Behind the Scene on Game Day

Behind the Scenes on Opening Night
High School Football Kicks Off
8/27/10

The smell of football season is in the air. A crisp late summer evening, with that scent of a fresh football-filled evening, mixed in with the wafting smells of pork chops on the grill. Football season is here!

The morning of August 27th was a slow start to a hectic day, night, and early morning. With the long hours that would be spent preparing for game day, the actual game night broadcast, along with other postgame preparations, and an early morning Saturday wakeup call, I went into the office at 10 a.m. Friday morning.

I woke up around the normal time, maybe an extra half hour to an hour of sleep. A bowl of cereal and a cup of coffee greeted me, and a smattering of emails to check.

With the deadline well passed, and my sports liners not turned in on time (a yearly nightmare), I had to make a couple phone calls to make sure they were not left behind by any announcers. I had talked to my United Red Storm broadcaster, John Ring, earlier in the week to go over his broadcast on Sunny 97.7 WMOI against the Stark County Rebels. He would pick his equipment up on Friday morning at the station.

On Wednesday, I spent a majority of the afternoon sorting out broadcast equipment for four different broadcast crews. We had setups in Galesburg, Wyoming, Princeton, and Oneida for week one. Equipment is at a premium, and I have to get creative on certain weeks, so I have created my nine-week grid. Each broadcast crew is assigned equipment, which varies on every Friday.

Down to an intimate detail, I packed each bag, and inventoried it. The broadcast equipment was sorted into crews, with a note attached with the play-by-play announcer bolded and a list of all of the contents within. Too much detail is still not enough sometimes....but week one went without any problems (equipment-wise).

When I arrived at the studios, I spoke with my Monmouth-Roseville Titans play-by-play announcer, Tom Petersen. I did a quick run-through with his equipment, as he has not broadcasted a game in a few years.

Next, I had to gather the sports liners, which still were NOT finalized. They were finished early in the afternoon. Each set of live commercial reads is broken down by team, and I gave Tom his Titans reads, John already has his United reads, and I took the Galesburg and Mid-County commercial packets.

I had to meet my Mid-County Cougars broadcaster, Nate Williams, in Galesburg at 2:00. I also realized that I had not brought my own personal headset for my color commentator. Instead of having him used a stick microphone, I worked diligently to plan a trip back to Macomb to grab that headset, along with an insurance appointment.....OYE!

Most of my duties for Friday were pretty simple, just gathering my game notes for my broadcast between Galesburg and Chicago Academy, make sure the special one-hour pregame shows devoted to the Western Big 6, West Central, and Lincoln Trail Conferences were put in the right place, and produce the open and closes for the broadcasts.

By 1:30, I had finished most of the stuff I needed to get done, and had produced the open and closes for United, Monmouth-Roseville, and Mid-County. Since I broadcast Galesburg, Mike Weaver recorded the open and close for the Silver Streaks sponsors.

On to Galesburg for the first time on the day, I met with Nate, and went over some pronunciations with him, and gave him a general overview again. He is a Knox College student, and did a pretty good job for such limited experience.

After our meeting, I had to gas up ($2.54 in Galesburg), and headed back to Monmouth to finalize some insurance things. I had hoped to be heading out of Monmouth and back to Macomb by 3:00, and was 10 minutes ahead of schedule.

By the time I got to Macomb around 3:30, hunger started setting in, and a trip to the McDonald's drive-thru for a two-cheeseburger meal was on my mind. From now until the middle of March, I will be making more trips like this than I want.

My final prep still had to get done back at the station, organizing my rosters, and stat sheets. For the first time in my football broadcasting career, I am trying to tackle rushing stats, along with passing stats, turnovers, and penalties....not to mention keep an eye on scores via text and online. This would prove a task too difficult, and I ended up concentrating solely on Galesburg's rushing numbers, while getting an eye on the scores during breaks.

C.C. Van Dyke Field was filled with coaches and players, and a few workers when I arrived around 5:15. There was no sophomore or prelim game tonight, since Chicago Academy did not feel their squad was ready. The school does not begin classes until after Labor Day.

Jim Lee from WGIL in Galesburg was in the booth when I got there, and we talked a little football, and Chicago Academy. Neither of us knew too much about the visiting Cougars from the Chicago Public League.

I had a lot of trouble trying to track down a roster, but was able to get one at the gate. I had WMOI on in my car to make sure the Lincoln Trail Conference preview show aired correctly, and it did. The Western Big 6 show began at 6:15, and it started okay.

There is always a little rust on the first broadcast of the season, it seems. The first hiccup during my broadcast was my own fault. I use LogMeIn, and basically run my own broadcast from my laptop in the press box. If I don't move the mouse, or I am not active within the screen, it will time out, and shut down whatever is running on the station computer.

While I ran to get a roster, it timed out, and I had to do some quick calculating to get the show back to where it left off. Several minutes later, a command on the satellite kicked my show off, and again I had to do some quick fixing. In the end, I think it aired okay, but it is still embarassing when these problems arise.

One of my favorite parts of broadcasting at Galesburg High School is the complementary water, pop, and pizza in the press box. The press box itself, is one of my least favorite, as it is falling apart, and it shakes when people walk up and down the stairs.

Some folks I talked with in the press box were WGIL play-by-play announcer Brad Bennewitz, who makes a return to the microphone this season, athletic director Ralph Henning, Streaks sophomore coach Jake Miller, Streaks freshman coach Brad Swanson, my Streaks basketball broadcast partner Jimmie Carr, and Streaks filmer Kevin Hickey. Hickey and I talked about some vintage films, and had discovered a video broadcast from a 1974 Galesburg/Washington boy's basketball game. I am a huge high school sports fan, but vintage high school sports artifacts like that are like gold in my book.

The Chicago Academy coaches were on our side of the press box, and were very friendly folks. Dr. Gene Denisar, Superintendent at District 205, was my special guest announcer for the night. Before we went on the air, I asked him what I should call him during the broadcast, and he replied...."Just call me Gene, that Doctor crap was a long time ago."

During our pregame show, we talked about how school has been in the first 10 days. Denisar had brought up that school began a week early, as to save some energy during a longer break in the winter. I mentioned the cost-saving moves and state funding to which he replied, "Oh Beau....you just hit my hot button.....we better start talking football again!"

After each quarter, I had several guys come over to check on scores. Most were interested in the other Western Big 6 games, along with the area teams (Knoxville, Abingdon, etc.). Coach Swanson, a Stark County alum, was interested in the Rebels updates against United.

Alleman athletic director Steve Smithers was texting me updates of the Pioneers game against LaSalle-Peru. Former McDonough Voice sports writer Mitch Worley (currently a color analyst for Illini West football) gave me Chargers updates, along with many other updates via text from around the state. I had my IHSSN twitter (www.twitter.com/ihssn) feed burning up. Check out the scoreboard at (www.ihssn.net). IHSSN and Illinois Pigskin (www.illinoispigskin.com) are teaming up with a scoreboard and leading stats.

Galesburg Register-Mail assistant sports editor Aaron Frey joined me at halftime of the Streaks game, and talked about the Western Big 6, and the first half of the Streaks game, which was a lopsided lead for the hosts. The starters sat midway through the second quarter with a healthy lead, and it was 43-0 at halftime.

The Silver Streaks were victorious, 57-0, the highest point output since the 2000 season (58 points vs. Quincy). Robert Jackson had 149 yards on six carries and 2 touchdowns. Sophomore Travon Diggins ran back the opening kickoff of the second half 88 yards for a score.

After the game, Galesburg defensive coordinator Shawn Hickey talked about his stifling defense, posting a shutout, and the importance of kicking the season off on such a high note. With such a senior-laden team, it was also good to get the underclassmen some varsity reps.

Once I packed everything up after the broadcast, I phoned back to the studios to let them know I was on my way. We are streaming the Mid-County Cougars games live this year (www.1590waik.com), and then playing them back on the radio on Saturday mornings at 9:00 a.m. It is the first time we have done a playback, so I had to show my engineer how to, essentially, produce the game and insert it into the radio station's Saturday playlist.

It took a little longer than expected, due to the large file....and slow computer. The biggest question mark was how long the broadcast would be, and how to get it timed to the right amount. I had to do waaay too much math after a loooong day, so it wasn't exactly pretty, but it fired okay!

Shortly after midnight, it was in the computer and ready to go. I gathered some scores and stats from the night, found some leftover Pizza Hut pizza in the station refridgerator and had a late, late dinner, and finally took the station's couch around 2:30 a.m. Three hours later, I awoke to tackle another day, running on pure opening football weekend adrenaline....and a pot of coffee!