Ticket Hell, Judy Rose, and Clemson Tigers

        I've been in a little world I like to call Ticket Hell for the past week and a half.  We have GOT to get tickets out to ACC Championship so we that means packaging up ticket orders, putting in parking passes as needed and creating hundreds of Fedex packages.  Not too much to write about BUT Will Webb was kind enough to send us to the City Club for lunch with Judy Rose. The lunch was the perfect way to break up the monotony of the week, and what an awesome experience! Judy Rose is the Athletic Director for UNC Charlotte and one of the most well-respected figures in the profession.  Judy Rose's bio can found on the the UNCC website (http://administration.uncc.edu/cabinet/Bios/rose.html).  Most recently, she has led the efforts to bring football to to the 49ers, and with great success.  The 49ers will play their opening season in 2013!  She was also the first female to serve on the selection committee NCAA Division 1 Men's Basketball Committee.  Rose got her start as a GA at University of Tennessee and got the chance to work with legendary Women's Basketball Coach Pat Summit and they remain close friends to this day!  From their, she headed to UNCC where she started out as head Women's basketball coach and tennis coach, graduated to Head Women's Basketball coach and Associate Athletic Director, and then was selected as Athletic Director (i believe that was the order of events?!)  It was so refreshing to hear a positive, non-feminist, outlook on women in this sport profession.  She had a positive experience moving up in the profession, and seemed to offered more opportunities than she could even take (including being a finalist in the run for the head coaching position with UNC Women's Basketball...wow!).  She told us that she was treated, for the most part, as an equal to the men she was working with.  In fact, it was the women who treated her differently because she did not try to put herself into typical All-Women's sports corner.  She could not have been more down to earth and interested in our career aspirations.  Other than sports and careers we just talked about Charlotte, and she even shared with us how she met her husband...kind of just like a girl's lunch!  Sarah and I had so much fun...and I hope she did as well!
        On Friday, it was back to the ticketing grind, except without Sarah because she was getting her Side Line Reporter, which meant that I couldn't get away with leaving work early and subsequently missed out on all bu the last minute of the Belmont Abbey/ Clemson exhibition basketball game.  Luckily, I ran into Will Qualkinbush, got to sneak in through the tunnel with him, and got to hug Ryan as he was running off the court at the end of his game.  I got to talk to Susan, and all of the Basketball staff, Coach Brownell's girls, and even got to talk to Frank Smith (an assistant coach on OP's staff)!  He was very impressed with my weather appropriate outfit, as he once called me out for not wearing a jacket and breaking down my immune system, and one week later I got Mono.  Frank is starting his own drug testing company now and seems to be doing really well.  It was really great to see a member of the old staff...brought back memories!
        After the game I got to meet up with Mackenzie, Ansley Faria, and Amanda Suiter for a girl's weekend of fun!  A girl's weekend of fun got invaded by Will Sartin (I know...how many Wills can one girl know?), but it was SO great getting to spend the day with him and his best friend from home, Brooks.  It was his first game day off in his college career and I was so glad he chose to spend it with us!  Again, on Sunday I woke up and did NOT want to head back to reality.  It is so sad when you go to say "hey! I'll call you tonight and head over to hang out" and then realize that you will be in a different state in a couple of hours and that will be impossible.  I'm pretty sure this will be my last weekend out of town for a while, but these weekends with college friends have been so rejuvenating and have served as a very important reminder to me of the importance of great friends.  I wish I could see ALL of my friends...but those were some pretty good representatives for sure! 

OH YEAH!  And we beat NC STATE!!!! WOO HOO (I will be slightly less excited on the job...obviously I am very objective).  During the game, I stopped by the Raycom Truck and Jimmy (in charge of Raycom Production) gave me a tour of the entire thing!  I could tell that he enjoys teaching people about the profession that he is an expert at.  He was so sweet to do that.  I got to see what the difference is between the Producer, the Director and Technical Director's jobs.  He also showed me the audio room and I got to hear the sound that was coming in from the Parab (the job I did when I worked the game).  While we were in there, Rob (the producer) was trying to figure out which camera got the shot of Coach Steele passing out so that they could use it as a feature story for the next game.  The truck was high energy during the show, the fun, easy-going characters that I know from the offices become ALL business and have no time to joke around. I loved just getting to see how that whole thing works. 

I owe you a bunch of blog posts

I know.  It's been a long past week, filled with out of the ordinary events, long days at the office, and feeling a bit under the weather which has led to major blog regret.  I apologize...major literary party foul on my part.  I'm just going to jump right in so bare with me.  

PARAB: Saturday, October 16, 2010

        The Clemson vs. Maryland game was my first time working for Raycom's production side, and I must say that I could not have had a more positive experience.  As a Clemson fan, the ultimate experience is to get to stand on the field and watch a game.  The ultimate experience is to be in borderline inappropriate proximity to C.J. Spiller throughout the entire game.  The ultimate experience is to get to listen to the Dabo Sweeny and his boys talk football in there huddles.  The ultimate is to watch the Tigers cruise to victory...in short, the ultimate is to work the Parab on the field during a Clemson game.  I had the ultimate Clemson (and work, for that matter) experience that Saturday. 

        But let's start from the beginning of the day.  We were expected to check in at the Raycom truck by 8:30 and head up to the Press Box for breakfast.  The first person I ran into in the press box was Mike Hogwood (Raycom sideline reporter), and I got to introduce myself to him, which was cool because he is actually a friend of Uncle Chip's from Greensboro.  We got to meet a lot of the people on the Raycom production team during breakfast while we were waiting to hear our assignments for the day.  Several of those people were ones I interacted with throughout the day and the entire production staff for Raycom could not be more accommodating and fun to be around.  By 9:15 we were told our assignments: Sarah and I would be working the parabs that day, which I later found out is short for Parabolic, because of it's shape.  I don't know if you are familiar at all with this...and again, this is a rookie explanation, as are every one of my production explanations...but the parab is the bubble like shape that you will normally see guys holding on the sidelines of a football game.  

This picture was found on the following website: http://www.dailynews.com/sports/ci_13674073.  Photographed by Michael Owen Baker, Daily News staff photographer.

        More about that later.  We didn't have to report anywhere until 11:15 so we had a large amount of time to simply hang out with the production staff and walk around the stadium which was one of the many highlights of the day for me.  The production truck had a lot of people going in and out of it, and everyone was working on some kind of job, whether it was organizing the pregame show for the broadcast, or editing graphics that would appear when players were being discussed during the game.  We also walked into the "First and 10" truck.  Yes, there were 2 guys who's sole purpose was to move the first and 10 line throughout the game.  Most of their work was done before the game ever started, and needless to say, their is potential to get quite bored if you are working first and 10 for a game in which you are not emotionally involved.  I suggested they bring an extra laptop next time and pull up other games on the Internet to keep themselves entertained throughout the 3-4 hours of isolation in a truck.  SO if in the next couple of weeks you are watching a Raycom Broadcast that seems inaccurate, it could be my fault.  

        We still had plenty of time so I walked out to the empty stadium and looked out over the perfectly manicured field.  The sky was clear and blue and the balloons had all been secured by Central Spirit at the bottom of the hill and were ready for release when the time was right.  There was no one out there, no fans, no football players, and yet you could still tell it was game day.  Death Valley has that intangible quality on a game day and I got chills just walking up and down the steps.  When I stepped out on the field, I got that feeling that I used to get before a lacrosse game in High School.  I don't know if it was that I have never stepped on that field on Game Day, or that I knew I was about to work a device that I had no idea how to operate, or that we had lost the past 3 games, and I could feel the added pressure to win, but I got a nervous feeling that I haven't felt in a long time when I realized that I would not be heading up to the comfort (and I use that term loosely) of the student section. 

        I reported to my station at the 20 yard line 45 minutes before kickoff for a quick rundown of what I was going to be doing during the game.  I found out that I would be holding a Parabparab.  The things you want to pick up are any clear contact with the ball (kicks, big catches, etc...), tackles and fumbles, and banter on the field and in the huddle among coaches and players.  It was like discovering a whole new part of the game the first time I heard each of these sounds.  I found myself experimenting with the best way to capture the most clear sound.  I found that I almost wanted to try and get up AND over the sound, so for me holding the parab up higher and tilting it slightly forward often worked best.  You have to be careful about where you point it, because if you are aiming at a play, but the parab is also in line with the band, that is all you will hear.  I mean, this device picks up a clap from across the field, so you can imagine what a marching band would sound like in your headphones. 

        Highlights of the game were: Actually enjoying the parab (many find it boring but I found it fascinating!) Getting to enjoy a game day experience at Clemson on the field.  Standing next to C.J. Spiller for the vast majority of the game...I didn't reach out and touch him, against the wishes of many of my friends, for fear of being fired.  Almost getting tackled 3 times!!!...So close to making sports center.  The last time it happened I seriously considered NOT running backwards out of the way.  Overall, I learned a lot that day and enjoyed every tiring minute of it!  

TBC...with more adventures from this week!

COMING SOON (as in hopefully tomorrow):

Monday Night Amazing Race with Charlotte Sports Commission and Visit Charlotte

ACC Media Day: Basketball

Clemson Game