University of North Carolina Athletics
Mick: It Happened One Night In Charlottesville
January 17, 2000 | Men's Basketball
Jan. 17, 2000
I'll be the first to admit that hosting the Tar Heel Sports Network can be kind of a pain in the keester.
We generally take more equipment, travel more people, use up more space, ask for more credentials, get there earlier and stay there longer than most any other college radio network in America.
We're not trying to win the Red Badge of Courage, we're just trying to do our very best to bring Carolina games to life for you on the radio. And fortunately, the Sports Information Directors in the ACC do a tremendous job accommodating our constant barrage of requests.
Every once in a great while, however, we inadvertantly test their patience by crossing the line. In fact, one night in Charlottesville, we didn't just cross the line, we crashed right through it.
A constant problem for your humble THSN broadcast crew is post-game coaches audio. Normally both the winning and losing coaches are taken to a common "media room" where they conduct short press conferences after games, and we like to be able to carry those live. If our wireless gear can send a clear signal from the media room back out to us at courtside, then the problem is solved. If not, then we need a pair of wires to connect the two spots.
Now we use phone lines to do that job, but back in the early 1990's we would routinely travel with a great big roll of cable just in case we had to hard wire a media room.
"Bobby," said our chief engineer Paul "Tex" Boone, "Take this cable and run it out the door and down the hallway to the media room."
It was February 14th, 1990, and the Tar Heels were in University Hall to play the Virginia Cavaliers. Paul was speaking to Bobby Ellis, then a production assistant, now our outstanding Director of Video Services.
A quick and agile athlete, Bobby was on the fencing team as a student at Carolina. He dutifully disappeared with the spool of wire.
About a half an hour later (and getting close to airtime), I became aware of both Bobby and Paul approaching from my left side as I sat on press row. I glanced up at Paul and was shocked to see that it looked like he had been crying. Tears were running down both cheeks, he could not seem to get his breath, and both of his palms were extended towards me as if I should not panic.
"Man, let me tell you what happened." he began softly. Then he burst into the most riotous fit of laughter I have ever heard. He hadn't been crying, he had been laughing, and trying to keep his voice down only made it worse.
"Bobby was running the cable and he was behind the stands somewhere. He stepped out onto this walkway that he thought would hold him, but I guess it wasn't a walkway. It was actually just some acoustic ceiling tile and he crashed right through it and landed on the soccer coach's desk."
Paul stepped aside to reveal Bobby, shaken but unharmed and with chunks of sheet rock and dry wall powder all over him.
"I could have been killed," he said solemly.
"Or worse," I added. "It's a good thing Coach Arena didn't have any trophies or a pen and pencil set on his desk. How'd you get out of there?"
"It was pitch black," Bobby said. "I had no idea where I was. I just felt around until I found a lightswitch, turned it on, opened the door and walked out."
Oh man, the University of Virginia athletic department was upset, and they had a right to be. We were wrong, we apologized, and offered to pay for the damages.
UVA won the game 81-80, Bruce Arena got a new ceiling, Bobby was stiff for a few days, Paul Boone still convulses with laughter at the very mention of University Hall, and it all happened just like that one night in Charlottesville.
Here is hoping that both the Tar Heels and the broadcast team have better luck up there this trip.
