Kirk Herbstreit reveals why Lee Corso kept coaches ‘at arm’s length’

The Lee Corso we once knew is not the Lee Corso we know now.

He’s the same guy, of course, but Father Time comes for everyone. The 90-year-old Corso and his family decided it was time. That time will culminate in his farewell sendoff in Columbus, where he first donned the Brutus Buckeye head. The farewell that will commence in the Horseshoe has already begun.

But it can’t begin without telling the legend of “Coach.” It wouldn’t be appropriate not to share a story or two about the man Kirk Herbstreit credits with putting the entertainment in ESPN. Part of Corso’s appeal was his no-holds-barred approach. He was once part of a coaching fraternity, sure, but it never stopped him from taking coaches to task.

That doesn’t happen anymore — just ask Seth Greenberg.

This is Lee Corso we’re talking about. He is one of one.

“He was,” Herbstreit said when The Ringer’s Bryan Curtis asked about Corso’s willingness to crush other coaches on-air. “One that stands out to me was Wisconsin-Northwestern. We were in studio — my first year on the show — we’re doing a wrap segment, and we’re waiting for… both teams were ranked, I believe. They were both very good. Gary Barnett and Barry Alvarez. And Wisconsin had the game won — big win for ’em. And instead of taking the knee, they handed the ball off and fumbled, and Northwestern recovered and eventually went down and won the game.

“And Corso went ballistic on Barry Alvarez, saying, ‘He should apologize!!!’ He was totally off script, totally just in [the moment]. ‘That is an embarrassment. He lost this game. He needs to go into that locker room and apologize to his team because this is on him. He lost the game.’ I’m just like, ‘Man, you’re making this sound really personal.’ Instead of just saying, ‘I don’t know, you might want to rethink that,’ he just said, ‘You blew it. It’s your fault. You’d better apologize to your team because you lost the game.'”

The real genius of Corso’s approach became clearer when Herbstreit shared what happened next.

“And then we saw Barry Alvarez at the National Football Foundation dinner,” Herbstreit continued during his appearance on The Press Box. “I call him Al Capone, in a very loving way. To his face, I call him ‘Capone.’ We come off the elevator, Lee and I, and Capone is walking with an entourage of people, in a tux, and we just happened to cross paths. And he looked at Lee like, ‘I need to talk to you.’ Like, he gave him that look. And Lee said, ‘Hey, how are you? Good to see you.’ We just kind of kept moving along. And I was like, ‘Coach, I think he looked upset.’ He goes, ‘Ah, don’t worry about it. It’s fine. It’s fine.’ We just kind of kept going. I just remember he did not care.

“A lot of times, I have relationships with these guys, coaches, the players for 30 years. He intentionally does not want those relationships. He doesn’t talk to these guys, because he doesn’t want to feel conflicted on what he has to say. So he keeps at arm’s length from all of them. Now, if he sees them at an event like that, ‘Hey, how are you?’ But he doesn’t want to text with them. He doesn’t want to have an ongoing relationship with them. And it’s because of that. He wants to just say whatever it is he sees, and he doesn’t want to feel like, ‘Oh, that’s my buddy. I’d better not say that.’ And so, that’s why all those years he had no problem letting it rip when it came to coaches.”

What made Corso different, and why it set him a part, is he didn’t want to be friends with these guys. While everyone else was building relationships and worrying about access, Corso kept his distance on purpose. He figured out what most people in this business never do, which is that you can’t really be honest about someone if you’re texting them after the show.

Corso’s approach seems almost antiquated now, as sports media personalities cultivate relationships with athletes and coaches much like gardeners tend to their flowers. But there was power in his distance, authority in his willingness to burn bridges he never wanted to build. When Corso ripped into a coach’s decision, it wasn’t filtered through friendship or colored by concerns about future access. It was pure, unvarnished judgment from someone who’d been there before.

As we prepare to say farewell to the headgear-wearing, coach-crushing original, it’s worth remembering that what made him special was something rare in this business. Yes, the headgear tradition was entertaining, but so was getting honest criticism from someone who had nothing left to lose and everything to say.