In a few weeks (definitely before the football season starts on August 28th), I will tell you the story of how I got started as a stat man (teaser…for TSRN, it was indeed who I knew and for TV, it was my experience).
After my last football game I worked in January, all the football supplies were packed in a tiny AMAZON box and sealed up!! Packed because we sold our home in January, but I will tell you that it never left my eye-sight and has always been close to where I sleep (kinda creepy, isn’t it?)!! It was fun to unseal the box and get my dry erase markers and board, the necessary stat boards, duct tape, and wire ties. I have a lot of markers of different colors…I think I should test em all and throw out the markers that don’t mark or throw out the makers that are hard to erase.
Bobby Stautzenberger was impressed with me (well, I am awesome) that my TSRN media pass got me into the parking lot and the game…I didn’t need no stinking THSCA badge!!! I don’t know if it was indeed the media pass, the fact that I am very convincing as a media member, or the fact that I have worked a lot of football and Spurs basketball games at The Dome. Probably all of the above and once I got inside, the camera came out and I really became official looking!!
The atmosphere was very comforting and relaxing for me as I was able to clear my mind from everything that has been going on for the past few months. My wife and I have been house shopping since May and it taken a toll on me. As soon as we move, I will publish a house BLOG (right now, it is 2,600 words and divided into two parts). I am really hoping we can find a home before the season starts.
It was very nice to work with Bobby Stautzenberger, Mark Kusenberger, and Lynn Michaels. Chris Tiller, Manny Rodriguez, and Bobby Mendez were also in the booth with us. Yeah, folks, it takes a bunch of experienced TSRN’ers to broadcast a game.
Last month, I purchased a new camera and it has a 30x zoom. Boy, I was glad to finally have a football game to use it. All of the pictures can be viewed here: https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.677978638961974.1073741843.549116061848233&.
I did use my new camera for my most recent visit to Alamo stadium to capture renovation photos. I have actually been getting renovation photos since last March. I am amazed at the progress and soon, I will see the finished product.
Dude, it even got me on television…in case you missed that KSAT12 story, you can view it here: http://www.ksat.com/news/photographer-documents-alamo-stadium-renovation/-/478452/22161582/-/u9uo7sz/-/index.html. My final visit to the stadium is scheduled for August 8th and the ribbon cutting is August 23rd (pictures from both will be published the day after each).
As I was walking out of The Alamodome around 10pm, a crew of about 20 people were already taking the turf off. Of course, I was intrigued and would’ve stayed to photograph this, but unfortunately (I could never spell that word correctly and half the time I use it, even spell checker can’t spell it correctly either…stupid necessary word), I had to get up the next morning for my full-time job and decided to call it a night and go home to my wife.
Ok, now it is time (I don’t know what time it is) to talk about a game!!! A game we call HIGH SCHOOL FOOTBALL!!! Wow, that was a a great segway to the THSCA All-Star football game (that is why I get paid the big bucks).
The last football game I worked was the San Antonio Sports All-Star football game in January at The Alamodome. Doing stats for that game was easy since I was very familiar with all the players. However, for this All-Star game, it was a a bit of a challenge since the majority of the players weren’t from San Antonio. But, no complaints on Twitter as I am a professional stat man and I just did it.
I am not going to mention every player and school, so please take a few minutes (after you finish reading) to look at the rosters for the North and South team’s. You will notice that the state of Texas got the majority of the players in this game. What surprised me is that a lot of smaller Texas schools got in on the action.
I was really looking forward to seeing quarterbacks Blake Bogenshutz from Carthage High School and Ben Arbuckle from Canadian High School…both are UTSA commits. In the first quarter, Bobby Stautzenberger mentioned that Ben won’t be playing college football, he is gonna be a college student (not at UTSA though). You know something, I give him kudos for doing that!! WOW!!!
Another player I was looking forward to seeing again was the Houston Lamar quarterback, Darrell Colbert JR. I saw him play against the O’Connor Panthers in the 2012 state semi-finals. Lamar won that game, but lost the state championship to the Allen Eagles (they also won in 2013 and are a favorite to win in 2014). Allen won’t be playing any games in there home stadium (that cost $60 million dollars) because of cracks in the stadium. Yeah, I am serious and dude, that sucks for them!!
Blake and Darrell were on the South All-Stars. Blake didn’t impress me at all as the starting quarterback…he was 2 of 9 passing for 68 yards and had negative yards rushing. He did, however, win a state championship in 2013!! Not many players can say that!! Darrell’s passing numbers were much better…he was 8 of 16 for 131 yards and 1 touchdown (he will be playing at SMU).
Man, there were two other players on the South that I was really impressed with and they were Jeffrey Wilson from Elkhart High School (a 2A school) and Austin Walter from Crosby High School (a 4A school). Wilson had 6 carries for 17 yards and 3 receptions for 78 yards (he will be playing at University of North Texas). Walter had 3 receptions for 69 yards (he will be playing at Rice University).
Ben Arbuckle was the back-up quarterback for the North All-Star and for his final game as a football player, he was 6 of 11 passing for 62 yards and had 1 carry for negative yards.
There were two Parker’s on the North squad that really impressed me and they are not related!! One was Ryan Parker from Fossil Ridge High School (a 5A school) and the other was Jake Parker from Whitehouse (not the one on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue) High School (a 4A school).
Ryan had 3 receptions for 34 yards (he will playing at Texas Christian University). Jake (not Jake from State Farm) had 3 receptions for 79 yards and 1 touchdown (he will playing at Tyler JC). That touchdown reception came from Klark Ashmore from Wellington High School (a 1A school). Wellington won the 2013 1A Division 2 state championship over what I think is the best mascot ever…the Falls City BEAVERS. Klark will be playing at SW Oklahoma.
Overall, the South ran 60 plays for 235 yards and the North ran 43 plays for 226 yards. The final score of the THSCA All-Star game was 13 to 7 and I have no clue if the North or South team won (and to me, it doesn’t matter). It was a super competitive game and there were no injuries.
Actually, I do know who won (cause I wrote the final score on my stat board). North 13 and South 6.
