Showing posts with label covering football. Show all posts
Showing posts with label covering football. Show all posts

Sunday, December 2, 2018

Hard-to-read football jerseys

THIS IS AN EASY-TO-READ JERSEY


When I covered high-school football from 1979 until a few years ago, I hated teams with numbers that were almost indistinguishable from the rest of the uniform.

I once covered a team with black numbers and dark green jerseys. Another team wore white jerseys with gold numbers. You couldn't tell WHO had the ball.

In the '80s, there was a team that wore powder-blue (or white) jerseys with light numbers. If you were close, you could tell who was who. The problem from a distance was that the quarterback wore 10, the fullback wore 20, the halfbacks wore 30 and 40, respectively, and the main wide receiver wore 80.

Ugh!

One of those teams later changed their numbers to black on white or white on black; and I was happy.

Then a few years later, they went back to the light numbers with no striping around them.

Boy, I hate that.

><

EMAIL: tgilli52@gmail.com  BLUESKY: PROFILE



BLOG ENTRIES FROM THE AUTO RACING JOURNAL
(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)
(the book of great NASCAR stories)

Monday, October 15, 2012

A desperate writer working in the dark




In the fall of 2006, I
was covering a high-school football playoff game in southwest North Carolina; actually, I was trying to cover the game. They turned the lights off in the pressbox, and I couldn't see to write my notes. And since my computer didn't have a backlit screen, I couldn't write on the computer, either.


To make matters worse, they had about 20 people in a pressbox meant for 15 people, and it was impossible to work. So at halftime, I went into the stands. I figured I'd have room to work, and I'd have enough light to write. I could write on my notebook, true, but the batteries didn't work in the computer.


After the game, I called the paper and gave them the score and stats. I told them I'd write on the bus back.


The problem was that I couldn't plug the computer into an outlet on the bus, and the bus driver wouldn't turn the lights on so I could write. So, desperate, I asked the coach if we could switch places. "Rudy" was playing on the monitors around the bus, and in the flickering lights of the football movie I wrote the game by long hand on a yellow notepad. About 15 minutes before deadline, I called the paper and read the story to an editor.


Whew!


Oh, there's a postscript to this story. The next week, my wife bought me a small light with a head piece, so I could type and write when the game was blacked out. Naturally, the next pressbox didn't have lights, either, but my little Borg light worked perfectly. After the game, I did my interviews and went back to the pressbox to finish writing. The pressbox folk locked me in and left; I finished, sent my story via email, locked the pressbox, walked to my car and drove home.


Piece of cake.


><
 
EMAIL: tgilli52@gmail.com  BLUESKY: PROFILE



BLOG ENTRIES FROM THE AUTO RACING JOURNAL
(a book of great stories about the Intimidator)
(the book of great NASCAR stories)

EPISODE 10 -- NEW LIFE AND NEW CIVILIZATIONS

Strange New Worlds Season 3 Finale BREAKDOWN & REVIEW I finally finished the season-three finale for Strange New Worlds , but I'm n...