A Buffalonian holiday happened this past weekend. The Buffalo Bills opened their season at home with a win against the New York Jets. For some locals, it was the best drunken day ever; however, for me it was an insanely crazy day of work. As a new intern in the Media Relations department, the intensity of the home opener hung over my shoulder as our boss warned us the home opener would be nothing like preseason games. He warned us the fans would be 20 times crazier than anything we’ve ever seen, and they for sure were. Upon arriving at the stadium, my fellow intern Caroline and I were immediately greeted by a crowd of drunken teenage boys wandering not far from an RV that was completely decked out in red and blue. They saw our IDs and asked if we could get them on the field. We politely told them to enjoy the game and headed straight to the press box.
The press box was easily three times more packed than the preseason game I worked two weeks before. It made me a little excited inside to see a lot of women busily working throughout the box. I was a little nervous at first to be a woman working in a predominately male field of work, because nothing says testosterone like Sunday football. Yet as I got more familiar with the media staff, I realized there were a handful of ladies in some pretty powerful positions. I can’t say I wasn’t proud. After we got our assignments, I made my way down to the broadcast booth, where I would be representing the Media Relations team during the game. We send one intern down there so if any problems arise our bosses can know immediately. And of course, I was welcomed by mayhem.
One hour may seem like a long time; but when there is one hour until kickoff and all the TV sets are down in the broadcast booth, the clock is ticking fast. I walked into electricians running back and forth. One of them finally stopped to introduce himself and gave me a long list of people I needed to get to the Broadcast Booth immediately. I rushed off making my way through hundreds of very loud fans. I soon rounded up everyone I needed and just in time for the CBS broadcast to begin, we had all the TVs up and running. With about 20 minutes until kickoff, I was alerted that some of the WGR radio crew weren’t given the proper credential to get to the broadcast booth. Thus, I had to run up to the press box and all over the stadium again to print the new credentials. I was really regretting wearing my new heels at this point. With a few minutes to spare, finally everyone was where they needed to be in the broadcast booth. With such relief, we were all able to sit down and enjoy the first kickoff of the season.
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