Dave does ESPN!

My long lost brother from Florida (we'll call him Larry) was in town over the weekend doing his college football side gig for ESPN for the Mizzou/Illini game. You know "the bug" at the top of the screen with the scores, downs, penalties, etc. during the game? That's him.

For some reason, unknown to God and man, neither the Edward Jones Dome, nor ESPN could figure out how to get the official game clock in the dome to properly sync up with the bug. It works every other time, but not this time. Normally, it's an automated process that basically plugs into the official clock. Not this time.

That's where I come in. On Saturday at 4 p.m., I answer my phone. The conversation went a little something like this:
Larry: What are you doing tonight?
Dave: Nothing. (I respond with much fear and trepidation knowing what's to follow.)
Larry: I REALLY need you to come down here and work the game with me.
Dave: You can't get anyone else?
Larry: No. It's either you or no game clock on the broadcast.
Dave: I don't want to screw it up in front of 10 million people.
Larry: It's either you or no game clock on the broadcast. Besides, you owe me since it's your fault I didn't get to go up in The Arch this morning. Plan on being here at 6:30 unless I call you and let you know we found somebody else, but I'm 95% sure we'll need you. It'll be easy. All you have to do is make sure the clock inside the dome matches the clock on your screen.

If it's so easy, why couldn't Larry manage it along with the 40 and 25 second clocks, the score, the downs, the penalties and every other thing under God's creation they could call out on a whim to have appear on screen within .00001 milliseconds?

Notice that I never agreed to anything.


However, Julia drove my doe-eyed, trembling ass down to the dome at 6:30 as instructed. The guy doing security didn't believe my tale of "Good Samaritan Here to Run the Game Clock" and refused me entry to the trucks parked out back by the dumpsters. Of course, Larry was inside a bunker inside another bunker not getting cell service so I yelled to the first stagehand I saw and was granted access.

I'm sent to a truck, which is literally the trailer of a tractor-trailer, to meet Larry to be instructed as to my duties. I enter the cramped space inside the truck only to find it's cold enough to house penguins and snow cones. Beyond the Antarctic chill, it's hard to miss the 983 television monitors glowing from the front. The photo at right, taken with my cell phone, is evidence not only of the fact I was there, but also of the innards of the truck of which I speak.

I am then instructed to sit in the back row and given my task for the evening. It's Larry's job to run the bug. It's my job to run the game clock on the bug. That is, I am to sit next to Larry at a laptop with a DOS-like time clock program opened on the screen. In front of me is a line of 8-inch television monitors that I'm embarrassed to say I had to watch for the evening. One had a camera aimed directly at the official game clock inside the dome. Another was the live game feed. It was about 18 inches to my left and not really anywhere near my line of sight and the ball was the size of pinhead. To the right, is a photo of my workstation for the evening. The white screen to the left of the time clock is NOT the game feed, thus I am not exaggerating as to its distance from my spectacles.

I quickly learned the software, which took all of 4.3 seconds - never a more user friendly piece of software in the history of time - seriously. They could have paid a homeless man with the leftover veggie sandwiches or a 7 year-old with a black and gold pom pom and gotten the same results.

Although it wasn't as easy as "make sure the two clocks match," it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be. I'm not a college football scholar, by any means, and they threw me with their seemingly random starting and stopping, but the most I was ever off was by 13 seconds. That seems like an eternity to me, but nobody in the truck, nor the viewers at home noticed. It's easy to catch up during commercials or any time the bug is off the screen during replays or stats, etc. The only thing anyone would have noticed was when the real clock inside was off and the ref said to put time back on - I had to do the same inside the truck in front of your very eyes. No biggie for a pro like me.

Did I mention that I got paid? Not sure how much until the check arrives in the mail, but Larry thinks $150.

Not bad for a rookie.