Texas Sports Productions is set to broadcast all the Marion Bulldogs football games this year.
We thought we’d start Friday, October 28, when they would play Somerset. Somerset had to back out, though, so we figured we’d start our Marion broadcasts on September 4th, when they play at Goliad.
Then I got a text on Tuesday the 25th at 9:31 from Carl Padilla, saying that Marion was playing at Karnes City on Saturday the 29th at 7 p.m.
There’s nothing quite like having 93 hours notice to set up a football broadcast.
Yes, the 2020 football season is different, all right.
The logistics of making football schedules are very intricate. The UIL announces its biennial realignment early two years in early February. The realignment tells schools which teams they’ll compete with in district games, then it’s up to the schools to fill out the remaining schedule with non-district matchups. Coaches and athletic directors do their best to anticipate how districts will be aligned based on each school’s enrollment, then make handshake deals to arrange non-district games.
Then the alignment is announced, it turns out almost everyone was wrong about their district, and they’re scrambling to find teams to play. The scenes where coaches are gathered to receive the alignment announcements and are scrambling to find teams to play have been described like the New York Stock Exchange.
Coaches throughout Texas now use Carl Padilla as a resource in the NYSE chaos. Carl, Mastermind of the Padilla Poll and Godfather of Texas High School sports, sells the Padilla Poll to coaches and athletic directors throughout the state. The Poll allows people to project playoff matchups, which helps them choose venues for potential playoff games. The Poll has given Carl connections throughout the state, and often, a coach will ask Carl who’s available for, say, a Week 4 matchup and spare themselves 59 phone calls trying to find someone to play. Carl lives for realignment day and the opportunity to help coaches find opponents.
Normally, this fun ends for Carl in early February, but if you’re squinting to find a bright side to the pandemic, it’s that Carl’s had more opportunities to arrange matchups. The UIL’s staggering of the 5A/6A start to a month later than the 1A-4A schools created many holes in schedules for 4A and 5A teams that were scheduled to play each other, putting Carl back to work filling those holes. Once some schools had to delay their own start of football due to coronavirus related reasons, more holes appeared in people’s schedules.
Hence, Marion thought they wouldn’t be able to play football until September 4th.
BUT…. Then Kenedy, TX had to delay their football start, leaving Karnes City ALSO without a game. As revealed by Marion coach Ryne Miller in an interview with Dave Campbell Texas Football’s Matt Stepp, Miller got a call from Karnes City coach David Oeschlegel at 9 p.m. Tuesday, suggesting Marion and Karnes City play Saturday. They quickly agreed.
Carl would neither confirmed nor deny his involvement in the quick arrangement.
I accepted the Marion at Karnes City assignment, along with Donald Glynn, who covered most of the Marion games in 2019. My day job, plus the arrangements for the Falls City-Three Rivers game, forced me to leave a lot of the details for the Marion-Karnes City broadcast until Saturday. Coach Oelschlegel knew I would be there, and I had to leave it at that for a couple of days.
A text conversation with Coach Oelschlegel worked out that I could set up in the press box, but the only available space was problematic, so I got permission to set up outside the door on the north side of the press box. So Saturday, a single extension cord was adequate, and my table even fit on the bleacher better than it did in Three Rivers.
I had a fright when I plugged everything in and had no power AGAIN. I tested two cables and the power strip directly and initially had no results. Fortunately, since this setup was not nearly as time consuming an arrangement as Friday night, plus I was right next to the press box, I could just ask a nearby Karnes City official about the problem. He went to the breaker box, flipped a few switches, and had me powered up in no time.
Here’s another advantage to being on the home side; when Don and I sorted out our notes and realized we had an extra Marion roster, I could give one to the Karnes City public address announcer.
Like Friday, I didn’t talk with the head coaches before the game. Normally, we record an interview with each coach for our pregame show, but we haven’t worked out how to approach this from a quality and safety standpoint given our equipment this season. Given the usual and unusual opening week challenges, we decided to address that issue more fully in the coming weeks.
I would have chatted the head coaches up informally, but after all the equipment setup, I needed to stay in the shade. I did get to catch up with Marion’s running backs coach, Kevin Smisek, when he came to the press box to set up the coach’s booth. Smisek led St Anthony’s boys basketball to their state championship game before becoming their football coach.
Marion and Karnes City were district rivals the last two years, so Don had seen them compete against each other, and he alerted me to a feature attraction at a Karnes City game: their inflatable run through for the players, which is a rather intimidating 25 foot tall badger. The run through lived up to Don’s billing.
As is often the case, from a broadcast standpoint, things went much more smoothly Saturday than Friday. Of course, this was my second football game of the year; it was Marion and Karnes City’s first. Each team was getting comfortable with playing; on top of all the usual disadvantages they faced because it’s 2020, the teams had not truly begun preparing to play a game until Wednesday, and the offenses looked out of sync. Furthermore, Oelshlegel’s a first year head coach, so although many Karnes City players were familiar to Marion, the coaching style and schemes were not. On top of all that, the wind was so strong most of the game that passing the ball proved next to impossible.
Karnes City led 7-0 after three quarters, and their touchdown was a trick play, where wideout Aaron Smith took a handoff on a sweep to the left and threw the ball left-handed into the end zone to Christian Jimenez for a 4 yard touchdown.
Marion opened the fourth quarter by abandoning the passing game and running the ball with Aden Rackley. Rackley is the grandson of state champion Judson coach Jim Rackley, and takes after his grandfather in at least two ways.
1) Stature (Aden is 5’7).
2) Determination. Of a couple of plays, Rackley dragged much larger tacklers several yards.
Marion’s 10 play touchdown drive featured 7 runs by Rackley, including a 5 yard touchdown to tie the game at 7.
Karnes City retook the lead within two minutes on a 16 yard run by Jaden Jaramillo, but missed the extra point, leaving the score 13-7. The score was the same with just over two minutes left when a bad Badger snap on 4th down led to Jayden Williams sacking Ryan Mathis at midfield.
Marion had 2:14 left, but had been forced to use all their timeouts, so running options were limited. A pass interference penalty on Karnes City and a 21 yard pass from Tanner Beakley to Bryce Gonyer set up Marion inside the 20. On 3rd and 10, Karnes City appeared to have Beakley bottled up in the backfield, but he escaped pressure and ran down the right sideline for a 19 yard touchdown with 40 seconds left.
Juan Ortiz, the leading scorer in the 52 year history of Marion football, added the extra point for the 14-13 winning margin. Williams, who had four sacks plus two receptions for 46 yards, was our Jon Wayne Service Company/Marion State Bank Player of the Game.
After the game, we saw another peculiar side to Coronavirus Era Football. The teams, rather than greeting each other along the 50 yard line after the game, lined up along the hashmarks and awkwardly waved to each other. The players' body language radiated disappointment that they couldn't congratulate each other with traditional handshakes, but they took the required precautions.
Back in the stands, the game was similar to the Three Rivers situation; people's nature instinct to respect personal space seemed to spread people out effectively.
As for us, with only one extension cord to account for, we had a much easier time breaking down our setup than Friday. No equipment landed on bleachers, and we left without fear of damage.
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