Inside Wildcat Football: Notes from Inside the Broadcast Booth

A couple of weeks ago I wrote a column about my exploits as the live producer of the Temple High School football games. I did not realize how many comments I was going to get about it. I was just trying to tell a funny story about placing a crowd mic near a gaggle of gabby teenagers.

Photographer extraordinaire Joe Olivares snapped a great shot of the whole crew inside the broadcast booth at Waco ISD Stadium and sports complex. It perfectly captured our three announcers, our statistician and yours truly. What I really like about it is that I don't look as fat as I could be in the photo, so thank you Joe!

I don't have much of a funny story to tell about this press box. It's usually the smaller, less equipped studios which force us to improvise solutions to problems that pop up. I didn't have that this week: I had all my gear, as many XLR cables I needed, my two mixing consoles, iPhone, iPad. I was set.  But the response to my last column made me realize that people like to hear, see and read about the magic happenings, how we do what we do and bring them the broadcast they hear. That's what got me interested in broadcasting when I was a lad.  So here's what went on game day, last Friday, October 14.

When I got into the Waco booth, I was informed of a patchbay. This is a series of jacks for our mic cables  which offer different sources of audio without having to run an extra mic.  Quite frankly, this was the Cadillac of visiting studios as far as I was concerned. I was being fed a crowd mic, the PA announcer, the program feed from the TV station on campus (!!!!)  and best of all, a wireless mic worn by the head referee. Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus and he gave me the gift of audio!

We had never done a game where we could hear the call of the referee. I cannot tell you how much this enhanced the presentation.  There was no second-guessing: we knew what the call was because the referee told us so.

At half time, when I had a moment I went and saw what the home team's radio crew was using. It wasn't much by comparison.  I think it was all on a laptop.  I might not have seen other equipment  that was there in their booth  but it certainly wasn't Abbey Road Studios.

I mentioned to Art Coley, our color guy and an astute businessman, that I had a vision for a high tech audio suite in the press box at Wildcat Stadium. As enamored as I was of Waco's setup,  I immediately thought we could top them. I think the Wildcat Nation can understand why we want to bring sparkling audio quality to the fans and alumni listening on the air and on the Internet.  I'm proud of what we've accomplished this season and are looking to build on it.

There's no game this week so I get to relax. But my mind is aglow with whirling, transient nodes of thoughts careening through a cosmic vapor of invention!