Turning on a dime

Well, that was different.

I picked up a sidebar assignment from the Orange County Register after it first appeared that my Friday night football gig was done for the season as the number of games dwindled in the second week of playoffs.

Unlike going to the game site and knowing that my stat reporting would be the most important element, followed by knocking out an 8- to 10-inch story, this was going to be a pure feature, although based on something out of the game, and it had to center on the Orange County school, Mater Dei, which was hosting Alemany.

The game ended up being quite exciting, although I often think that what is exciting for fans makes for a tougher job for reporters: Games with lots of points and games that go down to the wire end up taking more time, then are more complicated to report on.

For me, the initial issue was to figure out what I'd be writing about. Register staffer Adam Maya was there to write the gamer and take care of the stats, which seem to be more time consuming than the actual story. But this was also a 7:30 p.m. start, and on television (with all its commercial timeouts), so making the 10:30 p.m. deadline would be no easy task for either of us.

As it turned out, the teams kept piling up the points and our deadline was pushed back, which is good since the game did not even end until 10:25 and we still had interviews to do. By that time Adam and I had decided I would write on the challenge to Mater Dei junior quarterback Chase Forrest, even if I had to start writing that story with 8 minutes left and I had to lead with it looking like a loss for the Monarchs.

Twenty-two points  in 7 1/2 minutes certainly changes things. But also makes them more complicated.

Having to scramble for an idea and then see it through on a tight deadline reminded me of my early days as a reporter. More often then not you'd go to a town council meeting with an idea of what you'd write about, and maybe something happens in the chamber that changes that, but it was within the context of that meeting so the choices of story still had some limit. Other days you'd walk in the door and find out you were writing a story about where cars are supposed to be in those crossovers while waiting to make a U-turn.

Thankfully, this came together better than I thought it might when I was staring at the computer at 10:50 trying to sew the thing together. And it was quite a game to watch.

http://www.ocvarsity.com/sports/forrest-34619-dei-mater.html

Oh, and I appeared on TV (yet again) too.