One of my all time favorite shows lasted only two seasons. It was called Sports Night, and it was written by Aaron Sorkin. A memorable line from one episode resonates with my current job. They called it the Napoleanic battle plan, "First we show up, then we see what happens."
Sports videography often times goes by the same 'plan.' Often times, you need a little bit of luck on your side. Practice and stories are one thing, but games are the tough challenge. We can only predict what the outcome may be, or which team has the best chance to get out to a quicker start, which often dictates when our cameras arrive.
If you've ever seen an 18 Sports Camera at one of your local games, it's either Mario Sacco, Chuck Brame, or myself behind the lens.
This is just part of what we do make deadlines. That also forces us to set timed durations to stay at games. As much as we may want to stay and watch an exciting team, player, or close game, most times, we have to move on so that other student athletes get the coverage they deserve. So when you see us arrive and then leave after 20 minutes, it's not because we're bored, or going on break, but because we have to get it back to the station so that it makes air. We shoot it, we edit it, we write it, and we report it.
Soccer is one of the sports that I think is easiest to get in to a shooting slump. By shooting slump, I mean that while we were at the game, there were either no goals, or the action favored one team, that doesn't end up winning. No where is that more true, than after two Corning boys soccer games this week. I'll kid that maybe they're camera shy, but in two games, we had 1 Vestal goal and then 2 Elmira goals. One caller asked why we never showed a Hawks' goal, and I had to chuckle, because we were there for a half of each game, and unfortuantely the Hawks never found the back of the net.
It's not a sign of disrespect towards Corning, but unfortunately the timing never worked out. I'm sure they'd rather take the win, then a goal on TV.
The only thing I can promise is that we will continue to do our best, and bring the best coverage of Twin Tiers sports. Like the players on the field/court/diamond/ice, we're giving it 110%. (But the players we're filming are in MUCH better shape; we're working on that too.)
