Part 1 of my night following the SportsScene 13 crew concluded with Bob Gallaher and me returning from shooting video from several games for that night’s 10pm news. Part 2 is now on the clock.

We’re back at 8:52, with Matt Cullen having returned 10 minutes earlier from Augusta and Fall Creek. Cullen is off to the newsroom to finish his editing, while Gallaher takes over the editing machine to work on his four games. All the while, another tape machine is recording the Wisconsin-Minnesota mens’ hockey game.

This is when the sports folks get quiet: working on the the editing, score taking, tape numbering, and script writing required to make the 10pm broadcast happen. No one will take a brief break until after the show, yet I never feel as though anyone is in much of a rush, and no task seems likely to throw the proverbial monkey wrench into the preparation time. Tick tick tick tick tick ...

A run-down of what happens between 9 and 10:15: each staffer (on-air talent and photographers) edits each game they shot to 25-30 seconds of highlights, using a digital machine that saves their edits and copies them to a new tape. The scripts already include game intros; in the space between each scheduled highlight, notes about actual game action are jotted down so each highlight has a narrative.

At 9:17, Cullen takes 14 minutes to do another show – he’s the sports anchor for Fox News At 9 (TV-13 staffs and produces the 9 o’clock news on Fox 25/48). The Badger-Gopher hockey game wraps at 9:20, and that game will be edited in the following minutes. The 10pm newscast directors double-check at 9:31 who all will be on set for SportsScene 13.

Then, at 9:35, comes the fun task of the night: listening to all the final-score messages left on the sports department phone. Scores come from as far away as LaFarge and Tomahawk, and not all messages specify which sports are being referred to. Gallaher and Cullen take turns listening to the messages, a 15-minute process in total. Meanwhile, Matt Queen returns from Hudson at 9:46 to start editing the North highlights, as Gallaher types scores into the sports ticker and the main TV screen graphics.

Cullen gets the Marquette video from TV-13’s satellite feed at 9:50, and everyone gets their first look at the Golden Eagles’ upset loss. By 10, the only fly in the ointment is the lack of a final score from Menomonie, but that gets secured shortly thereafter, and it’s off to the bathroom to look pretty for TV. Some final stats are gathered, and Gallaher, Queen, Cullen, and I head to the studio at 10:13.

I sit amongst chairs, maybe two feet away from the view of one of the cameras. I’m almost close enough to wave my hand in front of Cullen. At the main desk, Chris Herzog, Sarah Stokes, and Nate Larscheid end the news. There’s a pause, then Gallaher and Queen start SportScene at another desk at 10:17: right on time.

The two sit in front of a green screen: the snazzy logo you see behind them on TV is digitally inserted for you, the home viewer. They intro some highlights, throw to Cullen standing near me to do his two games, then come back to run through more games. The feeling during the commercial breaks is almost relaxation: we joke around, Stokes brings me a Gallaher brownie to snack on during the second segment, and Herzog is asked how to pronounce “Pinsonneault” (a Lake Forest player). You almost forget during those breaks that only a few moments later the mics and cameras will be turned on for a few thousand area viewers.

Sign-off finally arrives at 10:34, but not before Gallaher and Queen throw an on-air shout-out to yours truly for tagging along for the night.

All that’s left is entering scores on the website and archiving highlights, to join 27 years’ worth of TV-13 sports video. Even though those guys did all the work, it is I who leaves first at 11:07. Another night done, more coming tomorrow. And throughout the season. This is a routine for them. A routine and a job of watching sports. What a job.