This is every high school football broadcast ever

It … it’s beautiful.

 

Really?

The high school broadcasters in Ohio are (for the most part) very professional and nothing like that.

 

The ones here in Mississippi vary. We're fortunate to have a couple of true radio professionals doing games (one of them calls games for a college program and moonlights as the play by play guy for the local high school), but there are also a couple of others who are pretty rough.

On a side note, I laughed at this clip because there is a Class 1A high school in Mississippi named Coffeeville.

 

Y’all are new to Coffeetown?

 

The announcers in Texas run the gamut as well. Some are first-class, others are just fans with mics.

 

How many proper radio stations are still doing high school games? How many of the broadcasts have moved online or to apps?

 

I was in the car today running errands, and came across the broadcast for the D3 team a few miles up the road. The old, former coach color guy kept saying stuff like, "We just didn't get to the ball fast enough," and "We looked good on that play." It got old pretty fast.

 

I used to work in a town that still did radio broadcasts. One night I covered a smaller team over the big school that had the radio broadcast. Small school got over early and I was hauling home to catch the end of big school. Because small school’s location, the radio didn’t work until I got to a certain point. When I did, all I caught was something about a kick off and then two men screaming like fans watching their team win Game 7. Even when the on air orgasm was over, it was a little difficult to sort out what happened (I found out later and it was epic). Still they were better than the woe-is-me juco women’s basketball coach who fancied himself the next Vin Scully who was sure to get picked up one day if he just kept at it. Spoiler, he never was picked up outside of the small town.

 

In our area, I could probably scan through and find at least a half-dozen on any given Friday night. Maybe as many as 10, depending how deep a dive I do and how well the signals are carrying. The broadcasts are also streamed over the stations' app feeds, and most of the bigger schools have some sort of livestream video broadcast set up on top of it all.

There have been several times, usually in the playoffs when our teams are on the road and too far away to cover, that I've sat in the office or at home and watched at least one game on a livestream and listened to another on a radio app.
Almost wish I could do that every Friday. Without having to keep complete stats or shoot pictures I'm able to take notes, start writing as soon as the outcome of one game or another becomes apparent, and have three or four stories 90 percent finished by the time the games end at 9:30. Normally I'm not getting back from a game until 10 and still have to call several coaches, pull pictures, write four stories and finish the paper in about two hours.

 

The only way a game is over at 9:30 these days is if they kick off at 6. At my game this weekend, the bands were still on the field at 9:30 and that was a 7:30 kick.

 

Before the 2016 season our shop was purchased by GateHouse. One of the first changes our new publisher made was moving our Friday night sports content deadline from 11:30 pm to 10:30. "I've been going to high school football games for 30 years and I've never been to a game that wasn't over by 9:30," was his direct quote.
I responded with, "You need to get out more."
Hell I covered a game Friday night that kicked off at 7, the teams combined for 8 pass attempts, and we didn't finish until 9:40.

 

I run my school's press box on Friday nights, and have seen it all from broadcasts that would rival a major college to a couple of goobers with a tape recorder for playback on Saturday morning. I have it posted that my press box is a working press area, no cheering is allowed, and I will remove violators. I've thrown people out before. I've had people get mad at me, because for whatever reason, they feel like they can just come wandering in and hang out in the press box to watch the game. It's raining? Not my problem. Get out.
Locally, out radio outfit has three stations, so they do three different broadcasts and a pre/post game studio scoreboard show. One guy (the station owner) only ever does one school, and he's absolutely a homer... he's professional, does a good job, isn't a cheerleader, but is definitely a homer. Another guy goes to the "game of the week" and is first rate. He does college football and basketball, so he knows what he's doing. The third string, so to speak, is young, but he does a really good job as well.