PirateCrew: Seton Hall Pirates Football & Basketball Recruiting
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Welcome to part 2 of my conversation with John Fanta of the Big East Digital Network and FOX Sports. In this installment, John and I discuss what was lost to the fans last season in a Zoom coverage world and John’s fervent hopes of what can be regained next season, how John got through the season with help from his friends at Big East Digital Network, his overview of the Big East contenders, plus his look at how Jared Rhoden’s perseverance and hard work could pay off for him and the Pirates in 2021-22.
J.P. Pelzman: John, how were able to get through such a difficult season with all the COVID protocols yet still do your usual excellent work?
John Fanta: Well, you’re able to maintain standards when you are covering people who are 18 to 23 years old who had to go through what they went through this past year. I don’t think people fully understand--I know that’s a line people have heard a lot.
JPP: They don’t. They don’t understand.
JF: I had the chance to be in Tier 1 For the Big East tournament, to be in the hotel, to go through quarantine, and J.P., by the end of Big East tournament week, I was absolutely exhausted. And typically, you’re tired, but you’re on a rush in March, you’re just on an adrenaline rush. And having to get up every morning at 6:45, get a COVID test, go back upstairs to your room, now you’re up and staring at everything in front of you on the day and you just say to yourself, these kids are having to do this every morning during their season and then they have to play a game that night. You've got classes, you’ve got everything happening under these weird circumstances.
And so, when you observe that, I was just grateful for the opportunity to have a season, and I think the biggest thing, in terms of maintaining standards, is understanding that there was no way that we were going to be able to do things the same way and then adapting to it. We have a great crew at the Big East Digital Network, Rick Gentile oversees everything, he actually was the founding director of the Seton Hall Sports Poll. He's produced the Olympics telecast and a lot of other things. Rick and Bobby Mullen (senior director of digital and social media for the Big East), they made sure I was set up with a home studio, so that I could record hits at any given moment from my house. I actually was able to cover more games remotely than I would have in normal times when I would be at a game and would have to edit pieces of other games.
It wasn’t easy. It was a task. You had to adapt, but they did a great job of building a home studio that had really good camera resolution and really good materials to give the capability on camera for me to make it really look good. It was different, it was wacky, but when you think about the fact that people were hospitalized and there was a lot worse happening in our world, I was just happy I had a job in a world that’s really hard right now, especially in journalism. I’m very grateful for the opportunity that I had to be the voice and the face of the conference.
JPP: That’s a very good way to put it. How much do you look forward to having something much closer to a normal season next year?
JF: Oh, I am so excited. I am so looking forward to walking into a building and interacting with people. I think that what we’ve learned is you can take nothing for granted.
JPP: Yeah.
JF: How many times, J.P., have you or I been covering a game and a fan or someone walks up to one of us and I always try to conduct myself--I'm someone with an outgoing personality and you are too--but sometimes when you’re busy with something or you’re working on something you can’t necessarily be bothered by that person by that time.
JPP: Yes, I hear you.
JF: I can tell you right now, next season, I already know I'm going to be distracted and if we’re at the arena, the Prudential Center for an hour extra (after the game) because we’re in the press room and Jerry (Carino of Gannett New Jersey) has a great story or sound bite that’s worth listening to for a moment, then I've missed that. God, we’ve missed that. We've missed that part of the job.
It's weird, because when we cover a game, we cover it for that outlet that we work for. But when we’re in that work room together, when we’re on press row, we’re all kind of part of the same team. So, missing that team aspect, it was evident. So, I can’t wait to get back in the building this upcoming season and talk to fans and talk to people who are just as passionate about it as we are. They're the ones who make our lives possible and fun and we need people who care, and that was totally missed, human interaction.
And I can’t wait to interact with the student-athletes in person again. Let's face it--there’s so much as a media member that you just cannot get when you’re not there in person. You don’t know what’s happening behind the scenes. You don’t know what might be the vibe in the locker room, what might be the vibe of coach (Kevin Willard). Coach can put on a face on Zoom, and sure, he can do that during a (normal) press conference, but you still can read between the lines better, when you see his different non-verbal communications, different signals.
So I can’t wait to get back in the building. I think that crowds should come back in a big way for this coming season, and I think that if there’s anything we learned from this, it’s that you cannot take things for granted. You really cannot take things for granted and I’m really looking forward to getting back to a sense of normalcy for this season, and boy, do we need it. We could do one (COVID) season, but the fact is, for all of us media folks, we do need this access because it’s important. Because to a cover a team, you need a level of in-person access, and going without that this past year, it made us all realize just how important it is to have it.
JPP: You made a great point, John, because like you said, you can study their facial expressions on Zoom, but when somebody walks into (the interview) room, you can check out their body language, when Kevin walks into the room, or when the players walk in the room. You see their body language (after a game), and that even speaks volumes. You don’t get that on Zoom, and looking at the players’ faces on Zoom, I could tell they even missed the interaction with us at times. That was obvious to me.
JF: It was obvious. You know what I missed? I've seen this the last couple, specifically with Seton Hall because of the way they’ve done (post-game) media. For those who don’t know, they typically have Coach come in, usually right after the players come into the press room to talk to the media. And one thing I've noticed is that, in the last couple of years particularly, and I think you would agree, early in the Kevin Willard era, a player would come out and talk, and then another player would come out and talk, and then another player would come out and talk. They would all kind of be dispersed.
JPP: Correct.
JF: I know part of this is managing the traffic, but I also think it says something about the culture of the program. One thing you’ve noticed (recently), when we’ve been there in person, all three or four players come in together, at the same time.
JPP: Right.
JF: They come in together, whether it’s a three-point loss, a 15-point loss in which somebody had a tough game, or a 15-point win. There's something to be said about that when those guys come in. We couldn’t get that off Zoom. We had no idea what was happening beyond their quotes. When you’re able to read a room...You can’t read a Zoom room. You can only unmute a Zoom room. You certainly can’t read it. You can read a real room and I'm hoping to get that back this upcoming season and I think everybody does.
We've all missed seeing one another. If we’ve seen one another, it’s been in an isolated area, it’s been with a mask on, which for some of us, like myself, wearing a mask might be the best look that I've had. (Laughs) But I'm looking forward to taking it off. It's certainly the best look that Coach Willard has had. (Laughs)
