Sunday, November 18, 2007

Perspective Anyone???

(courtesy Cleveland Plain Dealer-Chuck Crow)

Covered Ohio States win over Michigan on Saturday at the Big House. Our station website posted one of my post game pieces. Try not to laugh at the goober-like beanie hat I was wearing. Hey, it was chilly. No style points needed. Heres the link




The fact that the piece got posted is part of my point on perspective. The game ended at 3:25 or so and I got most of my interviews with Buckeyes on the field. Okay, thats ..so good so far.



But we joke that God never intended for pictures to go through the air. We were to use a satellite truck provided by our Fox Detroit affiliate. Waiting outside the Buckeye lockeroom after getting most interviews, I got the call that many of us in the business get, and it always gets our heart rates and stress levels maxed.


"The satellite truck is out of commission."


I say "cripe sake", or something a bit more blue and then things get really complicated.


"You gotta drive to the station to feed your stuff"

"Double Cripes Sake". The station is 45 minutes away. Its now 4:30pm. Ohh, yeah, theres 111,000 others trying to leave Ann Arbor.

We get in the car and myself and Dough Herrmann, our photographer are jumping out of our skin. Doug says we won't make it. I say, lets give it a shot.

Traffic is crawling. Its misty, rainy and miserable.


Somehow, while inching toward Southfield Michigan, we encounter better traffic patterns and now we are going 70 miles a hour. On the phone with the station.. Booking satellite windows and stuff. Will we make it.?? I'm stressed to the point of no return. We had all these great interviews but what good are they if we can't feed them.

Long story short..we arrive... 2 minutes before the window. Guys are meeting us at the back door. We get the tape cued and start feeding.

Stuff made it. Whew. It was the most important thing I wanted to do...get some postgame interviews on the air.


While finishing the feed, the station was doing a live interview with the family of a missing woman solidier in Iraq. I immediately came down to earth.


"You are an idiot", I told myself. I was so consumed about some interviews from a football game, I lost sight of the big picture. Yes, the work was important, but ask that family if they cared about the Ohio State-Michigan game. Their daughter is in harms way. God knows she could really be is a real bad way, and all I cared about was getting Beanie Wells interview back to our viewers in Cleveland.


I often times can't see the forest for the trees. My work seems all encompassing. My focus on training can be the same. I need to look at the big picture.


I thank that family for the reality check and I pray for their daughters return to safety.

1 comment:

Wes said...

There's nothing wrong with doing our best at the path God has chosen for us. I'm sure that young lady would want us to do our best, that is after all what she is fighting for, to give us that opportunity.

Thanks for stopping by. Lots of tri-peeps in the Cleveland area, and definitely an uber special bunch...