Soaked Again

Today's view

Remember the soccer game from roughly a month back? You know, the one where I was in a near-hurricane?

Keep that in mind.

I'm sure you will find it shocking but it rained again in New England on a weekend.

And I took a bus to Andover, MA.

I was told the bus was leaving the Edwards Campus of the Brunswick school at 7:45. So I got up this morning, pulled myself together, and hustled over to Wick with a coffee in my hand, which I had consumed by the time I parked the car.

Gus, the trusted videographer, was unloading his car and was also joining the fun.

I think my last Brunswick bus trip was, in fact, to Andover but that's not truly important right now.

Head coach Wayne McGillicuddy told us breakfast sandwiches awaited inside near the locker room and he promised that, as part of the traveling party, we'd be fed throughout the day.

That, my friends, is class.

We loaded onto Bus 2 and set off. It was cloudy but mostly dry as we left.

It didn't stay that way.

The rain hit and hit hard. As a passenger, I'll zone out and listen to things or play games on my phone but I'll also watch a bit of the drive. I could see the rain and it was heavy.

Leaving at 7:45 (in truth, we were on the road just after 7:50) means that, if things move well, we'll have time on our hands.

Inside Cawley Memorial Stadium, Lowell, MA

Wayne -- a Lowell High School guy -- made arrangements for the team to do a walk-through at Cawley Memorial Stadium. Built in 1937, the field has hosted numerous high school games as well as multiple levels up to and including the New England Patriots, who lost a preseason game in 1963 to the Houston Oilers there.

Wayne told me about the eight-overtime game he played in as a high school athlete at Cawley. Rivals Lowell and Andover played until Andover won 88-82. That, friends, is a football score.

We also used the stop as a break for lunch sandwiches.

From there, the rain picked up again as we headed to Phillips Academy Andover.

Their facility -- Phelps Stadium -- is nice. Turf field, concrete bleachers, etc. It's charming.

It also has no press box, except for the two-level tower with a spiral staircase hanging off the back of the concrete bleachers at midfield. You can see the tower in this picture from Andover Athletics.

I walked up there during our last visit, in 2021, and felt my knees immediately buckle. Hell, no.

I didn't bother this time.

I set up at the bottom where there's sort of the makings of an area that has a scoreboard operator and a makeshift public address system that is setup and broken down for every game.

I stood near all of that.

And the rain continued.

Rain. Lots. Oh, and two Buc-ee's stickers

I set up as quickly as I could, using my hard-sided case to cover things.

I decided I would use my small Zoom Podtrak P4 mixer, one headset, no crowd microphone, and my computer.

Keep in mind, we were there around 1 p.m. and the game wasn't until 3 p.m. That's a lot of time for rain to cause any havoc.

Oh, and did I mention from the moment I woke up this morning I really didn't have much of a voice? I should probably add that.

I was as prepared as I could be under the circumstances, figuring I couldn't bring everything from my car.

But I didn't bring enough though I'm not sure it would have made much of a difference.

As I went to take a stab at putting the game on Robcasting, my computer screen went off. My gut feeling was the game would only air on LocalLive and that was correct. I might try to make an audio recording of the LocalLive feed later on. But, for now, don't look in my archive for this game.

Not long after the game had started, as my voice croaked and cracked, moisture must have gotten into something because humming began to be heard. I made adjustments that kept things sort of muffled but, according to Gus, people could hear me.

And this was just how we were going to survive. In the tower, Gus fought condensation while I fought the heavy downpours.

At halftime, I actually left the "booth" and went into the nearby ice rink to sit at a table and dry off.

There was more of the same in the second half.

Yet, somehow, we pulled it off as we almost always do. Oh, I would have liked to have used more of the notes I had and I had literally no way to keep a scorecard.

And, speaking of the score, I had to keep that in my brain because the scoreboard didn't work!

In what truly matters most, Brunswick led 7-0 on a Bryce Davis touchdown run but Andover scored twice to get the lead to 12-7. Oliver Reynolds booted a field goal in the second half to get the game to 12-10 and Andover lost their starting quarterback. In fact, they wound up playing three different quarterbacks, turning the ball over four times in the second half. The Bruins got another TD to go up 17-12 before Reynolds kicked a 42-yard FG. 

Final score: Brunswick 20-Andover 12. A good gut-check win for the Bruins.

The game ended and I basically said, "thanks for watching. Bye."

I threw stuff in cases and bags, waited a few minutes for Gus (who had to break down a couple of cameras), and began the walk back to the bus.

One thing I will always say about student-athletes: they are kind and respectful to me. Matty Augustine, a highly recruited lineman, caught up with me as I headed towards the bus, and we chatted about the game. He was honest, open, and easy to talk to.

And these guys always call me "sir." Please, I beg of you, don't.

Receiver Matt Colella talked to me after I got on the bus (where boxes of Chick-fil-A awaited with sandwiches, chips, and a cookie) and said how much he enjoyed my work. Another player told me how much he enjoys my lacrosse play-by-play. Nowhere in life did I ever expect that to happen but I've heard that from a few people. It's surprising.

Finally, at 6 p.m., the buses began the trek back to Greenwich. A four-hour drive awaited through the rain before...it got dry.

However, I sat in my bus seat, soaked to my skin. It took forever to even get my hands dry.

This is the business we have chosen

We were back at 10 and I was home before 10:30. I'm thrilled and relieved to say that I'm writing this on my laptop which appears to have survived. The rest of the equipment is currently in the living room where I'm hoping it will dry out and also be OK.

Whatever tales I tell there are two bottom lines: 1) the game was played (Brunswick won) and overall, everyone is safe despite injuries and 2) the broadcast happened.

The rosters are smeared, wet messes but those can be reprinted.

The audio can be gathered from LocalLive.

But, as I suspected, today would be one for the memory bank.

It sure was.

With no voice, I will now go silent.