Late-night football fun
I still can’t believe they played that football game Sunday morning.
Lightning streaks across the sky during a weather delay before a college football game between the Oklahoma State University Cowboys and the University of Tulsa Golden Hurricane at H.A. Chapman Stadium in Tulsa, Okla., Saturday, Sept. 17, 2011. Photo by Nate Billings, The Oklahoman
From my vantage point in my living room on Saturday night, I could see the story of the early-morning OSU-Tulsa football game unfold.
- I saw weather-blogging star Bryan Painter begin live-blogging as the thunderstorms spawned two tornadoes in northern Oklahoma. He posted how this storm would likely affect the fans that were gathering for the game in Tulsa.
- I saw tweets from reporters Gina Mizell, John Helsley and Jason Kersey as the game was delayed. Following those three reporters on Twitter was the best way to find out the up-to-the-minute information about when the game would start.
- I was on NewsOK.com’s mobile Gameday coverage, where I could see the post-game stats from the OU-Florida State game, which ended after 10 p.m. On the OSU’s mobile gameday page, I saw the story of the storm, the Twitter stream and a blog update from the OSU blog about the only man that stayed in the stands during the storms.
I’m no stranger to midnight. I’ll watch a ball game into the wee hours, so I’m not afraid of late starts. But after 11 p.m., when I learned that it would take more than 45 minutes to be prepared for kick-off, I was certain that decision-makers would not be starting this game.
I was wrong.
After midnight, I lost interest in the game — and it hadn’t even started yet.
The cheerleaders weren’t interested. OSU coach Mike Gundy wasn’t interested. And I bet half the players weren’t even interested.
And I’m pretty sure our reporters, photographers and videographers weren’t interested in staying in Tulsa until after 4 a.m.
But they did. They didn’t even complain. And neither did the sports editors who stayed up even later (or woke up from a short nap) to edit stories as the sun rose and post information on our website so all the fans who lost interest because of exhaustion (like me) could be completely informed.
It was easy to appreciate the fans who stayed through the game.
And it was easy to feel for the players who were forced to wait all day, and then all night, to finally play when they should be resting.
But I won’t forget the journalists who worked tirelessly to make sure you knew what happened when the rest of us had the good sense to get some rest. After all, those reporters didn’t lounge around during the delay — they were working on stories about the delay that we could post online and in the newspaper. Then, after those stories were finished, they had to cover a football game.
And they still looked sharp at 4:30 a.m. for the video camera.
Then again, I’m never surprised at our team. Every breaking news effort or wild sports story proves the same conclusion — journalists are wired to want to tell the story, even if they don’t want to be awake.
But I still can’t believe they kicked off at 12:15 a.m.
Fun video of a July storm
Well that was a fun little storm we had yesterday, wasn’t it.
Get help with weather radios
I’m in the market for a storm shelter. The May 24 tornadoes finally pushed me over the edge. I will be purchasing a storm shelter before the mid-September.
But I might need to stop by Homeland this weekend, as well. This Saturday, I can visit three Homeland stores in the metro area and get free assistance with using or I can purchase one if I don’t have one yet.
I know this, of course, because I saw it on NewsOK this morning.
