Jim Caple still remembers the little guys

ESPN.com senior writer Jim Caple (of Page 2 fame) hung out with us last night. Sorta.

Caple, a University of Washington alum, and former writer and editor at the same college paper we worked for, came to campus and talked to some aspiring sports writers Monday night in the intimacy of The Daily newsroom.

He had all sorts of great anecdotes and was nice enough to answer all of our questions for over an hour.

Some of the highlights:

-Caple told a great locker room story from when Shaq was with the Orlando Magic. A bunch of reporters were waiting to talk to the 7-foot-1 O'Neil as he got dressed after a game. But before he finished putting on his clothes, 5-foot NY Times writer Selena Roberts got too close to Shaq and as he turned around, he slapped Miller's face with his penis. Shaq fucking cock-slapped this poor reporter!

-We asked Caple about the sinking ship that is Page 2 and he sort of dodged the question. Go figure. But we also mentioned new Page 2-hire Jemele Hill and Caple didn't seem to know what we were talking about. Shows how smoothly information flows over at ESPN.

-He said "clusterfuck."

-Caple holds a Hall of Fame vote and said, as of now, he'd certainly vote in Barry Bonds, Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa.

-We also asked Caple about his "Back to School" columns that ran during the 2005 NCAA Tournament, where he went to different schools -- like Michigan State, pictured above -- and lived like a college student. He said he drank more beer during that span than he did in college. Oh, and he says he's never playing beer pong again.

-Caple is not a reader of blogs, but does like the writing of Jayson Stark.

-He has never met Bill Simmons.

-Caple, married, reminded us just how high the divorce rate is among sportswriters.

It was a fun evening and he was a pleasure to talk to on such a small, personal level. If only he can hold Page 2 together.

Update: There's speculation that Caple's story about Shaq cockslapping a NY Times reporter is more of an urban legend than fact. Though we did leave out what we didn't see as critical to the story, but perhaps is.

Shaq, in the story, was standing on a ledge to get up to his locker (or something like that). By standing on the ledge, it supposedly put the short reporter at scrotum height.

Again, Caple told us this story, it was funny and he certainly didn't pass it off as just a myth, though maybe it is.