Soccer Behind the Scenes

I came to the Olympics excited about seeing many sports but I had only a few on my must see list and getting to a soccer game was one of those.   I didn't really dare to dream that it would be the gold medal game and the US would be in it, in a rematch of last year's World Cup loss.  I have to say that seeing the women's gold medal football (soccer) game of USA vs. Japan was definitely a highlight of the trip.

Wembley Stadium

Soccer is one of the sports that has not been played anywhere close to the Olympic park, also tennis, sailing, and rowing.  We haven't really had the resources to send people on a two hour drive to camp out somewhere for the day when there has been so many other events to get to, and only three field crews.  I had a feeling that if the USA got to the gold medal game at Wembley Stadium, that would be my only chance to see them, and also it was only about a 90 minute drive, compared to them playing in Scotland.  My next challenge was actually getting the soccer assignment.  The are three field crews that consist of a producer and a photographer, and we go to all the different events and shoot interviews and stories.  All of us have differing interests and I think I was the only one that really wanted soccer, but I knew I should still ask for the assignment.  I went to my boss and let her know how my I love soccer and watch it and that I'm knowledgeable and could help the coverage, but that most of all it would really mean a lot to me.  When I found out Wednesday night that I would be covering the game on Thursday, I'm not too embarrassed to admit I did a little happy dance in the newsroom and told my boss that she was the best!

I did have a hard time managing my excitement leading up to the game, but I had to because we did have a full day of covering taekwondo, wrestling, and boxing before soccer.  The whole variable in covering Olympic events is that you never know when a events like a boxing match could go short because of a knockout or other events could go into an extra round to break a tie.  In our case, boxing ran long because there were three gold medal matches, then the three resulting medal ceremonies, and then the post fight interviews.  We did finally make it out of boxing and hit the road to soccer, but we were more than an hour later than we had planned to be. 

The strategy is to always get to a marquis event the earlier the better.  Each venue is a little bit different and we knew there would be a ton of media at Wembley Stadium, not to mention spectators, and it was a location we had not been to before so we didn't know exactly how everything was set up.  The rules also change when there is a medal at stake, particularly a gold, but also the rules change because this was a large team event not an individual one.  We eventually made it there, late, and the US already had a 1-0 lead.  Before we could watch the game, we have to find the post game press conference room and leave our tripod and mic cable, figure out where we were supposed to be post game for interviews, and coordinate with all the affiliates to make sure we knew what interviews they needed us to get for them.  To add to the pressure and excitement, NBC Nightly News had already let us know that they wanted to use some of the post game I would shoot for the national news that night, so they sent a runner to meet us and take the card from my camera post game to drive it back to the International Broadcast Centre and the Nightly studios.

The parts of the game I was able to watch were awesome and I got goose bumps because I knew how fortunate I was.  The crowd was huge and loud, all 80,203 of my closest friends and I saw a great game.  We saw about a third of the game live from inside the stadium.  We were lucky enough to have pretty good seats and saw the 2nd US goal and the Japan goal before we headed down to the bowels of the stadium to line up and wait for the post game festivities.  We were the first crew in line to wait to go out for interviews and thankfully the security guards had a little tv set up behind a fence so I could watch the last third of the game.  I didn't need the tv to find out the result of the game though, because the roar of the crowd above us was deafening.  I was so excited for the 2-1 victory and the USA gold medal, but I was not excited for what I realized would be like a stampede of cattle to get out to the field for interviews after the medal ceremony.  More and more media from all over the world showed up and we were all packed tightly together and we were breathing on each other and knocking people with our cameras and backpacks while we were stuffed in the hall.  I passed the time by talking to some very nice Kiwi guys from Sky Sports New Zealand.  

Once we could move to the field, we didn't actually move the far and we never made it on to the field.  We made it just outside the tunnel and were held back with a barrier rope on one side of the tunnel.  I did hear the National Anthem being played for our soccer stars even though I couldn't see the team on the field.  We were lined up right across from where the players families were seated in the stands and head coach Pia Sundhage was over there celebrating too.  I shot come cool video of her dancing and playing air guitar to Born in the USA!  It became a bit of pandemonium once the players got off the medal stand because some headed straight for their families and friends in the stands and some were dancing around and hugging on the field while all the tv crews in the mixed zone were all yelling and trying to get players' attention to come over for interviews.  Usually the order of importance for interviews in each venue and each mixed zone goes to the BBC first, NBC Sports second, and OBS ( Olympic Broadcast Services) third, then all the rest of us.  There were a lot of things going on at once that we were trying to manage, all while we were packed together like sardines.  We were about three people deep but I literally couldn't move sideways at all without taking someone down with my camera, so we had to hope that the players would be right in front of us at a good angle and also close enough so my producer JoEllen could get the mic in close enough to them.  We were trying to spot particular players that we needed to interview for affiliate requests but also to get a big name player over quickly because Nightly News was waiting on our sound and their deadline was quickly approaching.  To add to the challenge, was the fact that the players were no longer wearing their jerseys with numbers on them, they were wearing their Nike medal ceremony jackets.  I watch soccer and am a big fan of the women's national team and can recognize a lot of players, but it's tough when a mob of them come by and we were supposed to snag one that I only knew by name not by face and a lot of players didn't want to stop and talk anyway.  I was pretty sure we could count on vet Abby Wambach to talk and we also got young star Alex Morgan before we sent the P2 card off to Nightly News.  We ended up with about 6 player interviews total and I was able to sneak a few pics of players with their medals as we interviewed them, so all in all that was a success.

On the way to the post game press conference, we stopped by the edge of the field and took a couple of pictures.  Then we hurried up about four flights of stairs, and I had a back pack on and was carrying my rather large tv camera.  As a side note, this trip has definitely been a physical workout!  We headed to the press conference room, thinking we would get the coach and a player or two, but we had to sit through the entire Japanese press conference first, and ended up only getting the US coach Pia Sundhage.  None of the press was thrilled because we were promised a player, but we rolled with the punches and headed out to catch the bus back to the International Broadcast Centre in Olympic Park.  On the way we passed a large group of American fans cheering the Tesm USA bus as it pulled away late into the night.  By the time we got back to the I-B-C,  we rushed to catch the 1:40 am bus back to the hotel.  I found myself exhausted and eating dinner at 2:30 in the morning, but I was really happy and amazed that somehow the stars had aligned for me to be able to have that Olympic experience.

I don't know if my sound made it on Nightly News that night, since I wasn't back to see it, but the icing on the cake was walking into the dining hall the next day and seeing my Alex Morgan interview on the Today Show, amazing!