Darren Doyle, story and photos: I’d like to take this opportunity to discuss another great season of sports broadcasting for Edmonson County High School from the Edmonson Voice. We've seen so many different scenarios over the years. Some good, some bad, some ugly, but it's overwhelmingly positive for both the Voice and for our community. WildcatsLive came from humble beginnings and started in the red. We just completed our ninth season of covering sports for ECHS. We were first contacted by the high school in 2015 after the company they had hired to handle their broadcasts failed to deliver on what they said they would do. I was asked if the newly-founded Edmonson Voice could handle it. Not having a clue as to how to run a sports broadcast, I blindly accepted, and submitted a bid to the school to perform all the broadcasting duties. Not only did I lose my shirt in the deal, but I also lost a hat, two pairs of pants, and a sock…It was later discovered that the shirt was somewhere in Texas, but that’s an inside story of which only three people were made aware… Anyway, relying heavily on old friends with some recent radio experience, I began working on the school’s first-ever, locally produced high school internet audio-only broadcast. I invested in the best equipment I could afford and came up with a risky plan to keep the broadcast local. I chose not to profit from the venture. Yes, you read correctly. I felt if the school handled all the sponsorship money and kept profit for their programs, everyone would win as long as the Voice’s expenses were covered. I grossly underestimated the expense to do the venture that first year, but the school was more than happy to rework the deal the following year. After 9 seasons of multiple sports, a dozen broadcasters and crew members, multiple guest hosts, thousands of miles, seven district championships, and too many late night drive-thru meals, we’re already looking at how the broadcast can be improved for next year. There's a lot going on behind the scenes on game day. The prep for a game is much more involved than most would consider. One person has to do game preview tasks that include gathering previous game info for both ECHS and their opponent. Rosters, stats, and general team info has to be reviewed, printed, and prepared for the next game, and no one gets paid for this. The equipment has to be checked and must be repaired, replaced, duct taped, or wired together in the event of a problem. Many homework assignments from student crew members have been completed inside the Voicemobile on the way to and from games. Again, all done on personal time. Not all schools play well with others. Above all, the most important aspect of the broadcast is available internet at whatever venue from which we work. Trust me, this is most stressful and frustrating part of the job. We don’t simply show up and hope it works. We contact the principal and athletic director of each school and make a request for internet access, usually the day before or even earlier. Sometimes we don’t even get a response. Our school normally has very reliable internet for us, although we’ve had a few issues this season that no one could seem to diagnose, and our school is also very generous in helping other school broadcasts when they visit. That’s not the same with other schools when we travel. The vast majority don’t care whether our broadcast works or not. They will ignore our internet requests, flat out lie to us, or simply play dumb. We’ve had multiple ADs tell us they actually don’t know whether or not their school has wifi. Really? Granted, some of the opposing ADs I’ve dealt with are a special kind of dumb, but I’d rather a school just tell us straight up “we don’t like you and don’t want you to stream.” At least we’d know. We also ask about reliability for major cell providers, and we pay for multiple carriers for this purpose. Sometimes it’s great, sometimes not, and other times what works great in a gym parking lot doesn’t work at all inside the building. We've also been sabotaged on multiple occasions. We have been told that internet would be available by one person at a school but after arriving, finding out differently and that the person we originally spoke with is nowhere to be found. We've also been connected to internet at a school and suddenly it just stops working. Hmmmm.... Recently, we were at a visiting school and the AD told us that since we had been disrespectful in the past, they weren't sure if they would even allow us to broadcast. Huh? Ok. After a brief discussion and seemingly having things worked out, they agreed to give us wifi access and an ethernet connection. The ethernet connection didn't work at all and while we connected to their wifi, their network did not have internet. Hmmmmm... On the other hand, some schools are great to work with and internet is becoming more available each year. Just a couple weeks ago, Grayson County, our rival of all rivals, did a fantastic job of accommodating us with our setup and made sure we had a great connection for the district tournament. It was the one of the best internet accesses we had all season. Many schools are accommodating and most try to help even when they can't offer much. So many schools filter their internet connections for safety reasons and most sites are blocked, which keeps us from using their internet for our stream. We monitor our streams in real time and we can see how much bandwidth is available and how much we use at any moment. Yes, we know when the stream stinks and we can’t simply move a set of rabbit ears or stand on one leg to make it better. Trust me—we’ve tried it. That's normally when we start getting messages and comments like "this stream sucks!" "you guys used to be better than this," or "you guys need to fix the internet!" Thanks for that...we already know this, and your input doesn't help. There ain't JACK we can do about it. Until all schools provide this service for media, there will always be hiccups and frustrations. Wake up, school systems, this is 2024. Limiting internet access or filtering sites is just plain silly for media outlets, but please know we do everything in our control to make it work. You probably didn't realize it, but during last night's region game, while our video stream was super strong, Jamie had to stop and start the audio stream three different times--all while not missing a beat calling the game. The good, the bad, and the ugly:
With our current setup, we have a chain of more than 30 different devices and hookups that not only must work individually, but also with each other. If one link in that chain doesn’t work, all the others are in some sort of jeopardy. If that happens, we have to troubleshoot and solve asap—while we’re also calling the game and keeping the game stats. We also have to watch out for someone spilling something on us, unplugging a cable, knocking a plug loose, cussing from the stands that’s picked up in our mics, or actually cussing at us. We also have to deal with friendly fans who feel the need to start a random conversation with us—while we’re on the air…We love you, but if we are wearing headsets, please wait until the game ends before we have a conversation. We've also heard this: "Why don't you just do what ______County's broadcast does? They just have one guy with a cell phone." Well, _______ County's guy has the same trouble with the internet, plus, his broadcast is terrible. You wouldn't want to watch it if someone paid you. On top of a quality stream, we also strive to bring you a good play-by-play and commentary, and I am positive that our guys are the best out of any surrounding school broadcast. Check out some of the other schools if you don't believe me. Some of these folks sound like your pappaw mouth-breathing into the mic, some squealing robot, or just a dummy. Our guys are pros and we have great rapports with each other that make for a great stream. Lots of schools have one camera that doesn't move with no sound. You can't even see what's happening. What is the point? A broadcast usually adds an additional full day of work on top of our regular daily jobs. For a road game, we normally put in about 8 more hours for each game day. It’s common to actually work 16-20hrs on some broadcast days when it’s all added up. With all that being said, the good outweighs the bad, by a long shot. We get to bring the joy of our kids, our school pride, and a little piece of our county to more people than ever before. I couldn’t imagine having this type of coverage and access when I played 30 yrs ago. Out of all the years I played sports, I have ONE—only ONE photo of me in action. Our kids today have multiple, high quality photos from nearly EACH GAME, thanks to our coverage. We give you the full game, the full story, and access to our head coaches—for which we are truly grateful. Our coaches don’t have to give us the time they do—but they do. That’s really tough to do after a bitter loss, but they make the effort to share themselves and their teams with us, so we can share them with you. Our school system is supportive in our efforts and their partnership allows us to bring games to literally thousands of people that would NEVER attend a game in person. This only strengthens our school, community, our programs, student-athletes, and our sponsors. Those that attend games in person have not changed: moms, dads, grands, siblings, friends, family, students, and the local fans. They are all still buying tickets—PLUS—they can go back and watch the games later. ECHS has approximately 2500 seats and our game streams reach an additional 3000 viewers per game. The idea that live streams hurt attendance is not only wrong, it’s ridiculous, and we can prove it with our numbers. WildcatsLive is a three-way partnership between the Edmonson Voice, ECHS, and our sponsors, who are crucial to what we do. These are the local folks that make it possible. While the school covers our costs, ECHS is in charge of gathering those sponsors, building those relationships, and allowing us run the show and set the broadcast schedule. The school entrusts us to handle the job efficiently and professionally, and we trust them to handle things on their end. We are all working together to help each other, which in turn, helps our kids. Please pay attention to those sponsors and support them. They put their dollars back into our community, and again, our kids. Finally, we get to highlight our kids. We're proud of them and our programs. We love our school, we always root for them to win and for our opponents to lose. Always. Yes, we're biased. We don't wish good luck to the other team and we hope our kids win each game by at least 50, however, we always do our best to stay professional. Sometimes staying positive is harder to do when our teams struggle, but we strive to lift up our kids as much as possible. Sports don't last forever but photos and videos will last much longer. Thanks to the 2023-24 Lady Cats and Wildcats. We appreciate you and wish the best to our seniors, Chaney Browning, Layne Ashley, and Will Alexander. So for the 9th consecutive year, thank you to our broadcasters, Jamie Carnes, Scott Lindsey, Granville Meredith, and our camera crew, Preston Doyle on video and Joseph Barkoff, photographer, Madison Doyle and Alyssa Doyle for their camera work, our school, our sponsors, our teams, coaches, parents, viewers, and most importantly, our kids. Once a Wildcat, always a Wildcat.
1 Comment
Shawn McCombs
3/10/2024 01:44:36 am
Appreciate all that you all do and have done over the years. Personally, I think you all do a fantastic job, and Edmonson County is very lucky to have the Edmonson Voice do all it does. So here’s to the next 9 years, safe travels and see you all next fall!!
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