Clayborn to Tampa

One Buccaneer Place is the new address for Iowa defensive end, Adrian Clayborn. Congratulations to AC as he begins his new career in territory familiar to him. Tampa was the destination of the Hawkeyes for the 2009 Outback Bowl where he played at Raymond James Stadium, home to the Buccaneers. He couldn't be in better hands. The video department is led by Dave Levy who is one of three NFL Video Directors who oversee the league group. While we were in Tampa preparing for the game Dave was generous with his time as he gave me and my staff a tour of their facility. At one time on the tour, Dave and I spoke one on one regarding our upcoming Big Ten meeting and coordinating it with the NFL's. During our discussion, my video staff had to wait in the nearby hallway where yet to be named Head Coach, Raheem Morris started up a conversation with them. At one time all I could hear was laughter coming from the entire group. The Buccaneers are class people who are down to Earth.

Good Luck Adrian.

Don't Stop Believing

Easter weekend found us in Des Moines watching the Broadway musical, Rock of Ages at the Civic Center. If you haven't seen it or don't know much about it, this is a play similar to that of Momma Mia--taking the music of a generation and using it to tell a story in song. Momma Mia utilized the songs of ABBA while Rock of Ages used the music from the big hair era of the 1980s. Whitesnake, Bon Jovi, Poison, Asia as well as many others had their music adapted to tell the story of a small town girl looking to make it in the big city of Los Angeles in the 1980s. A great performance for anyone who lived the music as the Civic Center crowd was not typical of the theatre crowd. Many wore the big band t-shirts back in the day, and some took this opportunity to bring them out of the closet. And a few brought out the lighters at the end of the production, which was highlighted by Journey's "Don't Stop Believing."

With the storyline becomming very evident, it was just a matter of time Journey's signiture tune would be performed. It brought the crowd to their feet and left everyone singing it along with the cast. Walking out I wondered what has made this song so popular. It was a hit in the 80s, but has almost been ressurected twenty plus years later to be used in many differerent ways.

After the 2009 season, I used the song in a end of the season highlight video. This video started out as the motivational video shown to the team before the memorable last-second win at Michigan State. The song was at the request of Iowa's QB, Ricky Stanzi, and it was most fitting for how the game ended. Rather than starting from scratch, I decided to edit it for use on the HawkVision board inside Kinnick Stadium following the last game of the season. A month later at the Clevelander Hotel on South Beach in Miami, the above clip was taken as the DJ used the Journey song as part of his music set.

The song is popular at Beaver Stadium on home football Saturdays. The Penn State student section anticipates its playing every week. Close to 20,000 Nittany Lion students sing along as Journey is belted throughout the stadium.

The song now has become part of our pop culture. HBO's Soprano fans had the song become the background music during the series end. Fans of Family Guy will remember the song being used in an episode with Peter and his friends singing it during karoke. Fans of the tv show "Glee" sang it during an episode, then re-sang it for Oprah Winfrey. The song had its time during the TV Land annual award show with David Hasselhoff taking the lead.

Do a google search, and you can find other ways this song has been used throughout time. So what makes this song so special that it has transcended through time and generations. A QB who wasn't alive when the song first hit the charts, suggests it to motivate his teammates nearly thirty years later. Those older than I stood and danced along with the cast of Rock of Ages. Is it because the song talks of hope and how dreams can come true if in fact you "don't stop believing?" And what are other songs that has transcended generations like this Journey song has?

2010 Highlight Video

Hadn't posted this yet. From the 2010 season

Iowa Football Spring Scrimmage

Waking up to snow and frigid temperatures made some Hawkeye fans think last year's Minnesota season finale was tropical compared to today's Iowa Spring Classic. Yet the heartiest of Hawkeye fans showed up for their first look at the 2011 team. Gone are Stanzi, Sash, Clayborn and Ballard. They are replaced by Vandenberg, Bernstein, Binns and Daniels. Many fans were disappointed with the 8-5 record of 2010, but expectations for this Iowa team are low as youth and inexperience are two words that will be used often when discribing this year's team. Although the turnout for the scrimmage was far lower than previous games, it didn't stop some from tailgating and getting a few autogrpahs at the end.

What has become a tradition before the final spring practice, Director of Security for the Hawkeye football team, Ron Stewart stops at the locker in Malcom, Iowa to pick up brats, cooks them up and prepares them for the many members of the support staff. The grilled brat was very welcome on this cold day.

For the spring game players continue to use the locker room facilities within the Iowa Football complex. After getting taped and dressed they move in a swarm-like fashion across the street to Kinnick Stadium.

Fans huddled together and braved the windy conditions. Air temps were in the 40s with wind chills dropping into the 20s. The Iowa fans arrived early, shopped at the Iowa Hawk Shop clearance sale and waited around until the scrimmage started.

Only a couple of months removed from getting hit by a car in Scottsdale, Arizona, Ed Podolak was confined to a wheelchair, but assisted in the broadcast of the spring scrimmage with play by play man, Gary Dolphin. Podolak returned to Iowa City following his operations in Arizona for rehab. He has also found some time to attend a few practices.

For the little kids that stuck it out in the cold, players rewarded them by walking around the field signing autographs.

And the media had their final opportunity to talk to Iowa Football players and coaches until media day in August.

NAB 2011

NAB (National Association of Broadcasters) closed its doors on another huge convention Thursday in Las Vegas. NAB is the largest trade show Sin City sees every year. Everyone involved in the broadcast industry, throughout the world, descends upon Las Vegas every April. Whether it is the smallest post-production company or the President of one of the major networks, all sorts of languages are spoken and many people searching for the best A/V solution scour all four halls of the Las Vegas Convention Center.

Booths stretch as far as the eye can see. Panasonic, Sony, Canon, Hitachi are among the different camera companies offering a solution. Within the booths these same companies put on "display" their monitors, projectors as well as presentation videos touting all of their products. Not only camera companies, but also on display are tri-pods, lighting, batteries,  archive media solutions, field capture media options as well as the accessories that make the process work.

Above is a portion of the Panasonic booth. Cameras are on display with live models and a set for those in the industry to see what is the best camera for them. The biggest news to those in my line of work came from Panasonic. They are offering a small hand-held camera which shoots directly to small SD cards in an HD format conducive to sports editing systems. This HD format takes up a smaller amount of storage than Standard Definition video while being able to network to our coaching staff and players with the ease they are accustomed to.

Welcome

Many of you finding this blog today may be new to this site. I thank Marc Morehouse for his promotion due to the honor bestowed upon me. I am the Video Coordinator for the Iowa Football team and have been with the team since 1989, my freshman year in college. This was the third time I have received Big Ten Video Coordinator of the Year, an high honor considering it is the best athletic conference in the nation. Here I am pictured with Tom Shepherd and Matt Harper from Michigan State, the '10 recipients of the award.

Those who are regulars to this site will notice I haven't posted in two weeks, and not as regularly as you may be accustomed to. I am at crossroads with the Blogger web site and am trying to decide my next move. Please continue to check back for updates, and the possibility of a new domain name.