Category Archives: Game day live

Game Day: Fall, for sure

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I mean, in your part of the country anyway, I’m sure it’s fall. But here in Minneapolis I woke up to snow on the ground. Not enough to last the day or affect any games around here, probably, but just a reminder that Oct. 10 is … yeah, way, way too early for snow.

I’ll be watching Concordia-Moorhead (Division III team No. 120 on my list of whom I’ve seen) at No. 15 St. Thomas, basically as prep for next week’s Game of the Week broadcast of the St. Thomas-St. John’s game. Ryan Tipps is at the Emory & Henry/Hampden-Sydney game, while Gordon Mann is at FDU-Florham at Delaware Valley. The short trip is my deal with the folks at home. New rule in the Coleman house: If I take a plane one weekend, I stay home or stay in the Twin Cities the next weekend. Keeps the peace.

I still have a few Minnesota schools I haven’t seen yet and will get to those eventually. Hamline will be the only MIAC team I haven’t seen, then throw in a bunch of stadiums I’ve never seen a game at: Hamline, Carleton, Concordia, Crown … pretty much you name it.

Looking at this week’s schedule on paper has me thinking not at all about last week, where there weren’t a lot of games where we could foresee upsets. We have two games between Top 25 teams (No. 1 Mount Union at No. 21 Capital, No. 22 Redlands at No. 24 Occidental), and then UW-Whitewater, Mary Hardin-Baylor, Wheaton, Linfield, Central, Case Western Reserve, Monmouth, Otterbein, St. Thomas, Cortland State and Ithaca are each playing teams where you could conceivably pick them to lose.

Stick around, watch, listen, follow live stats. The wireless connection at St. Thomas wasn’t great the last time I was there but we’ll see. I’ll be on Twitter at least from my phone, hopefully blogging.

Game Day: A double homecoming

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That’s what I have today, anyway: homecoming at Allegheny and at Mount Union. I will throw it open now. What’s up today?

We’ve got Keith McMillan at Frostburg State-Wesley, Gordon Mann at Del Val-Leb Val and Jason Bowen at East Texas Baptist-McMurry and Mary Hardin-Baylor/Hardin-Simmons.

Meanwhile, an overcast day here at Allegheny, temperature in the low- to mid-60’s, a little wind. No swamp here anymore, just artificial turf.

Color guy for Allegheny just proclaimed this game against Wabash as “clearly the two best teams in the conference here today.” Not sure I agree but eventually we’ll find out.

Game Day live: From the desk

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There’s nothing I love more about this job than calling play-by-play of a Division III football game. I grew up loving sports on the radio, and living in Ypsilanti, Mich., as an impressionable youngster, I got to listen to Detroit Tigers legend Ernie Harwell call baseball games on WJR.

If I’m not broadcasting, I like being on the sidelines taking pictures, as it gets me right up close to the action. Not taking pictures? In the press box watching the game. But when I’m doing that, I’m distracted by the other 100 games going on the same day.

This week, none of that — I’m at home. I’ve seen five games through the first three weeks of the season and this is how I keep the peace with my family. It’s time to sit back and watch things unfold from the D3sports.com newsdesk here in Minneapolis. So I’ll have multiple live stats windows open, as many video streams as our crappy Comcast bandwidth will allow, and will follow live audio, Twitter and any other updates that are available.

In short, I’m like you are, today, if your team is on the road and you’re not there. Expect lots of updates. Ryan Tipps is at Gettysburg-Muhlenberg and we have photographers out in the field as well.

By the way, you’d hear a little of Ernie Harwell in every football or basketball broadcast I do. When you hear me rattle through that copyright/disclaimer at the end of the game, that’s verbatim what I heard him say at the end of every broadcast from about 1979 to 1983. Harwell is 91 now, recently revealed he has cancer and is on a bit of a farewell tour. Bless him.