University of Tennessee Athletics
Inside The T - It Never Stops
October 17, 2014 | General
By Brian Rice
UTSports.com
The mailbag column was late yesterday, but I had a good reason. Ok, I had several.
A mailbag question I've received a couple of time has been "What does your job entail on a daily basis?" The answer is too long for the mailbag. And Thursday was a perfect example.
I sat down at my desk at 8:45 a.m. to start writing responses to mailbag questions I had received throughout the week and sent out a tweet asking for more. I took a break at 9:15 to write up and post the daily look ahead on our Tennessee Update blog (You should really click HERE and bookmark it).
From there, I left the mailbag to head out to Cherokee Country Club, where the Lady Vol golf team is hosting the Mercedes-Benz Collegiate Championship this weekend. The 18th-annual event features 16 teams vying for a Waterford Crystal bowl. I went out to set up the tee times for Friday's opening round. But illness had struck a couple of teams, and they weren't ready to set their lineups quite yet.
So it's back to campus for Donnie Tyndall's first basketball media day at Tennessee. The team is loaded with newcomers, so basketball media relations czar Tom Satkowiak thought it would be fun to introduce them to the fans with a Google+ Hangout. I had never used the platform before, but I agreed to host the session, a replay of which you can see HERE. Internet Communications Director (and certified genius) Chris Echols got us set up, and I spoke with the newcomers, assistant coaches and some of the returnees, asking them questions posted by fans in Google+ right on the screen.
I'm used to doing live TV, but the Google Plus Hangout interface was a whole new world. There's no graphic for the producer to put up while I check my notes or commercial break to throw to. It was an hour-long stream of consciousness that turned out pretty well. It was a great experience for everyone involved, and is definitely something we will look at doing again in the future.
No time to reflect on it, though, as I was back across the street to spend 15 more minutes on the mailbag before a production meeting for our SEC Network+ broadcasts of Tennessee soccer this weekend. My good friend and voice of the Jacksonville Suns, Roger Hoover is filling in for me on the Friday night broadcast, so it was a full house in the conference room as we went over rundown scripts for both broadcasts and notes on both opponents from conference calls during the week.
After the meeting concluded, there was time for a five-minute look inside the under-construction Ray and Lucy Hand Digital Studio just steps from my office. Then, it was off to the current broadcast center to record my Vol Scholar voiceover for this Saturday's Butch Jones Show.
Some wonderful person brought doughnuts this morning and the one I grabbed on the way out the door to head back to Cherokee was clutch for my first food since breakfast. At the course, the lineups were set and ready to be put into the scoring program. We knocked that out pretty quickly and generated the scorecards to hand out at the coaches' meeting at 5:30 p.m.
With all of that done, it was finally time to finish the mailbag while sitting on the Astroturf floor of Cherokee's indoor practice room. From there to your computer screen it went, albeit delayed by the day's events.
It won't slow down the rest of the weekend, either. Working at the golf course in the morning, flight to Ole Miss in the afternoon. Football and a late return Saturday night, followed by an early wake-up call for the final day of golf on Sunday. I'll broadcast the Tennessee-Vanderbilt soccer match Sunday night, then write the Four Downs feature that I'm grateful that so many of you read each Monday morning.
Next week doesn't slow down, either. Monday football press conference, off to Charlotte for SEC basketball media days, then the little matter of Alabama week.
And you know what? I wouldn't trade for any of it. I try, through Twitter and the stories here, to take all of you along for the ride. Stopping every so often to share the moments reminds me of how great it all is. So keep following, reading, watching and listening and I'll keep running.
Brian Rice is a writer for UTSports.com. Questions, comments and suggestions are always welcome via Twitter at @briancrice.
