As a sports fan and broadcaster, I want to say thank you to coach Roy Williams.

I recap. Williams coaches Kansas and the Jayhawks lost Monday in the NCAA basketball finals. Minutes after the loss, on the floor, sideline reporter Bonnie Bernstein interviewed Williams and asked about his interest in the North Carolina coaching job, a matter of speculation for more than a week, during which time Williams had refused to discuss it. He was coaching Kansas in the title game and that was all he had on his mind.

Williams answered Bernstein that “he could give a flip” about that issue at that moment. A follow-up question, “If they offer you the job, though, would you be willing to take it?” incited Williams. He invoked a four-letter word to make clear the matter was not on his mind and that he had 13 kids in the locker room to deal with who just lost the biggest game of their lives.

He said she should be more sensitive to the situation with her questions and that “as a human being, that’s not very nice,” referring to the insistence on pursuing the matter.

Thank you. It was not Bernstein’s fault the issue was pursued at a most inappropriate time; it is the idiocy of the sports broadcast business. How many more numbing interviews – just before games, in the middle of games and just as games end – do we need to see to understand they are generally inappropriate, inane and a humongous waste of time?

These interviews invariably are monotonous pabulum. We get the tired and staid responses from coaches leaving the football field, running to the locker room or sprinting from the dugout year after year. Why?

It’s all about TV executives who can’t believe the games and the emotions one sees around the games are enough. No, to justify their jobs they want to be as intrusive and obnoxious as possible to invoke the very kind of story that comes from a Williams-type interview.

Creating a flap such as the Williams interview means stories will get written and the executives will get their names and quotes in the paper. That must mean they are really important. In the words of the great Carnac, “Wrong again, banana breath.”

Fans understood Williams’ first answer. He just lost a shot at the national championship and had a devastated group of players waiting. The North Carolina job was a real issue for him – he is a favorite candidate – but not at that moment.

Why was Williams even there on the floor at that time after the game? Because the NCAA orders coaches to be available to the network covering the game and that’s because the TV network demands it so they can ask inane questions and look important.

The NCAA jumps to that demand because what is at stake is, all together now, money: the broadcast rights.

In the sports broadcast business there is this term: Let the game breathe. It means an announcer doesn’t need to be talking every minute of every game. It means there are times in a game to just take a deep breath and soak in the atmosphere.

At the time of the questions to Williams, CBS should have been showing the emotions of the moment and the sounds that accompanied them. They didn’t let the game breathe and, as a result, choked.

Old Town native Gary Thorne is an ESPN and NBC sportscaster.