The coolest night ever

It's hard to believe that it was eight years ago already. I was 19 years old and quite possibly experienced the coolest night of my life. It's funny how much has changed in the eight years but the memories remain fresh in my mind.

It started at a Seton Hall basketball game. I had a video camera for Pirate TV which put me on the floor for the game. It was December 4, 2000 and the Pirates were hosting Norfolk State University. It was a crappy game so it was held on campus in the teeny tiny Walsh Gym and not at Continental Airlines Arena where the rest of the home games were played that year. This turned out to be a huge game for two reasons, both revolving around the All-American freshman Eddie Griffin. Griffin would complete the school's very first triple double, hitting for double figures in points, rebounds and blocked shots. But he would also get hurt in this game. Here we were, a top 10 program with perhaps the best freshman in the country and he goes down with a knee injury. As previously mentioned, this was a crappy game that nobody cared about... including the media. So all of a sudden, this 19 year old kid had perhaps the most important sports video in the tri-state area.

My friend John had the idea first to call ESPN to see if they may want the tape of the injury. If you knew me at the time, you knew that my only goal in life was to eventually work for ESPN, half of my wardrobe had those four glorious letters stitched on the front, so to call ESPN and ask if they wanted my video was really cool. But the coolest part was the fact that they said YES! We started talking about satellite coordinates and how we could beam the video up to Bristol from South Orange NJ. I was slightly embarassed when I had to tell them that we could barely make popcorn at the tv studio on campus let alone beam anything to anywhere. So it was decided that we would drive into Manhattan and stop by ABC to drop off the tape.

It was around midnight when we got to ABC. They had to wait until the Monday Night Football game was over before they could send it up to Bristol but our work was done: Two college kids drove into Manhattan at midnight and dropped off exclusive video to ABC sports and ultimately ESPN. It was even better the next day when I received phone calls from CBS and Fox, among other stations, that also wanted a copy of our video.

For a day and a half, I was the luckiest guy in the world. Lucky to be at the game with a video camera, lucky to have a friend with an idea and a car and lucky to be in college twelve miles outside of the media capital of the world.

A lot has changed in eight years. My friendship has been up and down for various reasons. The All American freshman left for the NBA after this only season at the Hall, had some success before getting mixed up with drugs and alcohol and ultimately died a year ago when his SUV hit a train. But, I still have those four letters stitched onto my clothes as a proud host for an ESPN Radio affiliate.