Behind the scenes at FFN

I’ve been covering High School football in Augusta for more than a decade and I can’t remember a night as crazy and emotional as last Friday. We had a little bit of everything, didn’t we? A coaching legend (David Dupree) was honored at Laney…Virginia Tech’s band did a wonderful job in honoring the memory of Ryan Clark…Westminster played football on its famed soccer field…Grovetown won its first home game in school history….and oh yeah, there was a fire at Silver Bluff’s football field.

I couldn’t believe it when one of our Newschannel 6 producers called me and said there was a fire at Silver Bluff. Thankfully, there were no injuries. Aiken and Silver Bluff eventually resumed play and ended up playing in one of the most amazing games this area has ever seen…period. If you missed the finish of Silver Bluff’s thrilling…5 OT…48-45 win, you can check out the hilites on our FFN web page. Football Friday Night was the only media outlet to have hilites of the dramatic finish and a game ball goes out to our photographer who covered the game, Dominic Lee. At around 10:15 PM, Dominic called me and said the game was going into overtime and that he might be getting back to the station a little late. No big deal, I’m thinking at the time.  FFN doesn’t go on until 11:35…so he should be back in plenty of time to cut the hilites and get them on the air.  I was wrong! 5 overtimes later….Dominic walked into Newschannel 6 at 11:28 PM….7 minutes before showtime. Not only did Dominic cut the hilites in time, but he also got an interview with Bulldogs winning coach Al Lown. He quickly cut the hilites and ran the hilite shot sheet down to me in the studio. I had the paper in my hands 45 seconds before the Silver Bluff/Aiken hilite hit the air live.

I share this story with you because Football Friday Night is a team effort. It’s impossible to show hilites of 19 games like we did last Friday, without the tremendous hustle from our talented photographers who cover 2, sometimes 3 games. Sure, it can get crazy in our newsroom every Football Friday Night, but it’s well worth it…especially when we get a finish like the one we had at Silver Bluff last Friday.