Carver: I Will Miss The Man

By Ben Knight Onward!

Carver
The “It’s Called Football” crew was stranded in a stairwell at Bay and Dundas when the John Carver era ended at Toronto FC.

As a cell phone objector, I was left looking on in amusement as Duane Rollins and Ben Rycroft barked into their Star Trek communicators, chipping loose details of the story as we waited for someone to show up and unlock the studio door.

High tech meets no tech – but we got the story on the air.

Which leaves us to wrestle with the strange and entertaining enigma that was Toronto FC bench boss John Carver.

The very first time I saw him do a post-game press conference, he took issue with the first question he was asked. Dismissed it as uninformed, said he didn’t want to start with a bad question, and moved bluntly to the next. “Oh brother,” I’m thinking to myself. “Another one of THESE guys.” But then came the surprise. A few questions later, he pointed to the scribe he shot down, and said “All right. NOW I’ll do your question.”

It really broke the ice. He was blunt – but funny. A passionate, dedicated man who was deeply and deliberately rough around the edges, who went on to give some of the most honest, relevant and entertaining post-games you could ever hope to be in on.

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