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The New York City Marathon 1989

I am writing with the hope the coming articles will help someone trying to “break-through” in Broadcasting.

Many many years ago I was a Broadcasting major. I was lucky enough to have a young professor at the University that had an “in” at an alphabet company. They needed 30 production runners (a position below production assistant) for the New York City Marathon. So, 20+ of the students in the broadcasting department were picked based on their grade point averages and interest to work the event for no money, just the experience. It was late October, and most of us packed as many people we could into their cars, (I didn’t have one at that time) and went into New York City together. Just 16.8 miles away for this exciting unpaid adventure (again we were there for the experience). We were also told that no one will be hired from this experience, so go in to get the experience, and No expectation of future work. I jumped at the opportunity.

Ok, since the Marathon was in very early November, I’d miss all the Halloween parties, and dressing up, I didn’t care, I knew one day that I’d be working for this company. In fact, when I was 7 years old I pointed out when the theme music, and colors for a certain show’s openings changed. My Mom was astounded that I noticed that, but at the tender age of 7 I said, “I’m going to work there someday”, and I did for 26 years. More on that in another post.

We were all told it’ll take a few long 12-16 hour days to set up, and a very long night / early morning to wrap and tear down. All true. The last runner did end up finishing at 9:37p event night, all broadcasters had gone by then except for a camera crew from the local station to catch the final runner finishing.

Originally, I was assigned to the finish line with some other production runners. I had been to the city many times for Broadway shows and auditions, but I had never driven IN the city prior to this experience, so they thought it was best to give me a “feet on the ground job”, there wasn’t much to do at first except watch them construct the metal framework for the finish line, press boxes, and other tents. Tavern on the Green was there, it was all very exciting to encounter at 18 almost 19 years of age, although I can imagine that participating in any event such as this would be exciting for anyone involved.

The push-to-talk walkie radio was passed to me while the other runners explored Central Park, and went to go eat. There was quite a bit of chatter on the radio, goofing around etc (we were young adults with anonymity with walkie talkies!), I did not participate, I stayed silent until I heard, “finish line” what’s going on over there?”. I thought it was someone joking around as they had been all day, so I answered somewhat sarcastically, “watching the construction team building the press box, and everyone else is eating the catering”. Well, the direct answer to that was, “hand your walkie to another team member, come back to the office and I’ll send you out for supplies, or have you answer the phones.” Uh-oh, I felt I was in a bit of trouble, but I did exactly that, I handed off the walkie talkie, and nervously ran back to office as fast as I could, it was only a few blocks away. By the time I reached the production office, there was only one person in the huge conference room that we were utilizing as Production Central. Someone else was sent to get supplies, so I was tasked with answering the phone. “Whew”, again, I had never driven (yet) in the city so I was relieved.

At the end of a very long table sat a young man. He was wearing a faded wrinkled light blue polo shirt, dirty ripped jeans, and sneakers. He was fuming at his new laptop, and furiously tapping numbers on a large calculator next to the laptop. I asked him if he needed help. He said he was “trying to make some numbers work”. I told him I could help with a simple formula, he didn’t believe me. I said “move over” not knowing who he was yet. I typed in a simple sum formula based on his inputs, and said “there you go”. He looked at the numbers and the total, then began to type furiously on his calculator again. He exclaimed “that’s right!”. I responded “of course it is, and if you need to change any of the numbers in that column of cells the total number at the bottom would reflect the change, no recalculating of the entire sheet”. He of course tested this, and was happily in disbelief, maybe it was relief.

I then learned he was the senior production manager for the entire New York City Marathon for the network. Luckily I didn’t know that beforehand because I more than likely wouldn’t have been so “bold” as to say “move over” to him. He looked up at me and said, “Do you want to do Golf?”. I was elated, and responded “YES” immediately without knowing any other details at the time, just a resounding “YES”. Back to the Marathon for now though.

Some non- New York based production runners were given rental cars (that we shared ) to get to and from the office, run errands for the event, to drive the production managers and coordinators around to meetings, and one very early morning to make sure the Blue Goose (a jib) was delivered to a specific place in Harlem, NY at 4am. I was tasked with ensuring the Blue Goose was delivered to the correct location. No problem, the excitement of knowing this had me up all night anyway. Note: This was before GPS, so I had it all printed out from Mapquest, I was terrified, but up for the challenge. After all was in place, I got lost going back to the office that day, and all I could hear on the other end of the landline phone was laughing. I had to call from a pay phone stall in Harlem at 6am, that a drunk man was passed out in (I was shaking). I flagged down a police car, and they were able to set me in the right direction to get back to the office. It’s was terrifying then, but hilarious now.

The next few days was more of the same, until it was show day. That year, they had me at the start line, it was windy, cold, there was no place to get warm, but I didn’t care, the palpable energy carried us all through. The first smaller specific groups started, the handicap group, then the professionals who were competing, then the humongous general population group final starting gun shot went off. The entire bridge and surrounding earth shook with such force, one would’ve thought it was an earthquake. It was mystifying. My walkie screeching with chatter, I heard, “get back to the Production phase truck parked just outside of Central Park now”. I had learned the route I needed to take, so again, I handed off the walkie talkie, jumped into the car and did just that, I got to the production phase truck.

Inside there were screens in the front, and rows of people, and the senior production manager was in one of the seats. I nervously nodded to him, so he flagged me over to the seat next to his. “Answer the phones, find out who it’s for, who it is, what they need, and let them know”. Ok, I knew what to do. For a few more hours, I was in this space of all men and just me. They were rowdy, cursed like I had never heard before, fought with each other, and finished the broadcast. At the end, I thought that these men were going to kill each other. I had never in my life seen a show of such dramatic passion like that before, I was silent except for answering the phone and shouting out a person’s name letting them know a call was for them, who it was, and why they needed them of course. At the end of the broadcast, all these men stood up, here it is I thought, they’re going to punch each other out, but NO. They jovially said “great show”, and shook hands. “Let’s go get a drink”, and they all walked out laughing. I didn’t understand how they could scream, yell, curse at each other unabashedly, and stomp on the mobile unit floor, then walk out talking civilly together, much less going out to get drinks. But, that’s what happened. I stayed behind to clean up, then returned to the main office to help finish wrapping the event. I was exciting and confounding, but I knew, I was hooked and wanted to do it again, and again and again, and again.

And that’s truly my first event ever in sports.