Anatomy of a quote
I have covered enough press conferences to know how hard it is to get quotes exactly right. Reporters and cameramen are jostling and talking, and the speaker is occasionally mumbling. Then you have reporters who unconsciously correctly grammatical slips and edit out a sentence that may not add anything. So it doesn't surprise me when quotes are slightly off. Disappoints, but doesn't surprise.
I noticed that in two separate stories we had slightly different versions of UNC Coach Roy Williams explaining his conversation with Ty Lawson about playing last night. We weren't alone. (It's possible these came from different conversations with Williams, but that seems unlikely.)
*******
Roy Williams asked Lawson before the game began if he could go.
"I don't know,"' Lawson said.
"Then we're not going to play," Williams said.
-- News & Record
*******
"It was really an easy decision," said UNC coach Roy Williams. "He came to me and said, 'I don't know. It doesn't feel good.' I said, 'Then you're not going to play.'"
-- News & Record
*******
"He came to me and he said, 'I don't know,'" Williams said. "He said, 'It doesn't feel good,' and I said, 'Well, we're not going to play.'"
-- Durham Morning Herald
*******
"It was an easy decision," Williams said. "I told him if he had doubts about it, I wasn't going to play him. I asked him, and he said: 'I don't know.'"
-- Winston-Salem Journal
*******
"It was an easy decision," coach Roy Williams said of the choice, made about 15 minutes before tipoff, not to play the Lawson. "I told him if we had doubts about it I wasn't going to play him. I asked and he said, 'I don't know' and the decision was that I wasn't going to play him. He came to me and said, 'I don't know,' and he said he didn't feel good. So I said he wasn't going to play."
-- The News & Observer
*******
"It was an easy decision. I told him if we had doubts about it I wasn't going to play him. I asked and he said, 'I don't know' and the decision was that I wasn't going to play him. So it was pretty easy. He came to me and said, 'I don't know' and he said he didn't feel good. So, I said he wasn't going to play."
-- Scout.com