A few feet of snow can tend to wreak a little havoc on my job.  Don’t believe me?  Here’s a taste of some emails I got last Saturday as the East Coast was getting dumped on:
 
7:00am – “The update I am hearing Ross is that the truck is still a question mark on making the game at DuQuesne”.

7:30am - "The good news…Looks like the truck is now en route. The bad news…it is currently still 2 hours away.”
 
9:00am – “The good news…the truck is on site. The bad news. The truck is stuck in a snow bank about 3 football field from the arena, more to come".
 
9:40am -  "The engineer cannot open the satellite dish so we may not be able to put the show on the bird for the Division II game of the week".

10:30am - "Steve (Lappas) may not be able to make the game as his hometown is being hit very hard with this storm. Got any ideas Ross for a backup analyst for today's game at 4? It is is 10:30am now…Thoughts Ross?”

11:00am – “Anyone know if Steve has been picked up by his car service yet to bring him to the game yet”.
 
11:02am – “Yes. He is en route and will be there by 2pm.”

11:15am - "Here is the latest...the truck is being pushed up a hill and should be here within a half hour, more to come".
 
11:30am – “Ross can we contact the site in El Paso and ask if we can push back kickoff so we can see the game in its entirety, as the early game may start late”.

11:40pm" - Looks like the truck has made it, but it is very cold. We will need about an hour to get the truck warm. Just keeping you posted".

11:50am - "No engineers from the truck will be able to make the game. All the crew members are jumping in to help, and Ross, we will get this game on the air".

12:00pm – “We are on the air, on time for game 1 of a long day of programming. Ross, please tell football we do not need to slide kickoff we will go at 2pm ET”.

The hard working men and women that we had in key positions out in the field on Saturday enabled me to do my job and keep pushing forward to get these shows in place, staffed and on the air.  The internal operations team we have here is sensational all the time, but when things get tough they get even better at their jobs and deliver in crunch time.  The master control folks were excellent on this day as well and really a day to be proud of.  A team effort all around and as we always say in live sports TV "you are only as good as your last show.”  Well, if that is truly the case, we are in great hands as these shows were not only miracles getting on the air, but were pretty darn good productions, too.

To the team: Congrats and thank you for your efforts.