Football was not at the forefront of David Cutcliffe's attention when he stepped up to the lectern waiting for him in Yoh Football Center Oct. 21. Instead, he opened his weekly press conference with a five-minute briefing to the media on current events.
"Do y'all not watch the news?" Cutcliffe said, clearly entertained. "Anybody pay attention to what's going on?... Good gracious guys, you have your heads buried in the sand."
The lighthearted back-and-forth that followed between reporters and Cutcliffe would have been highly unusual in a Tuesday media luncheon last year and would have also surprised some in Cutcliffe's first head coaching gig at Mississippi.
But Cutcliffe's comfort with the local media and the forthcoming tenor of his press conferences are changes as marked as Duke's progress on the field.
"Point blank, he's media-savvy," said Art Chase, Duke's sports information director who handles Cutcliffe's media responsibilities. "He understands the role of the media. He acknowledges that members of the media have a job to do, and that's what's really helpful and enables him to interact in such a positive manner with the media."
Tuesdays in Yoh are just as different as Saturdays in Wallace Wade Stadium this year. The head coach looks crisp in a button-down shirt, tie and sports jacket-contrary to his predecessor, Ted Roof, who only traded his Duke Football threads for more formal attire on special occasions--and stands behind a podium, unlike Roof, who was a sitter. The Tuesday press conference also isn't the first time since Saturday's post-game news conference that Cutcliffe has spoken with the media. He holds a 30-minute teleconference every Sunday, which Roof did sparingly.
If Roof was softspoken, Cutcliffe is gregarious. If Roof's weekly press conferences were gloomy, Cutcliffe's are refreshing. If Roof sidestepped tough questions after blowouts, Cutcliffe embraced them after Duke's two-game losing streak last week.
But part of his comfort with the media comes from an experience Roof never had. After all, Cutcliffe wasn't as loose with the media in his early years at Ole Mis.
"Compared to his first year and his last year, the way he dealt with the media was dramatic," said John Davis, the sports editor of the Oxford Eagle in Oxford, Miss. "Probably what you're seeing with Cutcliffe is a different perspective because it's his second time."
That is, Cutcliffe has endured losing streaks and has been criticized by a mass of football fans as rabid as Duke basketball's base. He was more scrutinized at Mississippi, where he was fired just one sub-.500 season after leading the Rebels to a 10-3 record and a Cotton Bowl appearance.
"You can really attribute a lot to just having been there," Chase said. "It's tough to say having not been in Coach Franks' or Roof's or Cutcliffe's shoes.... When you do walk up there and your team's struggling, the only difference is that experience. He said when we hired him that he felt like he would be a much better head coach now at Duke than he was at Ole Miss because of that."
The short stretch of his life when he was not coaching might have altered Cutcliffe's view on media relations, as well. Sidelined in the aftermath of triple-bypass surgery in 2005, Cutcliffe learned to appreciate even the most tedious parts of the job-and, in addition, ripened his chops by yapping on radio shows and television stations about SEC football.
"I've had a good relationship with most of the media," Cutcliffe said. "You get a lot of good people, intelligent people that you work with, and I admire talented people."
Cutcliffe went through a media frenzy last year, hyping his new program to almost anyone who would listen. The head coach turned down few interviews because he wanted to fully leverage the attention his hiring had garnered, Chase said.
The public relations tour worked. Not only did the Blue Devils start 3-1, but some media outlets predicted they wouldn't finish in the ACC's cellar. Cutcliffe's willingness to express his optimism almost assuredly played a role in shifting public opinion.
"He has an ability to engage any audience he's in front of, whether it's the media, alumni or student body. He would be fabulous in front of a sixth-grade classroom," Chase said. "People say a professional athlete has 'it'-whatever 'it' is-to be successful. In public speaking, Coach Cutcliffe has 'it.''
Still, he has taken some precautions to limit the media's access to his program. Only the very end of practice is open to the media, and reporters must be ushered into the practice field-a standard Cutcliffe likely picked up at Tennessee and enforced at Ole Miss. Cutcliffe closed the post-game locker room when he was in Oxford and upheld that policy in Durham, where it was already in place. Although he brings more players to the weekly Tuesday luncheon than Roof did, Cutcliffe barred reporters from talking with freshmen.
But Cutcliffe hasn't drawn any ire for limiting media practices, probably because he has been so transparent in other ways.
A small dose of humor, humility and hobnobbing doesn't hurt, either.
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