Getting a hold of former NFL player Lance Johnstone to talk to him about the apartment complex he’s building for the Medical campus was no easy feat. Corey Galloway, Lance’s building partner and friend from Harvard was quite elusive. He answered readily, seeming excited to give me Lance’s contact information, but e-mail after e-mail came, saying “Of course I can put you in contact with him,” without the contact information. I honestly think sometimes it would be nicer to just say no. People shouldn’t appease us as a formality. We can handle it. We’re journalists and journalism students here; we should have some sort of back-up way to contact sources up our sleeves.

So we had to go the personal route. Luckily, someone who works for The Temple News is friendly with Lance’s father. An interview was set up for last Friday at 5 p.m., so I made sure I was in the office 15 minutes early to begin calling for the interview. I got Lance’s extremely loud voicemail about six times before he actually answered the phone. I don’t want to bitch, but I was getting a little annoyed…and understandably so, I think. Luckily, when I finally did speak with him, he turned out to be a great interview – he was a pretty amusing and funny guy. I have to say, I was a little surprised to actually speak with a former NFL player, let alone get some good quotes. I pretty much had this guy pegged for someone who would probably think he was too important to talk to me.
I especially liked his quote about losing a lot of football games when he was at Temple. I told him nothing’s changed.