By PETE SCHLEHR
Director of Athletic Media Relations
Hosting an NCAA national championship isn't what it used to be, especially from my perspective in the Press Box where technology has put so many demands on the operation that it takes a small army of media stewards, statisticians, announcers and writers to pull it off.
This past weekend was the fifth NCAA Lacrosse Championship event hosted by the Towson Media Relations staff in the last eight years. We ran the press box for the 2003 and 2004 Men's Lacrosse Championships at M&T Bank Stadium. This past Sunday we closed the books on a three-year run with the Women's National Lacrosse Championships in Johnny Unitas Stadium.
What a contrast from my first championship in 1984 when I answered a call from Ben Sherman, the Sports Information Director at Delaware, to help with the men's finals being hosted by the Blue Hens in Delaware Stadium. Our entire crew numbered about six. I served as official scorer, communicating the goals, assists and saves from the field up to press box via a hand-held radio. There was so much static the guy on the other end seldom heard me. I could tell from the PA feedback that he was guessing most of the time.
This past weekend the crew numbered 19 under the direction of Eric Rhew, a member of our staff who served as the Media Relations Director for the event. Megan O'Brien, also from our office, functioned as Press Box Manager, a position she holds for us during the football season too. Both of these young professionals are very good at what they do. They took the ball and ran with it. Associate Director of Athletic Media Relations Dan O'Connell and I were on the sidelines if needed. Dan moderated the post-game pressors. I was supposed to work the credential desk in the press box lobby but I wandered off. Our regular monitor, Patty, was doing just fine without me.
Eric assembled an impressive crew that consisted of media relations folks from neighboring schools, including Ryan Griswold (College of Notre Dame), Jon Maggart (Navy), Luke Stillson (McDaniel College), Tom Fenstermaker (UMBC), Nairem Moran (St.Mary's College), Chris Brooks (CAA Office) and Dave Spivey, the Johns Hopkins lacrosse announcer who handled the internal PA. This group formed the stat crew, walked the sidelines as photo marshals, and gathered post-game quotes from coaches and players.
They also kept a running log of notes that piled up on the teams and players, i.e. "Danielle Spencer's 8 draw controls on Friday night pushed her season total to 105, which made her just the 5th player in NCAA history to record 100-plus draw controls in a single season." There were dozens of those nuggets for each game.
Two other members of Eric's crew included Dave Carey and Brendan Cavanaugh. Dave was forced into early retirement from sports writing when the Baltimore Examiner shut down. But he keeps his pencil sharp for these kinds of assignments. He posted the game story for NCAA.com. Brendan took the photographs.
All these folks operated at the highest level of professionalism.
By today's standards, the operation 25 years ago was Neanderthal. The games weren't televised, no monitors or video boards to check replays. My calls from the field were frequently contested from the Press Box where the lords of the lacrosse media took delight in challenging me. I never minded it. That was part of the culture in those days. I actually miss that back-and-forth bantering.
My favorite writers were Jim Jackson, Cameron Snyder and his son, Dutch, and Bob Clark. Jim ("Jimmy Jack") and Cameron ("Crocket") worked for the Morning Sun, Dutch wrote for the Evening Sun. Bob, who is a valued member of our football and lacrosse games crew at Towson in addition to serving as our official scorer for all home Tiger basketball games, was a stringer for the Baltimore News American. These guys knew the game. After reading their stories you had a clear understanding of what actually transpired on the field.
Bob Clark, by the way, was the game story writer assigned to the 1986 men's lacrosse title game. His story was the lead in the Sports Section the day after the national championship, won by North Carolina. That edition turned out to be the last for the Baltimore News American. The next day the Hearst Corporation stopped its presses. What was fondly referred to as "The News Post" by many old-timers, folded and never published again.
There were familiar faces in the media crowd this past weekend. Kathy Dunn was the lead game writer for the Baltimore Sun. Kathy, a Towson alum who served an internship in our media relations office as an undergraduate, is the premiere women's lacrosse writer in the country. She knows the coaches, the players and the game.
The Sun also sent Kevin Cowherd, who came to Baltimore originally as a sportswriter. He was moved to another part of the paper for a number of years and just recently returned to sports. He's a talented writer and makes for an interesting columnist. On Friday night Ken Murray covered the late game for the Sun. Ken has been all over the sports map during his career in Baltimore, including a stretch covering us.
Nelson Coffin, who has been with the Towson Times forever, worked the tournament. Each of the last three years the Chicago Tribune has sent Phil Hersh to write Northwestern's story. Phil launched his journalism career at the Baltimore Sun where he worked for five years before moving on to the Tribune in the early 1980's. Phil said he covers the Wildcats occasionally during the regular season and all of Northwestern's post-season games. I'm guessing the fact that Northwestern was a five-time defending national champion has something to do with the Tribune's interest in women's lacrosse.
Brian Logue, in his 11th year with Lacrosse Magazine, was on hand along with longtime Baltimore sports personality Stan "The Fan" Charles. Dave Ginsburg, the Baltimore area sportswriter for the Associated Press, was on site for the entire tournament as was Keith Mills of WBAL Radio and Rick White of WMAR-TV. The Washington Post and New York Times had seats in the box as well.
What made 2010's seating chart different from 1984's was the presence of the "dot coms." The creation of the world wide web has given birth to a new breed of media. Initially the NCAA was reluctant to credential these websites. But a number of them, i.e. Insidelacrosse and LaxPower, have become legitimate players in the lacrosse news gathering business and have earned front row seats.
Filing a story in those earlier days was a bit tricky and time consuming. There were two methods; dictation or "telecopying." Every sports room was equipped with head sets worn by nimble-fingered clerks who would "take" copy over the phone. Writers preferred, however, to have their piece sent by a telecopier, a strange looking rectangular machine with a drum. It took four minutes per typed-written page for the image to transmit through the phone lines to a similar receiving machine. Imagine a couple dozen writers trying to file at the same time. We always played favorites, giving priority to the beat scribes. The other had to wait, or dictate.
The telecopier gave way to the fax machine which meant the writers still needed our help to file. But the fax was short-lived. Today's journalists, thankfully, file by computer. All a scribe needs is access to the internet and an e-mail address. They can send their own copy at any given moment.
Photographers on assignment are equally as proficient. In addition to their camera equipment they carry computers. At any given time they can download the image from the camera, upload it to the computer and e-mail it to the desk. No more film to develop film, no more prints to make. It's all digital, done expeditiously, thus saving valuable time.
In bygone years all the statistics were kept manually and transferred by hand to a hard copy master that was run off on a mimeograph machine at halftime and at the end of the game. Unless they were keeping their own notes, the media were pretty much in the dark statistically while the game was in progress. This was especially annoying to television and radio.
Then, along came Stat Crew, a wonderful software program that has opened up an entirely new world of statistics keeping. Stat Crew interfaces nicely with various stat monitors and "live stats." Today the media can track the in-game stats as they're recorded, which is instantaneous. We had 10 of these monitors scattered throughout the media work area over the weekend. As soon as the game is wrapped up, the stats are figured cumulatively by season and career. There is no time factor, no waiting or wondering how many draws Maryland controlled, or how many shots Northwestern took in the second half. It also gives a timed running play-by-play account of every draw, goal, assist, save, ground ball and penalty. Fans can also follow the action by viewing "live stats" or "game tracker" through a team's website.
Twenty-six years ago the only video available for the game was the 16-milimeter film shot by the respective teams. And that had to be taken to a lab to be developed before you could view it.
The 2010 Women's National Championship was televised live by CBS College Sports. But the media could view every play (and replay) on one of four wide screen television monitors mounted in the media work area. The feed came from our in-house production that allowed fans to watch all the action, and replays, on our stadium video board. Producer Joel Kitay and his staff of 11 were superb. Their entire production was high quality.
Pulling off a video board production also requires keen coordination with the PA announcer who gets his direction from our marketing staff. Tom Judd was on cue thanks to the efforts of Steve Sowers.
As a service to the NCAA and the competing teams, Greg Rex and Brady Lidard from our Video Services staff filmed each game. Teams were presented with a courtesy copy of the game before the coaches left the lockeroom to get on the bus.
Working a national championship has certainly changed over the years. Thankfully, here at Towson, our administration continues to recognize the importance of keeping current with the technology. We were prepared and met all the needs for television, radio and print media.
We enjoyed hosting but quite honestly, the fact that Stony Brook University on Long Island will be the site for the next couple of NCAA Women's National Lacrosse Championships is a welcomed break. The NCAA liked the crowds and the coverage this past weekend. It wouldn't surprise us if the finals returned to Johnny Unitas Stadium in the future.
P.S.
I'd like to add a short bit on one of the Maryland players, defender Brittany Poist, who was named to the NCAA Women's National Championship All-Tournament team.
Brittany is the daughter of Bob Poist, a great outside linebacker for the Tigers from 1980 to 1983. Bob was a three-year starter who made things happen. He was an outstanding pass rusher who set the program record with 17 sacks in his senior year as he led Towson to a 10-2 record and the first of three appearances in the NCAA Division II post-season tournament. He was the dominant player on the field on November 19, 1983 when he had four sacks and knocked down two passes in the Tigers' 10-3 victory at James Madison. He was named ECAC Division II Defensive Player of the Week for that performance. It enabled the Tigers to post a 10-1 record and a final national ranking of fourth in the Division II polls, Towson's highest national ranking ever. He finished his career with 31.5 sacks. He stands tied for 11th on Towson's all-time tackle list with 252 career stops.
After Sunday night's post-game pressor, I congratulated Brittany and inquired about her dad.
"He's doing just great," Brittany said. "It was Dad's style of defense that has inspired me. You could say that it all started for me right here at Towson."
It was a big night for the Poist family. Younger sister, MacKenzie, walked off with the prize for winning the AT&T Race To the Cage contest at halftime of the championship game.
