So, this year won’t be quite the scene it has been in the past few years, but nonetheless it will be another night to ring in the next year, and hopefully 2011 will be just as much fun and just as exciting as 2010.
There were plenty of highs and plenty of lows, and if you followed the blog, you know most of the upcoming story, but stick around. There are a few good new gems I’ve got planned, including a quick preview of 2011.
As Celine Dion once sang, “God bless us everyone, the good and the bad, the happy the sad.” Whether the moments were happy or sad, good or bad, they were one thing: memorable.
The first day of the year might be remembered by UC football fans as light years ago, and I understand how it feels that way, but the thrashing UC took at the hands of Florida was actually within the calendar year of 2010. The Sugar Bowl was exciting—if you were a fan of the Florida Gators, led on the field by Tim Tebow for one last hurrah.
Well, at least I got to see the greatest college football player of our generation play.As we rolled toward February, the NASCAR season took over, and what better beginning could you ask for as a NASCAR fan than on day one seeing 51-year-old Mark Martin claim his first Daytona 500 pole?
It was an all Hendrick Motorsports front row in Daytona (Getty Images)
Everything seemed to be going well until that pothole got a hold of the season’s biggest race, turning the 500 into a twice-delayed race on Valentine’s Day. Even though it was sad to sit through almost as much time in delays as we did during the race, it was pretty neat to see Jamie McMurray win.
Rolling into March it was time to begin basketball season, and although my brother and I wanted to win more than one game, we only had the opportunity to win one. Another season starts up in about a month, and we’ve promised to be the best dressed coaches in the league. Let’s see how many wins that gets us.
Also in March of this past year, I began the second internship of my career, this time with FOX19, the city’s smallest TV station. The guys in sports there were more than glad to have me around and we had some good times covering everything from the Reds to the Bengals and the Cyclones. I enjoyed hanging out with Brian Giesenschlag, our producer Rufus, Zach Wells and Dan Wood, and even enjoyed the trip to Indy where Rontina McCann and I worked on some NASCAR coverage together.
We’ll see what 2011 brings, especially with the invite from the guys at Channel 19 to come on back any time I wanted to in order to help them out and get more experience.
Here I am interviewing Elder volleyball player Steve Kent after Elder won the 2010 state title in volleyball
April and May were full of local sports and spending nights at Channel 19, as well as full of school work. As June rolled in, I knew it was going to be one crazy month.
We had football camps, the Nationwide (nee Busch) Series race at Kentucky Speedway, and even a change of address for the UC football video office. To say it was a whirlwind would be an understatement. After finishing camp films, we got the notice from Butch Jones that we’d be moving into his office, and he’d inhabit our much larger office.
It turned into a month-long project for us, moving bits and pieces of our computer equipment into our new, much, much smaller office.
That was compounded by the low point of the year, as I have mentioned numerous times. The July 7th death of my grandfather made the whole year turn on a dime. Even as we moved along throughout the year, there was always that little part missing.
But, not to make it all turn out to be doom and gloom in the month of July. Sure, the summer’s most prominent month began in a rather depressing way, but it ended on a happier note for myself with the trip to Indianapolis, Ind.
My dad and I had a great view of the 2010 Brickyard 400
If you missed any of my Brickyard coverage, you missed a lot of fun observations and stories about the enjoyable weekend in Speedway, Ind. Jamie McMurray won again, and it was fun seeing Mark Martin run well again.
August is normally the least busy month on the blog, and that’s because I’m stuck in West Harrison, Ind. at Camp Higher Ground going through two practices a day with the UC football team. This year was no different, and we were busier than ever this year with the new coaching staff.
The football season began on Labor Day weekend, and from September on it was fourteen weeks of football, football and more football, with some schoolwork sprinkled in here and there. Even though the season was a disappointment, our video looked great.
And on one windy day in South Bend, Ind., the whole perception of my job was thrown into the national headlines. On October 27th tragedy struck the Notre Dame football program when student videographer Declan Sullivan was killed when the scissor lift he was filming practice from fell.
Everyone I ran into in the days following the incident said the first thing they thought of was me. During our game against Syracuse that Saturday it was the topic of discussion between the two film staffs from UC and Syracuse. At least it was in my lift in the endzone at Nippert Stadium.
We also hung the above banner on our lift and it stayed there throughout the season. It certainly wasn’t the way we ever wanted our job to come to light, and the publicity from the incident in South Bend was quite interesting to read. After all, in three seasons with Brian Kelly, nothing of the sort ever happened to me or any of my co-workers, which was interesting. Even though no official sanctions have been handed down yet, it will be a story I’ll keep a keen eye on.The disappointing football season ended in the most insane weather I’ve ever filmed in here in my four years in Cincinnati. Inches upon inches of snow fell as Pittsburgh’s Dion Lewis torched the UC defense for 261 yards and four touchdowns.
Jordan Stepp of UC stopped Dion Lewis on this play. It was a rare sight in the snow (Cincinnati Enquirer photo)
It was an entertaining game to film, and the addition of my dad on the lift (it was senior day, and we assumed, incorrectly, that we’d be shown on the video board. Instead the “thank you” to the football staff that was given was rather quick and no one was shown on the video board, much to the dismay of my dad, who hung out on the lift for the entire game) made the game so much more fun, although my counterpart from Pitt made the game enjoyable as well.
All of this added up to a few weeks of vacation in the final weeks of December—after recruiting and our banquet work was finished—and plenty of blogs for you to read.
As we head into 2011, there’s plenty of NASCAR, college football and other things to be covered here. Basketball season will begin, I’m still refereeing volleyball, and who knows what else is in store in 2011. We’ll see what the biggest part of the year holds for us, my expected graduation in June.
Until tomorrow, or next year, have a good day, a safe night and Happy New Year!
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