Paul Petrino flips out on reporters, bans media from practice

Idaho football coach Paul Petrino banned the media from Thursday’s practice after he became enraged over the way one or two reporters were covering his team. He also allegedly flipped out on a reporter and needed to be restrained by an assistant coach.

Michael-Shawn Dugar of the Moscow-Pullman Daily News shared the story of his Wednesday interaction with Petrino, which sounded more like the third-year head coach breathing hot air in Dugar’s face than a constructive conversation. Petrino was apparently steaming after Dugar wrote a column suggesting Idaho’s downfield passing game needs a lot of work.

At the end of Wednesday’s practice, Petrino turned to the sideline and asked me and a reporter from the Lewiston Tribune, “Did you guys see enough deep balls today?” He was referring to my story in Wednesday’s paper discussing the team’s work-in-progress vertical passing attack.

I thought he was being sarcastic, so I responded accordingly.

“A couple,” I replied.

“Yeah, there were a bunch,” the other reporter answered.

Petrino wasn’t just sarcastic; he was very much upset. He went on to immediately ban the media from today’s practice, yelling, “If all you’re going to write is negative (expletive) then none of you need to be here!”

I dismissed it as a lack of awareness, perhaps not realizing that while we were in fact on the football field, neither I nor the Tribune writer were his players, and we don’t respond to being spoken to that way.

But moments later, Petrino walked up to me and the Tribune reporter just outside the practice field and began to scream in my face, loudly informing us how many deep balls the team completed Wednesday. He then went on to chide us for our inaccurate criticisms of quarterback Matt Linehan and our lack of football knowledge, walking away saying, “You don’t even know what the (expletive) you’re talking about! Do your (expletive) job!”

This certainly isn’t the first time a head coach has blasted the media over seemingly negative reporting. However, Dugar went on to explain that there was a point where he thought Petrino might get physical with him.

Then he turned back and started to move toward me, still angrily shouting expletives about my writing and my professionalism while being physically restrained by one of his assistants, approaching me as if he had plans to do something other than verbally express his concerns.

I stood quietly, choosing not to engage with him, instead waiting for him to lower his voice and talk to me like a man. I never had the chance. He just walked away.

What if he had not been restrained? Would he have physically tried to harm me or the other reporter? Would he have tried to make me do up-downs? Hopefully we never find out.

You can understand the frustration from a head coach who has won just two games in two seasons, but Petrino’s outburst was more than a bit excessive if Dugar’s recollection is accurate. How many great things can a writer print about a team that went 1-10 last season and 1-11 the year before that? We know at least one head coach who would likely side with the writer in this instance.

Photo: Spruce Derden-USA TODAY Sports