Check in every week for a new episode of The Student Chirp from Ava on The Exeter Sports Network and Jerry Geleff Media.

Check in every week for a new episode of The Student Chirp from Ava on The Exeter Sports Network and Jerry Geleff Media.

Check in every week for a new episode of The Student Chirp from Ava on The Exeter Sports Network and Jerry Geleff Media.

Check in every week for a new episode of The Student Chirp from Ava on The Exeter Sports Network and Jerry Geleff Media.

Check in every week for a new episode of The Student Chirp from Ava on The Exeter Sports Network and Jerry Geleff Media.

Check in every week for a new episode of The Student Chirp from Ava on The Exeter Sports Network and Jerry Geleff Media.

Check in every week for a new episode of The Student Chirp from Ava on The Exeter Sports Network and Jerry Geleff Media.

Check in every week for a new episode of The Student Chirp from Ava on The Exeter Sports Network and Jerry Geleff Media.

Check in every week for a new episode of The Student Chirp from Ava on The Exeter Sports Network and Jerry Geleff Media.

Check in every week for a new episode of The Student Chirp from Ava on The Exeter Sports Network and Jerry Geleff Media.

PART 1????

Storms rolled through on Friday night, and the West York officials were forced to first stop and then postpone the game until Saturday morning due to lightning in the area of West York. We left the game with 44.6 seconds left in the 1st quarter, and Exeter up 14-0.

Part 2 will follow immediately after the game.

The Roundup is an energetic, condensed version of theExeter football game broadcast of the previous week, originally heard on The Exeter Sports Network. This week, it's the 2023 opener against the Daniel Boone Blazers, in the Pig Iron Bowl.

Brought to you by The New Bertie's Inn, at Five Points in Exeter, http://MikeDragoSports.com, the best high school sports coverage in Berks, and Margherita's Restaurant and Bar, on Kutztown Rd in Laureldale.

The Roundup is an energetic, condensed version of the Muhlenberg football game broadcast of the previous week, originally heard on The Muhl Sports Network. This week, it's the 2023 opener against Octorara.

Brought to you by The New Bertie's Inn, at Five Points in Exeter, MikeDragoSports.com, the best high school sports coverage in Berks, and Margherita's Restaurant and Bar, on Kutztown Rd in Laureldale.

Join us on The Exeter Sports Network for every play, every game of the 2023 season.

Join us Friday night on The Exeter Sports Network at 7:45 for LIVE coverage of the 5A state championship game between YOUR Exeter Eagles and the Imhotep Charter Panthers at jgmedia1.mixlr.com

Brought to you by Penn State Health St. Joseph Medical Center, on the web at pennstatehealth.org.

The pairings of the rest of the tournament got mangled after this match, and we were to be moved to the other gym for Exeter's final match of the day. We were given short notice of the change, and by the time I got equipment broken down, and we'd have gotten set back up, there might have been three matchups less, so I made the executive decision to not go through the hassle of set up for the final match with that little to gain.

Included in this episode is two matches, one against Interboro, the other against Oxford Area, and an interview with Exeter head coach Kevin Oswalt.

A big thank you to Joe Pettyjohn and the staff of the Liederkranz for hosting us, the coaches, the players, the parents and public who attended, and to our friend Dave Haas for his help in putting this on the air.

More of these live events coming in the future.

There's a sound issue for the first minute. Weird thing happened. I solved it by changing headsets with Daryn, and switching the input channels. There is no reason for that to have been a problem. :) Bear with it for about a minute. It gets better.

 Join us Thursday night for a special LIVE edition of the Exeter Football Roundup from The New Bertie’s Inn! We’ll have players and coaches on the show to discuss last week’s game with Lebanon, and to discuss this week’s game with Warwick. That’s Thursday night at 6:30 at The New Bertie’s Inn. Thursday is wing night, and Bertie’s also has the best burgers in Berks. It’s gonna be a great time, join us on the deck at Bertie’s. 

A tight, hard fought game, with a great call by Daryn and Mike.

Saturday afternoon basketball is a genuine pleasure, and though this one was a bit slow in spots, it was a great, competitive game.

Due to the remote nature of the school, I believe, we had a lot of choppy internet reception at the beginning. We use cell service for internet, as many schools have a block on services like Mixlr, which is what we use to broadcast. It seemed to right itself, but there was a lot of cutting in and out, which made the first fifteen to twenty minutes unusable. The rest of the match is great, just the beginning. Really odd. The rest will be put up in two or three parts shortly.

NOTES:

This game was difficult to do, there is no question.

First, we were out in the elements. Positioned at the top of the visitor’s stands, in the cold and the wind, we were behind the 8 ball the entire night. The weather messed with our equipment, created constant wind noise in the microphones, and chilled us to the bone. The sound board wasn’t working properly, I’m assuming due to the cold, because it’s never been an issue before, forcing me to use on board volume controls on the devices that play sound, the music, the commercials, all of that pre recorded stuff. The production is not dead on perfect as I’d like it, but it’s what I could do given the circumstances. Daryn and Mike make up for it with their enthusiastic call of the game.

Secondly, being at the top of the stands, I had to run about 150-200 feet of extension cords to the nearest outlet. Twice during the broadcast, both in the first half, kids came along behind the bleachers and disconnected my cords. This forced me to run through the throng of Exeter fans, profusely excusing myself the entire time to every person, to get reconnected. The second time it happened, I took a security guard with me and read the kids the riot act. After that, it stopped happening. You’ll hear a one or two second pause in between those segments being spliced together.

With all of that hassle, I wouldn’t have done it any other way. (Except for the disconnection of the cords, THAT I’d change) We were there with OUR people, the Exeter fans. And they WERE a rowdy, raucous bunch.

The power issues create a couple of gaps in the game. We lost roughly twenty minutes of game time due to this issue. But the important thing is, you get the end, with Daryn and Mike calling a great victory. THIS ending is why our announcers are total homers. Mike was on a radio show in Philly after the game, to talk about the game for a few minutes, and the host, Jeff, said that he loved the enthusiasm that the boys displayed.

He’s right. What’s not to love about a couple of dyed in the wool homers, yelling at the top of their lungs, exulting with the crowd, enjoying and loving every second, instead of remaining “impartial”?

Faced with a storm over Berks County that carried 45-50 mph winds, heavy, driving rain, and 48 degree temps at game time, we had to improvise the broadcast operation. The story....

I normally produce/engineer the Exeter games on the JG Media networks, but with Exeter not having a game due to a Covid issue with their opponent, Daniel Boone, that freed up me and the Exeter announcing team to cover other events. I asked color man Mike Boyer if he wanted to do color for the Berks Catholic (BC)/Governor Mifflin game, he said yes, and we were off to the races. With the storm bearing down on us, we were not going to be in our normal spot in the Forino Sports Complex press box, as the local AM radio station deemed BC worthy of their attention and were going to cover this game. I mean, we're there every week broadcasting the games, and the radio station shows up when they see a good game coming, using the good folks of BC for their purposes. That means we got pushed outside. So be it. We did minimal whining, and went about the job. This means we'd be exposed to the elements, with a table set up in the stands, which would require covering. I was bringing my canopy/tent, was going to strap it down hard in the face of the winds, and retrofit it with plastic siding to keep both us, and the thousands of dollars of equipment, dry and safe.

I got a call at about 11:30 AM on Friday from Jake Latchum, Athletic Director at BC and all around good guy, in which he said, "I know you're coming to set up the canopy for tonight, but let me make you aware of something. We had one of our really good canopies set up and strapped down, the wind carried it away, and it sits in our dumpster in a heap as we speak. This is going to be a safety problem."

I asked, "So are you telling me you don't want me to do the broadcast?"

Jake replied, "I'm not telling you you can't do it, I'm asking you to consider the safety of the public who will show up, should your canopy get taken by the wind."

Considering the public safety, and imagining my insurance guy Jim telling me that under NO reasonable reading of this situation can we insure that we wouldn't get our butts sued off, I told Jake, "Well, if I can't do it, I can't do it, man. OK, we don't do the game."

Jake said, "Let me put this in your ear. Bruce Badgely (of the Sports Stream Premium Network, and another amazing guy) will be here, hook or by crook, he tells me, to video stream this game. His setup isn't as extensive as yours, and he assures me he can and will if necessary, do it from under an umbrella, which is much easier to deal with than a tent. SO, you COULD watch his feed, and call the game from another location."

We COULD at that.

I told Jake that this is what would happen, and decided either the office/studio, or my living room would be the spot. Not having a TV at the office, living room won. Regardless of which, sponsors are depending on us to get their commercials aired, and we were going to do it, all while keeping the public safe, and side benefit, us warm and dry.

I then called Bruce, who picked up the phone and without saying hello, said, "Yes, Jerry, I'm gonna be...]]>Without question, the oddest broadcast we've done.

Faced with a storm over Berks County that carried 45-50 mph winds, heavy, driving rain, and 48 degree temps at game time, we had to improvise the broadcast operation. The story....

I normally produce/engineer the Exeter games on the JG Media networks, but with Exeter not having a game due to a Covid issue with their opponent, Daniel Boone, that freed up me and the Exeter announcing team to cover other events. I asked color man Mike Boyer if he wanted to do color for the Berks Catholic (BC)/Governor Mifflin game, he said yes, and we were off to the races. With the storm bearing down on us, we were not going to be in our normal spot in the Forino Sports Complex press box, as the local AM radio station deemed BC worthy of their attention and were going to cover this game. I mean, we're there every week broadcasting the games, and the radio station shows up when they see a good game coming, using the good folks of BC for their purposes. That means we got pushed outside. So be it. We did minimal whining, and went about the job. This means we'd be exposed to the elements, with a table set up in the stands, which would require covering. I was bringing my canopy/tent, was going to strap it down hard in the face of the winds, and retrofit it with plastic siding to keep both us, and the thousands of dollars of equipment, dry and safe.

I got a call at about 11:30 AM on Friday from Jake Latchum, Athletic Director at BC and all around good guy, in which he said, "I know you're coming to set up the canopy for tonight, but let me make you aware of something. We had one of our really good canopies set up and strapped down, the wind carried it away, and it sits in our dumpster in a heap as we speak. This is going to be a safety problem."

I asked, "So are you telling me you don't want me to do the broadcast?"

Jake replied, "I'm not telling you you can't do it, I'm asking you to consider the safety of the public who will show up, should your canopy get taken by the wind."

Considering the public safety, and imagining my insurance guy Jim telling me that under NO reasonable reading of this situation can we insure that we wouldn't get our butts sued off, I told Jake, "Well, if I can't do it, I can't do it, man. OK, we don't do the game."

Jake said, "Let me put this in your ear. Bruce Badgely (of the Sports Stream Premium Network, and another amazing guy) will be here, hook or by crook, he tells me, to video stream this game. His setup isn't as extensive as yours, and he assures me he can and will if necessary, do it from under an umbrella, which is much easier to deal with than a tent. SO, you COULD watch his feed, and call the game from another location."

We COULD at that.

I told Jake that this is what would happen, and decided either the office/studio, or my living room would be the spot. Not having a TV at the office, living room won. Regardless of which, sponsors are depending on us to get their commercials aired, and we were going to do it, all while keeping the public safe, and side benefit, us warm and dry.

I then called Bruce, who picked up the phone and without saying hello, said, "Yes, Jerry, I'm gonna be there." He and Jake had already discussed this. After a few minute conversation, and a promise of a case of beer, we were good to go.

I called Ryan Lineaweaver, our regular BC announcer, and told him the story and plan, then played phone tag with Mike all afternoon to clue him in. Plan set. I ordered the wings from Dino's Wings and Things, made sure we were stocked on beer and other drinks we'd need, and all was ready.

The boys arrived after six PM, we got set up, and called a football game sitting in my living room, while eating wings and drinking beer, and had an amazing time. I even had crowd noises playing underneath their call to add a little "theater of the mind." Mike hung around until about 2 AM, and we had a long, probing talk about life, the political corruption that riddles our little town of Exeter, and philosophy. The game itself had the loosey goosey feel of Jerry Geleff Media broadcasts that we strive for, including some halftime talk in which other broadcast operations would not engage. We want to make it about everything, not just the game. So we "break down the fourth wall", as they say. Part of our charm is that we inject personality into games, not just give a staid representation. Personality comes through in our games, and as Mike said last night, that's what makes us, US. That is true of all three entities, the Exeter Sports Network, the Bears Sports Network, and the Saints Sports Network.

This is not the preferred method of calling a game, but in a pinch, with things on the line, we do what we must.

A massive thanks to Ryan and Mike for adapting without whining, to Jake Latchum for being Jake, to Bruce Badgely for flat out getting it done, and to the audience, who listened despite really odd circumstances.

It was a blast. One we hope we never have to duplicate.

Jerry Geleff

Managing Director and Lead Troublemaker

Jerry Geleff Media

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