Let Me Put You on Hold

Ok, this blog entry is like a Quentin Tarantino movie -- the buildup just prior to the final scene airs at the beginning of the flick. Then you get wrapped up in the entire story and then the scene airs in its correct order and it ties it all together. This isn't nearly as good as Pulp Fiction or Kill Bill, but you get the idea......

Saturday night 10:47 pm, edit bay at WCIV-TV in Charleston
Three edits to go and the high school basketball story is ready to get zapped into outerspace via the magic of satellite from Charleston to our sports office in Myrtle Beach. All I have to do is book the satellite window from CNN. I have to feed before 11pm because WCIV's newscast can not feed during the beginning of its show. Eight minutes to spare, I can book a 10:55pm to 11:00pm window and get the story to WPDE and recap a long and exciting day of high school hoops. When CNN answers, I calmly tell them I need to book a 10:55 window - and then I hear "Let me put you on hold....." (panic and thoughts of dry heaving are now setting in)

(This is where we do the Tarantino thing and go back to the beginning of the story)

When it comes to the local sports media in South Carolina, the bar is raised extremely high when it comes to covering high school sports, especially football and basketball. For the first time since I've been here, the lower state finals (state semifinals) has been moved to one site. The Citadel in Charleston would play host to eight total games over two days - two on Friday, six on Saturday. When the dust settles after the quarterfinals, we have a total of five local teams playing for a trip to the state championship. The Hartsville girls played on Friday, and the Hemingway boys, Mullins boys and Myrtle Beach boys and girls were all in action on Saturday.

There are two shows on Saturday. The 6pm newscast will have the Hemingway boys and the Mullins boys will be in progress as the show goes to air. The 11pm newscast will be a recap of all four games. This is the part of the job that is nearly as important as being on the air. It's time to hatch a plan to be able to bring back the highlights and post game reaction from all of these games. The loyal fans of these schools expect nothing less than for us to deliver the goods.

There seems to be an unwritten rule in the sportscaster fraternity: you try and help your colleagues from other markets as much as you can. I can't tell you how much respect I have for nearly every sports department in our state as they live to that creed. A phone call down to Scott Eisberg, the weekend sports guy at WCIV in Charleston gets the plan in motion. You have to remember that these guys have a full plate of work to do and can easily brush off an outside market looking for some help, but Scott is the antithesis of that. Not only is he going to help us out on Saturday with an edit bay and feeding out highlights, he's going to grab some highlights of the Hartsville game on Friday so we don't have to come down for two straight days. Saint Scott has got free golf and anything else we can do for him in Myrtle Beach for a very long time.

So now it's off to the Citadel on Saturday morning to get a 1pm tipoff of Hemingway and Bamberg-Ehrhardt. The Tigers are so athletic and put on an impressive display in advancing to the 1A state title game. After shooting an on camera intro and outro on campus, I make a 15 minute journey back over the Ravenel bridge to the WCIV studios where I get into an edit bay with a tape ready to edit. Every station has their editing system set up a little different, so it takes me about five minutes to get acclimated, but in about 25 minutes, Hemingway's story is ready to be told. It's 4:00pm - so I'm on my way back to campus to shoot a little bit of the Mullins game for the 6pm show. Scott had to shoot two college baseball games and the 2A girls game so our paths never cross, but we have our plan in place. I'll grab the Mullins/Burke game for 15 minutes, head back to WCIV where he can have highlights for his show and he'll send the Hemingway piece and Mullins highlights on satellite to Hags at 5:30 pm.

Mullins has a 17-11 lead in the 1st when I leave to go back to the studio. I'm there just before 5:00, crank out a few highlights and hand the tape to Scott. It's now a little after 5:10 and I'm back to the Citadel to get the rest of the Mullins game. 5:30 rolls around and the two stories are on their way back to Myrtle and I get the text from Hags that all is good. Part one of the day: mission accomplished.

Mullins loses an absolute heartbreaker. Dante Cooper made a great offensive rebound and go to the free throw line with 3.2 seconds left. Two free throws and it was likely overtime. The poor kid misses the second shot and Mullins perfect season is over. Mark Gerald is nothing but class, and comes out and answers the post-game questions from the media.

The Myrtle Beach girls finally got past their demon and gave some revenge to North Charleston. Mickey Hunter was all smiles and it's always a great story to interview the local team when they are on the winning side. One game to go-- Myrtle Beach boys against Crestwood. I heard the Knights were extremely athletic and were a favorite to not only get past the Seahawks, but go all the way in 3A. In the back of my mind, I'm set to leave this game at halftime if Crestwood has a double digit lead. It would be pushing 9:15 pm - I can get back to WCIV at 9:30 and have a full hour to recap four games. That's a good cushion. The Seahawk boys changed the plan in a hurry. Darius Hemingway and Everett Golson were on fire and raced out to an 18-3 lead after one. I knew right then and there I was going the distance. Playing true team basketball, MB hung on for a 58-55 win. Now, the clock is ticking. Two quick interviews with DeAndre Scott and Darius Hemingway and the race is on.

9:53 pm - one hour and 2 minutes until deadline -- I can feed at 11:10pm if I have to, but that is always risky. Hags needs to have time to take in the feed, load into our system and turn it around. The first thing I do is call Hags and get him the graphics information so he can at least have that. I've got about a three minute budget for this story which is challenging enough when you have four games, three of the games were wins and the loss was a down to the final second heartbreaker. I took notes on my BlackBerry the whole time and I quickly rattle out the order of the interviews:
1. DeAndre Scott, Myrtle Beach
2. Ashley Clarke, Myrtle Beach
3. Mark Gerald, Mullins
4. Tashan Frederick, Hemingway

It's pitch black dark and I'm on a highway. I see the Ravenel Bridge in the rear view mirror and I realize I'm going the wrong way. It's now 10:00 pm and I'm trying to be like one of those Olympic biathletes. Those guys can lower their heart rate to about 30 beats per minute and shoot a bullseye with a gun from about 500 yards away. I then realize that if I was a biathlete I would have probably shot a volunteer instead of a target and realize I'm not that calm, cool and collected. A quick turnaround and I'm back on my way.

10:13pm - parking lot, WCIV. Camera in the back seat, I pull it on the ground and grab the microphone. Yes, the glamorous world of TV. I'm on my knees in a parking lot and anyone talking by would have thought I was just talking to myself. The BlackBerry notes are lit up and I go through each game as concise as I can. The story is told on tape and I'm on my way into the edit bay. I've got three different tapes that have the four games, post-game interviews, my intro and my voice of the higlights on it.

This is where sportscasting is like sports. The clock is up and there's no timeouts. It's classic risk/reward. I stayed to get the excitement of the Myrtle Beach boys pulling off the upset. I've got a great shot of the fans swarming the court and cheering with the players along with a great reaction from Coach Scott. By doing that, I'm risking all four games making the air. In less than an hour, if the story isn't done, we have what we refer to in our business as a crash and burn. Hags has a three minute hole in his 4:30 show and will have to scramble for a backup plan. You go through game by game - parking lot audio, find the interview, parking lot audio, find the interview (repeat). Then you need to find the baskets to match what you talked about. At 10:32 pm, I've got everything laid down, just need to find the baskets. You go through the tape and one by one, you start covering up the black holes to tell the story.

That's where we get to 10:47 pm, the beginning of the movie. I've got four "holes" left to cover and the piece is done. One Tashan Frederick closeup, two Quentin Brown baskets and a shot of fans to close out the piece. I see the light at the end of the tunnel and know that I can get this done is 5-6 minutes. A call to CNN and I'm on my way. "Let me put you on hold...." That's what the CNN guy tells me. I have to multi task and get the other parts of the piece covered. Frederick shot, in. Quentin Brown hoop and foul, in. All the while, I'm hearing a CNN radio news update while I'm still on hold. Surely, he'll be telling me we're all set for a 10:55 pm feed. I find the second Brown bucket and lay it in - I'm one edit away form completion - it's 10:52 pm. As I'm completing the piece for air, finally I get a human voice. We can't do it at 10:55 pm, but we have you all set for 11:00pm.

First thought: 12 hours of work are about to go down the drain. Biggest high school games of the year, and I'm about to drop the ball. Scott says, don't worry we can do it at 11:10 pm. I book the window for 11:10 and we get it set. It's now 10:57 - and I have to tell Hags to get ready for a late feed. Hags is remarkably calm (that's a very good thing!). As soon as WCIV's first block of news is done, we've got the green light to feed. The satellite window actually opens up a couple of minutes early and we're beaming it back to the Beach.

Happy Ending - the piece runs on the 11pm news without a hitch and we cover all four games in which three of our local teams qualify for the state championship. It couldn't have been done without the help of Scott at WCIV.

That's the behind the scenes world of what we do. This isn't intended to be a "look at me and what we pulled off" kind of piece. The fact of the matter is that my colleagues in this state do these kind of things every single day. They do it in Columbia, Greenville, Charleston and our competition does it in Myrlte Beach/Florence. The TV news business is all about deadlines and you'll find that the balance between success and failure is a very thin line. What's great about working in TV in South Carolina is that everyone indeed tries to look out for each other. Greenville is giving Clemson baseball highlights, Columbia will give us Gamecocks highlights. On this day, I was able to shoot a couple of Charleston games for WCIV and help their cause. It's an honor to be able to be a part of a group of dedicated sportscasters who are passionate about covering Palmetto State sports.

So we get the win for this week -- now it's time to figure out how to get three state championship games in Columbia and CCU's final men's basketball game in Charleston back into your living rooms on Saturday night. Let me put you on hold....I'm going to need a few minutes to figure that out.