Game 64: DeKalb vs. Rockford Jefferson (Boy's Basketball)

Game 64
DeKalb vs. Rockford Jefferson (Boy's Basketball)
Chuck Dayton Holiday Tournament (@ DeKalb)
12/23/10

My hotel in DeKalb was just two blocks away from the NIU Convocation Center, where I THOUGHT the Thursday games were being held. As I checked out of my room at 8:00 a.m. I grabbed the DeKalb Daily Chronicle. As my car warmed up, I read the sports page.



Much to my dismay, the Chuck Dayton tournament schedule listed featured just three games, and they didn't start until 5:30. Uh oh! Certainly, that was just the local schedule for the Chronicle's coverage area. Upon further review, all of the previous day's scores were listed, there was no scoreboard, and neither Vocational or Hinsdale South are within the Daily Chronicle's coverage area. To make sure, I drove to the Convocation Center, and sure enough...an empty parking lot.

What to do? I had an entire day in DeKalb. Surely, I can get well caught up with the blog and website work before the day's games. My friend, Sean Stinson, lives just 40 minutes away in Crystal Lake and he works third shift, so he was just getting off work. My plans were to drive up there, spend a few hours, and head back in plenty of time for the 5:30 tip off between DeKalb and Jefferson. But wait...

Once I checked my email, DeKalb High School graphic communications teacher Ryan Bounds had sent an email asking me how long I was sticking around? Was the paper wrong? I checked out the online schedule through iHigh, and there were games all day! I emailed Ryan back and told him of my scheduling snafu, and that I would be back in mid-afternoon.

I caught up on my blog entries for the Sterling games, and left Crystal Lake around 1:00. I fought the excessive traffic on Randall Road and stopped at Culver's in Carpentersville for some fast food lunch, and made my way back to DeKalb.

The reason there was not a soul at the NIU Convocation Center, was because the games were being played at DeKalb High School. The schedule I had did not notate what gymnasiums were being used.

When I walked into the high school, Geneseo was walking out. I ran into Jesse Dobbels, who helps out the team. I used to broadcast Maple Leafs games for the now defunct, WGEN, and got to know Jesse during that time.

The Maple Leafs had just lost to Rockford East, 54-53, and Rochelle and Hampshire were warming up. DeKalb athletic director Dan Jones met me as I walked in, and showed me to the broadcast setup.

Ryan Bounds, the graphic communications teacher at DeKalb, and I had emailed back and forth over the last week. I told him I could talk with his broadcasting students and share information about broadcasting and the field, and help them out. He had some questions with mixer boards and some of the things that he would like to do with the broadcasts in the future. DeKalb just began using iHigh recently, and the Chuck Dayton Tournament is their first broadcasts.

During the Rochelle/Hampshire game, we headed down to Ryan's office and talked audio equipment, and broadcasting in general. Two of his students, Adam and Sam, had some questions and comments about their broadcasts. We talked for over an hour, and Kevin Sander from iHigh came in. I have worked on and off with Kevin and iHigh over the past few months, mainly doing some tests on things I would maybe like to do in the future with their website.

At the conclusion of the Rochelle/Hampshire game, we readied for the DeKalb/Jefferson broadcast. I would be doing the play-by-play for the first half with Andy Pope (DeKalb HS senior) as my commentator, learning some p-b-p. He would take over in the second half, as I took some notes. Andy will be attending a great broadcasting school next year, as he will head down to Columbia, Missouri as a freshman at the University of Missouri.

Before the game, we went through the pre-game broadcast preparations. Some of the things we went over were preparations before the broadcast, such as homework on the opposition, which the Internet can be extremely helpful. Talking with the head coaches before the game, on lineups, injury updates, starters, pronunciations, etc. Andy has an advantage since he knows his classmates well that suit up for the Barbs, so the real homework just comes with the opponents.

Rockford Jefferson took a 26-25 lead into halftime. It was a very balanced scoring attack for the J-Hawks, with Mike Chisamore and Jared Mayes scoring 7 points, and L.T. Davis and Nikko Guess each scoring six points. DeKalb was paced by Kyle Berg's 7 points and Andre Harris' 6 points.

After halftime, I slid over and let Andy take over the play-by-play. Sam added the color commentary. He is a member of the Barbs swimming team. These two work very well together, and I was very impressed with how good they were on the broadcast. Many times high school students, or anyone broadcasting a sporting event the first few times, can really struggle.

The Barbs hung on for the win, nipping the J-Hawks 54-52 in overtime. Jefferson made a perfect one-hand full court in-bounds pass with 0:02 remaining, and a shot attempt by L.T. Davis at the buzzer just rimmed out.

Game 64 Miles: 90