s dislike for pesky media bytes was well known and he never spared late TNT reporter Craig Sager, whose colorful outfits once got Coach Pop to remark, “How can you be that professional in a suit that looks like that?”
Sager was diagnosed with leukaemia and died in 2016, and when he returned to NBA in 2015, Popovich showed his warm side of personality. “I got to honestly tell you this is the first time I’ve enjoyed doing this ridiculous interview we’re required to do. It’s because you’re here and you’re back with us. Welcome back, baby. … Now ask me a couple of inane questions.”
‘I want some nasty!’
Popovich who has the most wins by any coach in NBA history (1996 to 2025), and won the league 5 times and gold for USA at Tokyo Olympics, at times had basketball’s equivalent of hair-dryer scoldings for his players. Popovich also won his first title in 1999.
A Spurs timeout in 2012 playoffs against Oklahoma City Thunder is legendary, for the Chicago-born’s tirade.
Trailing at halftime, he would launch into one in the huddle. “I want a little but dose of nasty. I’m seeing a little bit unconfident, a little hesitation. It’s not supposed to be easy. I want some nasty.”
