Broadcasting PIAA Championship games at Hershey

January 6, 2008

Havenfootball Staff

Although we had all been to Hershey for the PIAA Championships back in the years when Strath Haven went four times in a row (1999-2003) we had just begun the web site in 2002 and never went as broadcasters.  This year we were asked to broadcast all four championship games for EZStream on behalf of the PIAA so that the games would have a presence on the web and be available live and on archive for anyone with Internet access anywhere in the world.

Brian Carroll, Paul Hisey and Mike Mayer took off early Friday morning in order to set-up the equipment and go over rosters and interview coaches.  Also joining us was Brian Carroll's father, Dick Chaney, to assist us with play charting during the game.  

We made the first of several walks up the stairs to the press box where we were shown our "little piece of heaven" on the second floor of the press box right at the 40 yard line.  

After getting our equipment checked-out and confirming our Internet connection Brian and Paul went down to the field. Paul would be on the field during all four games and linked via wireless headsets to Dick to assist in identifying tacklers, fumble and interception recoveries and a host of other information that may be difficult to figure out from our vantage point.

While we had broadcast all the Panther games in 2006 and 2007 we had never been put in the position of broadcasting four games over two days.  We were only familiar with one team, the Garnet Valley Jaguars, who we had followed during their championship run, and had to learn seven new rosters as well as histories and back-up information.  

We had a game at 1:00 PM and 7:00 PM the first day and the two Saturday games had been moved up to  noon and 5:00PM based on poor weather forecasts. That would mean a very quick dinner break for our first day and no break on the second day in addition to our drive home possibly in bad weather.  

Brian and Dick get ready to go!	Mike's final check of the equipment and connections

After all the hand-wringing and worrying we started our first broadcast at 12:45 PM and never looked back.  With only a few technical issues all four broadcasts went smoothly.  

The staff from the PIAA was a great help and everyone in this huge press booth was extremely helpful assisting us with name pronunciations and volunteering their time to allow us to interview them during pre-game and half-time shows.

There is no doubt we had a great amount of fun and saw some terrific high school athletes.  While we couldn't help but be a little melancholy that our Panthers would not be making an appearance we did take some solace in knowing that a Delaware County team, the Garnet Valley Jaguars, would be making their first appearance at a PIAA Championship Game.

It was A LOT of football and our drive home was spent thinking about the great weekend in which we had participated and letting our voices and our brains just chill out.  See you in August 2008!

If you would like to listen to any or all of our PIAA Championship football game broadcasts simply click PIAA Championship Games.

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