Broadcasting From a High School Press Box Can be an Adventure

When you step into a high school press box, it’s like stepping back in time.
Most of them are old, small, and smell like pop corn.
In other words, guaranteed fun if you’re trying to broadcast a game from there. We caught up with three veteran Chattanooga broadcasters who know the perils of doing a game from a high school press box.

Reporter:”How would you describe high school press boxes?”
Said WGOW Radio’s Scott McMahen:”Um. Unique to every location. How bout that.”
Sometimes you need to be a brave broadcaster to enter a high school press box.
Said Chris Goforth of the Atlanta Falcons Radio Network:”It was a wooden structure. The wind was about a 30 or 30 mile-an-hour gust. You literally could feel the press box swaying back and forth.”
Sometimes, you even take the press out of the press box.
Said Voice of the Mocs and WGOW’s Jim Reynolds:”We get to the game. No phone lines. None. None for us in the press box. So we had to extend our wires from the coaches office and as far as it would go was in the stands. Literally we are sitting in the stands with our information in our laps. I mean we’re passing by popcorn and all this kind of stuff broadcasting the game.”
Said McMahen:”Chris and I did a game at Whitwell where we basically had a canopy and a little bit of a desk. We were sitting right there with the fans. We were in the stands because they didn’t have enough room in their press box.”
Do you like the heat, bugs, and loud noises.
Welcome to our press box.
Said Reynolds:”I think there’s one place. It might have been Soddy Daisy. They had a nice hornets nest there one year.”
Said Goforth:”At Boyd Buchanan their windows don’t open. This was in August. We just sat there and baked.”
Said McMahen:”At McCallie. They have spent some money on that sound system. I mean it will rattle your heart out of your chest.”
Goforth:”Air horns are the bane of my existence.”
Better get used to it, because that’s life in a high school press box.
Said Reynolds:”No one re-does their press box. No one says hey you know what, those poor guys up there. Those people up there that are covering the game. They should really have something first class.”
Said Goforth:”I love the one at Sequatchie County. Number one they have a refrigerator, and they’ve always got cold Coca Colas for you. And they actually have a bathroom in the press box.”