Yeah, I was looking forward to that one.
What I couldn’t have known was how much the whole day would mean to me. In Murfreesboro, Derek Mason and our guys gave us a finish I won’t forget. In Tallahassee, Rick Stockstill got the moment I had spent the previous week begging the football gods to give him.
For a guy who makes his living talking about everybody else’s school, it felt pretty damn good to spend a Saturday feeling so much about my own.
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First, a confession: doing PA is harder than you probably think.
It is also a hell of a lot of fun.
There is a lot of paying attention involved. LOL.
You’re watching the play, figuring out the down and distance, identifying who had the ball, getting help from your spotter on the defensive side, and occasionally frantically trying to match a jersey number to a name before the next play starts.
They do not stop the game because the guy with the microphone is still looking for somebody on the roster.
Then you get to a break, and there is a script to follow. A director is talking in your ear. There are announcements to make and things that have to happen at certain times. The clock operator and the other game operations guys are in there doing their jobs, too.
It takes a whole group of people to make a Saturday work.
The MTSU radio booth, with Chip Walters and Big Joe Dubin, is to my left. The visiting team’s booth is to my right. And there I am, trying to make sure I get the next name right while also wanting us to beat the hell out of the team next door.
After five games, I’ve found a rhythm. That first game against Murray State, I was still figuring out plenty of it.
There isn’t some PA announcer class you take before they turn on the microphone.
Here you go. There’s the game. Have fun.
I had done PA for Middle Tennessee baseball, softball and soccer when I was an undergrad more than 20 years ago. But coming back to do football, with everything that goes into a game day, has been its own education.
And I love it.
I spend hours on the radio every week, but this scratches a different itch. There’s a little performance in it. A little theater. It scratches the Broadway itch in a way I didn’t necessarily expect.
You feel it on a first-down call. You feel it when you’re trying to get the crowd going for a third down. And you certainly feel it when you get to announce a touchdown.
Your voice can help set the tone. You hear the crowd respond, and you want to give them more.
The best part is that I get to be a huge fan of my own school while doing it.
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I love Middle Tennessee. I’m proud of my degree. I’m proud of the life that started taking shape for me there.
I also know what our crowds typically look like. We don’t always have the attendance we want, and I’m not going to pretend otherwise.
But yesterday, campus was buzzing.
It was homecoming, and it was Western Kentucky. There were more people to get going, more energy to work with, and more reasons to care about every snap.
Then we did what football teams sometimes do when you would really prefer they didn’t: we made it stressful.
A double-digit lead disappeared. Western tied it late. A day that had felt so good suddenly had all the ingredients for a miserable ride home.
Then our kicker hit the winner.
Euphoria.
That’s the word.
I felt it in that booth, and I’m pretty sure my final call reflected it. I was as happy as anybody in the stadium.
We’re 5–4 now, fighting for a bowl game. And when I saw Derek Mason get emotional with his players in the locker room, you could see how much it meant to him.
It meant a lot to me, too.
I get to talk about the biggest games and biggest programs in the country for a living. I love that job. But yesterday, the game that mattered most to me was the one right in front of my microphone.
Those were our guys. That was our school.
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And then there was Stock.
Before our game, you could tell people in the press box were paying special attention to Florida State.
They were rooting for Rick Stockstill.
Of course they were.
Last week, I wrote about why I wanted so badly for him to have this opportunity. About what he gave Middle Tennessee, the players he developed, and the kind of person he has always been.
Yesterday, you could feel how much of that affection is still here.
People remember the bowl trips. They remember Benny Cunningham running through Georgia Tech and Middle Tennessee going into Miami and beating the Hurricanes. They remember watching Stock coach his son Brent, and all the fun those teams gave us.
But the feeling goes deeper than a list of wins.
I keep coming back to the time East Carolina came calling and Stock stayed. What has always meant something to me about that decision was his commitment to the recruits and families he had made promises to.
Those promises mattered to him.
So did this place. He helped support the new football complex with his own money and never got to coach in the finished building. That still gets me.
When you’ve watched somebody give that much to your school, you carry it with you. You want good things for him. You want other people to see what you’ve seen.
That was the feeling in our press box.
A bunch of people in Murfreesboro had a little extra interest in FSU.
And Stock got his moment.
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I know I see some of this differently because of the life I’ve been lucky enough to have in college football.
Years of interviewing coaches, talking to players and working alongside Rick Neuheisel have given me an appreciation for how hard these jobs are. You hear about the decisions. You see the pressure. You learn how much work can go into a Saturday that somebody else dismisses with one glance at a score.
Being an alumnus adds something else. I remember what these people have given my school and how it felt to be there.
That’s why seeing Derek Mason emotional with his team and feeling so happy for Rick Stockstill fit together so naturally for me yesterday.
I want Derek to build something great here. I want our players to get to a bowl. I want more people to come experience the kind of afternoon we just had.
And I want Stock to have every bit of happiness this opportunity can give him.
There’s room for all of that in one proud Blue Raider’s heart.
I worked all day yesterday. Today, I’m tired as hell.
But I keep thinking about that kick going through. About the crowd. About trying to put everything I was feeling into one final call.
More than 20 years after I was a student doing PA at Middle Tennessee, I got to sit behind another microphone at my school and have one of the most fun days I can remember.
Yesterday, I had the best seat in the house.
(This morning I joined my friend, Braden Gall on 440 sports to break down week 10. Check it out!!
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