For the sports obsessed like myself, the technological boom
of the last decade or two has been nothing short of amazing.
In my short 27 years of bumming around the planet, the
methods and extents to which we can get information on the world of sports has
progressed from waiting for the next morning’s box scores in the newspaper to
getting updates via talk radio, to the adoption of the 24-hour sports
television news cycle. As a kid in the early and mid nineties whose bedtime
came well before the 11 p.m. SportsCenter, the top and bottom of the hour
rundowns on the radio were the closest I got to a comprehensive overview of the
day’s events.
When ESPN News and the ‘bottom line’ made its debut, it was
like landing on the moon. Sure, most people were already aware of how their
team was doing from the local TV or radio broadcasts, but for crazy people like
me who needed to know how the A’s and Mariners were doing just as much as I
needed info on my Phillies, this was an incredible leap.
And to think that those huge strides were made only about 15
years ago.
Fast forward to today, and those simple luxuries might as
well be crude etchings on some cave wall that hasn’t seen sunlight in thousands
of years.
To wait for one of my teams to pop up on the bottom line seems
like an eternity, and you can forget about staying tuned to SportsCenter long
enough for them to get to the actual highlights. Nowadays, a quick score update
is seconds away if a computer or phone is within reach. Even big stories don’t
require waiting around for the next day’s paper – or even the postgame write up
online – as someone in the know will undoubtedly tweet the specifics of
whatever developing story might arise.
For those of us who can’t get enough information and don’t
mind reading through the occasional pointless filler stories in order to get to
the minor injury news that could swing this week’s fantasy matchups or the
minor negotiation snags that could become a major issue three years down the
road, there is no doubting that this new age of information has been a godsend.
In the last four or five years, I can’t recall more than a handful of times
where I couldn’t have answers to my pressing questions within the span of a
quick scan of the internet.
But as great as it is to be able to have stats, injury
updates and in-game headlines at the tip of your finger, it’s nice to be able
to take a step back in time every once in a while.
I got that thrill earlier this week when Georgia
Southern took on Southern Conference rival (and routine ass-kicker of GSU)
Davidson. Normally, I would have been the first person in the gym to see my
team take on such a hated rival. I still have fond memories of the 2009
Davidson game where I almost managed to get myself thrown out of the arena
despite being on the clock as a GSU employee during the game. Unfortunately, I
wasn’t able to attend the game, and my job required that I miss most of the
first half.
Leaning on my high-tech crutch, I was able to see that,
somehow, by some sort of gross negligence on the part of the basketball gods, Georgia
Southern had started out strong and taken a lead into halftime. On the way into
the Statesboro Herald office to put the pages together, I was able to catch the
halftime show on the radio, but nothing more.
Figuring that Georgia Southern would find a way
to blow it, I went into the office and began piecing together the next day’s
paper while keeping an eye on the game through the message board. Seeing that
GSU had started the second half strong, I attempted to listen to the game
through the online radio stream, only to encounter the problems that interfere
with approximately 110% of the streaming of all GSU athletic events.
I sat at my desk for a few more minutes attempting to keep
up with the game via intermittent updates on the message board, but the rabid
fan in me quickly grew impatient.
With a little bit of time to kill and no viable high-tech
options with which to keep track of the game, I was forced to kick it
old-school.
I raced out to the parking lot and, with all the exuberance
of a sports-crazed individual from the 90s or earlier, sat there in my car,
burning gas, blaring the radio and punching the dashboard with every GSU
bucket.
There is simply no substitute for the intensity of having
the outcome of each play hanging on the breath of a play-by-play announcer.
As electrifying as every shot, steal, or any other facet of
the game is for those in attendance, everything is amplified by tenfold when
listening on the radio. Not only are nerves on edge because you can’t see
exactly what is going on, but the reactions of the crowd that are caught on the
microphone only exacerbate the joy or dread that you feel, since the emotion of
the crowd on every play is hear before the actual call on the microphone.
Listening to my Eagles pull off the upset of Davidson while
sitting in the parking lot of my office, I was brought back in time.
While I listened to all of the excitement as the Eagles
pulled out a win, I was also pulled back in time to my first year living in Georgia . In
those first few months, I reveled in my beloved Phillies being good for the
first time in over a decade while clinging to the occasional nights where the
radio signal from Philadelphia somehow made it
over the Appalachian mountains . Every few
nights, I got to tune in as my team made an improbable run. As the season wound
down and the games grew more important, I used the first few solo driving
experiences of my life – normally reserved for going on dates or getting away
from parents’ oversight – to drive a dozen miles out of town to the top of a
mountain so that I could get a clear signal and cheer on my team in what I’m
sure was profoundly creepy solitude.
Creepy or not, there is no denying the intimacy of sitting
in your car and hanging on the every breath of the radio broadcast of your
favorite team. It may be a bit old-school, but there is nothing better than
putting the car in park and staring in desperation at the radio console,
waiting for the decisive moments of a game to trickle across the airwaves.
Sitting in my car last week, I might as well have been
bundled beneath the sheets, tuning the radio low enough to keep my parents from
barging in and demanding that I go to bed, yet still loud enough to keep track
of my team.
As Georgia
Southern took the lead in the game and wound down the final seconds for a
victory, I can’t imagine that the inside of Hanner Fieldhouse was any more
electric than the inside of my beat-up car, where I was kicking and screaming
with every made free throw to ice the game away.
Nowadays, score updates, injury reports and every
conceivable tidbit of information is only as far away as the nearest laptop or
smart phone, but it’s good to know that a nostalgic experience is still just as
far away as a trip to a car radio in a lonely parking lot. Trends and
technology will continue to grind forward, but the raw emotion of being alone
with nothing but your allegiance and a play-by-play announcement of your
favorite teams is something that I hope will never die out.
