FEATURE
STA NDING IN THE
SHADOWS OF THE GAME By Barry Stewart, Ph.D.
On
April 20, Dr. Jay McCurdy and I participated in a very interesting activity with the Curriculum Unit at Mississippi State University. We along with several other stakeholders met to begin the process of creating a high school curriculum in Turf Management for Mississippi High Schools. We made good progress and the plan is for this new course to be available to high schools in the fall of 2023. It will be part of the Vocational Agriculture Curriculum and will be an excellent way to introduce more students to turfgrass management as well as educating students who may be ready to enter the Turfgrass Management workforce or pursue more education in Turfgrass Management. Will Arnett and Danny Smith of East Mississippi Community College also attended and contributed to this meeting. Toward the end of the meeting Will got a phone call regarding working in the broadcast booth for the SEC Network/ESPN at the MSU vs Auburn softball game on April 29. He was unable to fulfill this request but knew that I have been a softball fan for a while and attended most of the games. He gave me a phone number to call, and I called the guy and he was happy they had found someone willing to work and that was vaxxed and boosted (ESPN requirement). I had to call another person, and I was hired to fill the Dual Role of Talent Stats and Booth Coordinator.
24 • MISSISSIPPI TURFGRASS • SUMMER 2022
I spent the week filling out paperwork to be hired by the company that hires people for ESPN/SEC Network. I was told to show up two hours before gametime at the broadcast booth at Nusz Park. The week zips by and it’s Friday at 4 pm and I walk into the broadcast booth. There I meet the MSU broadcast team who run the cameras and provide the production for the broadcast. The production studio is actually in the North Endzone of Davis Wade Stadium, so all the various feeds are routed there. My job was to relay stats to the broadcast talent and have the play-by-play announcer read advertisement of upcoming ESPN programming. I think there were four such reads this night. The announcers this night were Tiffany Greene and Kayla Braud. These ladies were very professional and had obviously done a lot of homework in preparation for the game. They did not need me for much. I was on a headset with the broadcast crew and relayed information to the announcer via notes or hand signals. During the game I was able to point out that MSU 3rd baseman Paige Cook was the 2nd toughest SEC player to strike out and the shortstop Madisyn Kennedy tended to have long at bats. It was an excellent game and MSU won 3 – 2. It was fascinating seeing how a game broadcast comes together.
