Onto Thin Air

The UMD activities fair finally took place, yesterday and today, and I went to it twice hoping to get a more in depth glance at what I could participate in at Maryland. Often, when I asked college kids on my prospective college visits what they would have done differently if they could do it over, they'd say: "I just wish I had gotten involved earlier." I didn't want that to be me. I also had read about the exploits of David (down at the unmentionable school that starts with a D), and wanted something similar. Improv is a great activity for him, but what could be the counterpart for me?

On Wednesday I went the "First Look Fair" and was quite overwhelmed. There were a lot of tables with everyone hawking free stuff, or trying to get your attention. Problem was, there wasn't too much I was interested in. There was some cool stuff, but nothing that really made me say: "Oh! I want to sign up for that!"

I came back to the dorm, and Jonathan the roomy pulled out a flyer and said: "Did you see this? An open house tomorrow night. We should go to it." I nodded. "Sounds cool."

"Oooh, but there's also this free comedy show the same night," he said.
"Good point."
"Whatever, let's go to the open house. That might actually lead to something."
"Yeah, you're definitely right," I said, and it was decided.

Today I went back to the fair, but there wasn't that much new to see. I got some free stuff (2 frisbees and a keychain, not to mention roomy got a flag and a bunch of posters), signed up for some more stuff that I was lukewarm about, and then took off for a class. As the time was approaching for the open house we were getting a little more excited. This could be cool.

Well, that went out of our mind when we saw the meeting room. It was attached to the side of the diner, but had plaster all over the walls, and was quite bare. There wasn't much too it, and it seemed a little run down. But we found the room we needed to go to by following the bubbling sound of voices, and were ushered into a very crowded room. "I'm sorry we don't have more applications," said someone who was quite obviously in charge. "We'll try and run some more off quickly."

Roomy and I were looking around with wide eyes, trying to figure out what was going on, when someone came into the room and asked: "Anyone here for sports radio? Raise your hands." Roomy and I raised our hands, and looked around the room. We were the only ones with our hands up. "No competition," we shrugged to one another.

Off we went, following someone named Adam. "MAN of the HOUSE" read his nametag. "We're in the middle of a Q and A session with Bob Carpenter, actually," he explained to us. "We'll slip you in, and afterwards, let you know the deal about radio." He led us to a room, but before we went in, we ran into a couple people standing outside of it. "Umm, we need this room," they said to Adam. "We have to move again? Damn..." They shrugged an apology and we walked in. "We're gonna have to go out into the hall, sorry," Adam announced.

"You know, there'd be a lot of announcers in the business I know who wouldn't be happy about this, but I'm not one of them," he joked. Bob Carpenter, if you don't know, is the play by play guy for the Washington Nationals on the Mid-Atlantic Sports Network (MASN). For the next hour we got to stand in the hallway and ask questions of a guy who's worked for ESPN, and has done baseball play by play games for over 20 years. And if that wasn't enough, here's the kicker:

"By the way, if you guys want to come down to a Nats' game next week, and watch how we call it from inside the press box, or inside the producer truck, we'd love to have you. Not too many kids, but maybe the 10 to 15 of you that are here now could come down, and we'd get you press passes."

An incredible experience, and when it was over, we learned more about possibly getting a show, or broadcasting games. "You can start out almost immediately with your own sports talk show, that'll go out over the internet. We just need you to pick some time slots. And if you want to work some games, that'll be tough, but if you put in the time producing games, help us out when we need help, and prove yourself a good announcer, you'll definitely move up the ranks quickly."

"When I was a freshman," the sports director continued, "this place was a dump. Sports radio was very low on the radar. And now, here we are with Bob Carpenter coming in here, we're broadcasting every major sport and even starting to do softball next semester...this place is on the rise. It's an exciting time to join WMUC - I wish I was a freshman now. So feel lucky."

If this night was anything like what my further experience will be, I sure as hell will.