Many news conferences begin with a coach delivering a few perfunctory — read: worthless, boring, clichéd — words and then fielding questions.

I’m not really faulting coaches, mind you, but coaches try to avoid being revealing or controversial when asked hard questions, so they in general aren’t going to have much to say when a friendly moderator says, “A few opening remarks, Coach,” and they know the longer they talk, the longer they will be sitting in the interview chair.

[ESPN]