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James Franklin Being Weird in Blacksburg
By Matt Schultz
Published:
What’s going on in this video? What is James Franklin doing?
My instinct is to give Franklin the benefit of the doubt here and assume there must have been some sort of technical issue going on. It’s the only way I can wrap my head around someone acting like this. Maybe Franklin couldn’t hear the reporter and kept repeating “Hey, Michael” to get the guy’s attention. That’s possible. That would make sense in a way. Franklin is saying “Hey, Michael” pretty harshly, that’s true. There’s no getting around that. But maybe his sternness is because of his frustration with the glitching technology. There’s a world where that’s the case. It could happen…
But that theory falls apart once Michael says, “Can you hear me?” and Franklin replies, “Yeah, I’m saying ‘How you doing?'” Franklin says that kind of annoyed-like. As if he’s exhausted from Michael not replying the way Franklin wanted the whole time. As if throughout this interaction, Franklin kept repeating “Hey, Michael” as a way to reprimand the reporter for not engaging with Franklin in polite little pleasantries before diving right into his question.
I’m pretty sure that’s what’s happening here. I’m pretty sure this is Franklin being a prick. Also, it looks like he’s done this before:
And if that is indeed the case — if James Franklin is really going to keep on repeating reporters’ names until they say “How’s it going?” or “Hope you’re having a nice day, James,” or “I’m well, thank you, sir…” — then what a weird guy. What a strange man. What an odd little power play to pull.
This is some worst-teacher-in-the-school teacher behavior. This is some gym-teacher-trying-to-impress-the-class-by-humiliating-a-student-in-front-of-everyone stuff. This is some real-dickhead-coach-no-one-enjoys-playing-for energy. Which makes sense. Feel like James Franklin is exactly that. Seems like a blowhard aggro weirdo who’s not very good at his job. If I’m a Penn State fan, I’d be watching this video with a big smile on my face today, knowing this guy is not our problem anymore.
I’ll now end this blog with a polite pleasantry that James Franklin would demand: “Hey, 6 wins. How you doing, 6 wins?”
Matt Schultz is a comedy and sports writer from Philadelphia. He’s written extensively for ClickHole, The Onion, and Conan O’Brien’s Team Coco. His work has been featured in Vulture, Deadspin, The A.V. Club, Paste Magazine, and other publications. Much of his sports journalism can be found on college basketball websites that don’t exist anymore (PhilaHoops Heads rise up…) email: M.Schultz@sportradar.com