Game 1

 

The packed broadcast case was ready to go

We've reached the starting gate.

Greenwich at Newtown. 7 p.m. tonight. WGCH (1490 AM, 105.5 FM, wgch.com). Chris Erway in the booth with me. Sean Kilkelly in the studio. Pre-game show is at 6:50 p.m. Booth space has been approved by Newtown High School.

Now comes the packing.

First, if we're doing "chicken or the egg" stuff, we need voices. Chris and I have those. But we need to project them. 

So two headsets are packed. So is a crowd microphone. But we need a mixer and my trusty Zoom PodTrak P4 is ready. It's small and light and doesn't take up much space. It will also allow me to use a cell phone if we have to (fingers crossed that we don't have to).

Mic cables. We need those also. At least one for the crowd mic.

Power? That can be run via my computer as the P4 goes via a USB cable. So we need one power outlet later for my laptop. We'll need more if either one of us needs to plug in another computer.

I'll likely have backups with me as well. Another mixer, cables, mics. Maybe even headsets.

By the way, none of this belongs to WGCH, LocalLive, or anyone else. It's mine. I acquired it over the years as I built "Robcasting."

I probably should have a WGCH banner and, if I have a minute, I'll stop by the studio to pick one up. That's where living five minutes away is a nice thing.

Rosters. Yes, I've got them. Accurate? That's a good question. I found rosters for both squads. We'll have to resolve pronunciations and some duplicate numbers but that will all shake out. As I've done this for a long time (it's season number 25 covering high school sports), I've taught myself to recognize that somehow it will all be OK.

I've had my fair share of moments where I flipped out/wanted to flip out/needed to take a walk. I have fewer of those moments now. But it's still a good reminder of the standards that I set and expect our broadcasts to have.

The kit will also have extra cables for tomorrow when we produce our first broadcast at Brunswick for the new season. I have to be able to run a long cable to take our audio feed to our cameraman so that it can be sent to LocalLive. Tomorrow, we'll have Gustavo as our trusty cameraman. I never worry when he's there. Same goes with a lot of camerapeople.

But that's for tomorrow. In fact, I had to stop writing to work on Brunswick's roster, as head coach Wayne McGillicuddy just emailed it.

It's all good and it starts tonight.

We'll tell the stories as best as we can.

Let's kick it off.

*****

I wrote all of the above before the game tonight. Now, I'm back home following a 34-14 Greenwich win.

There were hiccups. While there was "space in the booth" for us we would have been sitting behind the Newtown coaches. Er...no. We went down to the concourse and called the game from the crowd.

There was rust. Roster issues. Pronunciation worries. a technical snafu right at air time.

But there was football and we were back on the air. That was pretty sweet.

Now comes a Brunswick scrimmage tomorrow at 1 p.m.

Oh, and the Renegades were eliminated and their season is over.

So we're all about fall sports now.