COMMENTARY : Players Get Help on Preventing Problems, Large and Small, With Media

In a public relations masterstroke that proves Pete Rozelle and Lisa Olson might be gone but not forgiven, NFL players have been issued a how-to manual and instructional cassette on the proper care and feeding of the media.

The 30-minute tape, “Winning the Media Game--A Guide for NFL Players,” is narrated by kicker-turned-hardware salesman Pat Summerall, who takes his audience gently by the paw and tenderly talks it through the treacherous minefield of depth charts and decorum.

An accompanying “NFL Media Relations Playbook” (10 pages) offers helpful hints on how not to sexually harass locker room visitors such as Olson, who was so emotionally beaten up by the New England Patriots and their fans last season that she fled to a newspaper in Australia.

As comprehensive as the handbook seems, something is missing. Shouldn’t reporters be furnished a set of directions of their own?

To that end, here follow some basic guidelines collected in consultation with battle-worn veterans Lesley Visser of CBS, Bill Nack of Sports Illustrated, Will McDonough of NBC, Tony Kornheiser of the Washington Post and Jenny Kellner of the New York Post, whose chapter might be headed: Is That All There Is?

Ten years ago, when she was covering the Jets for the New York Daily News, Kellner faced up to that baldest of locker-room challenges. A player who shall be unnamed (he was a star defensive end later linked to actress Brigitte Nielsen--we’ll call him Gastineau) pointed out a part of his anatomy and inquired pointedly: “Do you know what this is?”

Her sure and economical answer still rings in his ears.

“It looks like a penis, only smaller.”

“Only smaller” became a rollicking catch-phrase among the Jets that season, and Kellner was not bothered again.

“My advice to others is to bring a certain bearing into the locker room, like a pedestrian in New York City,” she said. “Don’t just stand there fumbling around. Always go straight from Mr. X to Mr. Y to Mr. Z. Know what you’re doing, and look like it.”

Says Visser, who adds these tips to Kellner’s list: “Have all your questions ready in your head. Don’t look around while you think. Hold the notebook strategically in front of you, to obscure, sort of as a buffer zone. Keep a confident demeanor. Maintain eye contact just short of Charles Manson intensity.

“And be ready with the words: ‘Don’t flatter yourself.’ ”

Kornheiser recommends that along with water- (and wine-) proof clothing on championship occasions, not to mention tear-away lapels after bitter defeats, the entire industry take a boxing lesson from McDonough.

In a congested locker room, New England defensive back Ray Clayborn once got away with an “accidental” elbow to the spine of broadcaster Roger Twibell and tried to do the same to McDonough.

During the ensuing faceoff, Clayborn stuck his finger in Will’s eye. Being very much the Southie Irishman, McDonough fetched Clayborn a right to the jaw, a left to the forehead and another roundhouse to the ear.

Clayborn was probably unconscious after the first punch, but McDonough is nothing if not a thorough reporter.

Tumbling into a ball of reporters, Clayborn started a chain-reaction pile-up that knocked most of the room off its feet and dumped Patriot owner Billy Sullivan into a laundry basket.

A year later, in the middle of the locker room, Clayborn put out his hand to McDonough and, in front of all the players, apologized. He has been a respected figure and decent interview ever since.

“Know your business; learn the game,” McDonough counseled last week. “Whenever possible, tell your subject what your agenda is: ‘OK, here’s what I’m writing. Do you want to go over it again?’

“Give him advance notice when you can. Pass the word through the PR people that you’ll be around on Wednesday, looking for so-and-so.

“Then, after the game, tiptoe around a little. Be smart. Remember what the guy did in the game, or didn’t do. Understanding the man goes hand in hand with understanding the game.”

But if he sticks his finger in your eye, pop him.

A little discretion goes a long way too.

“That’s right,” Kornheiser said. “For example, try not to use the words Cathy Lee around Joe Theismann.”

With a nod and a shudder, Nack added that no one should ever forget Bus Saidt.

At the Super Bowl, in a cluster of writers interviewing Raider quarterback Jim Plunkett, Saidt asked a question that lives in infamy.

“I’m having trouble keeping this straight,” he said. “Is it blind mother, dead father, or blind father, dead mother?”

After a chilling pause, Plunkett responded evenly: “Both my parents were blind, and my father is dead.”

Everyone present shrunk from embarrassment. We looked like a tribe of Pygmies. Only smaller.