ILS1
08-17-2005, 08:50 PM
Editor's note: Traveling to 50 states in 50 days is an enormous undertaking, involving months of planning, four separate production teams (Green, Red, Yellow and Blue), lots of flights to small airports (and some bigger ones) and hours of behind-the-scenes preparation. We've enlisted Adam Willis, one of the many ESPN production assistants working on the tour, to let us know what goes into putting SportsCenter's "50 States in 50 Days" on the air.
Aug. 17: Mojo madness
First off, let me discuss the wackiness of the weather during my trips this summer.
Portland: No rain. Hood River: No wind. Seattle: Rain-free. Pacific Northwest: Not living up to its stereotype.
OK, Vegas was stereotypically hot, but then we delved deeper in the Desert Southwest.
Welcome to Odessa -- home of the world's largest jackrabbit.
It rained like crazy in Phoenix. We were dodging thunderstorms one day, standing in six inches of mud in the middle of a monsoon the next. Umm, aren't deserts supposed to be hot and dry?
And then we have Odessa, Texas. Right smack in the middle of West Texas (always capitalize the 'W,' folks). It's supposed to be one of the driest places on Earth. A half an hour after we got to our hotel, we were under a flash flood watch. On Monday, in an effort to get a shot of a pump jack oil rig, we drove out onto a "dirt," road and almost lost our minivan in a fathoms-deep lake cleverly disguised as a puddle.
OK, enough about the weather.
I read "Friday Night Lights" in preparation for our trip to watch Permian High's football team practice here. The book describes a bleak, forbidding landscape dominating the West Texas scenery. I was worried that I might be stymied in my effort to find beauty shots of Odessa and its surroundings.
As I (and photographer/artiste Bill Roach) left the hotel Monday morning, we knew only that we needed a shot of a pump jack (horse head) oil rig and that Odessa supposedly was home to the "World's Largest Jackrabbit." Due to a certain Griswoldian streak in my soul, we headed off first to visit the jackrabbit.
The rabbit is actually a relatively unremarkable statue of a rabbit no taller than six feet (which nevertheless puts it on the pole in the race for largest jackrabbit). But as Bill and I were preparing to leave the rabbit behind, serendipity and good ol' Southern hospitality caught up to us.
You can't go wrong with a tour guide named Landry.
Landry Thompson, an Odessa native and student of Texas State University, spotted our big 50*50 sign (still heavy, by the way) and came over to talk. Within minutes, Landry (named after the legendary Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry) had offered to drop what he was doing and become our de facto tour guide.
It was Landry who found us our pump jack (you'll see it on SportsCenter on Wednesday). It was Landry who took us to Sand Hills State Park (the shot of the towering dunes didn't make the show, but it was fun dragging the 50*50 sign to the top of one). It was Landry who took us to Rosa's, a great Mexican restaurant in Odessa where we ended up finding great subjects for interviews, parts of which you'll see on the show. (Many thanks to the folks at Rosa's, who invited our camera into the restaurant on two straight days and gifted us with more free food than any eight people could have eaten.
In a nutshell, Landry was our MVP. This despite the fact that he was an Odessa High alumnus and we were there to heap even more glory upon archrival Permian. Plus, he helped carry the sign.
*****
We taped our segments at Ratliff Stadium on Tuesday, with the Permian Panthers (MOJO!) practicing in the background. We stuck around until after dark to shoot the field under the lights. Sadly, we were three days too early for the whole thing to be all that poetic. But as we wrapped up, I found myself alone on the field, standing on the 50-yard line, bathed in artificial light on a warm West Texas evening. My own football "career" was a spectacular failure, but maybe I caught just a whiff of that fabled Permian Mojo.
I was ready to run. I was ready to hit. I was, quite simply, ready to play ball.
Permian's practice is over, but the 50-50 sign stays behind to soak in the Texas night.
I could have sworn it was Friday.
Thanks for everything, Odessa.
50 In 50 Blog From Odessa (http://sports.espn.go.com/chat/sportsnation/fiftyfifty/news/story?id=2110899)
:D :D
Aug. 17: Mojo madness
First off, let me discuss the wackiness of the weather during my trips this summer.
Portland: No rain. Hood River: No wind. Seattle: Rain-free. Pacific Northwest: Not living up to its stereotype.
OK, Vegas was stereotypically hot, but then we delved deeper in the Desert Southwest.
Welcome to Odessa -- home of the world's largest jackrabbit.
It rained like crazy in Phoenix. We were dodging thunderstorms one day, standing in six inches of mud in the middle of a monsoon the next. Umm, aren't deserts supposed to be hot and dry?
And then we have Odessa, Texas. Right smack in the middle of West Texas (always capitalize the 'W,' folks). It's supposed to be one of the driest places on Earth. A half an hour after we got to our hotel, we were under a flash flood watch. On Monday, in an effort to get a shot of a pump jack oil rig, we drove out onto a "dirt," road and almost lost our minivan in a fathoms-deep lake cleverly disguised as a puddle.
OK, enough about the weather.
I read "Friday Night Lights" in preparation for our trip to watch Permian High's football team practice here. The book describes a bleak, forbidding landscape dominating the West Texas scenery. I was worried that I might be stymied in my effort to find beauty shots of Odessa and its surroundings.
As I (and photographer/artiste Bill Roach) left the hotel Monday morning, we knew only that we needed a shot of a pump jack (horse head) oil rig and that Odessa supposedly was home to the "World's Largest Jackrabbit." Due to a certain Griswoldian streak in my soul, we headed off first to visit the jackrabbit.
The rabbit is actually a relatively unremarkable statue of a rabbit no taller than six feet (which nevertheless puts it on the pole in the race for largest jackrabbit). But as Bill and I were preparing to leave the rabbit behind, serendipity and good ol' Southern hospitality caught up to us.
You can't go wrong with a tour guide named Landry.
Landry Thompson, an Odessa native and student of Texas State University, spotted our big 50*50 sign (still heavy, by the way) and came over to talk. Within minutes, Landry (named after the legendary Dallas Cowboys coach Tom Landry) had offered to drop what he was doing and become our de facto tour guide.
It was Landry who found us our pump jack (you'll see it on SportsCenter on Wednesday). It was Landry who took us to Sand Hills State Park (the shot of the towering dunes didn't make the show, but it was fun dragging the 50*50 sign to the top of one). It was Landry who took us to Rosa's, a great Mexican restaurant in Odessa where we ended up finding great subjects for interviews, parts of which you'll see on the show. (Many thanks to the folks at Rosa's, who invited our camera into the restaurant on two straight days and gifted us with more free food than any eight people could have eaten.
In a nutshell, Landry was our MVP. This despite the fact that he was an Odessa High alumnus and we were there to heap even more glory upon archrival Permian. Plus, he helped carry the sign.
*****
We taped our segments at Ratliff Stadium on Tuesday, with the Permian Panthers (MOJO!) practicing in the background. We stuck around until after dark to shoot the field under the lights. Sadly, we were three days too early for the whole thing to be all that poetic. But as we wrapped up, I found myself alone on the field, standing on the 50-yard line, bathed in artificial light on a warm West Texas evening. My own football "career" was a spectacular failure, but maybe I caught just a whiff of that fabled Permian Mojo.
I was ready to run. I was ready to hit. I was, quite simply, ready to play ball.
Permian's practice is over, but the 50-50 sign stays behind to soak in the Texas night.
I could have sworn it was Friday.
Thanks for everything, Odessa.
50 In 50 Blog From Odessa (http://sports.espn.go.com/chat/sportsnation/fiftyfifty/news/story?id=2110899)
:D :D