DEAN JACKSON, TV SPORTSCASTER - Coming to a TV near you

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 2 - BROADCAST UPDATE - Well! I survived my first television broadcast. I gotta admit it was a lot of fun and lot more fun then I ever dreamed. After more than a dozen years in radio, it finally happened. Hidden earpieces, directors talking in ear, instant replays, last second production audibles, lots of filling, lots of thinking on my fee, my mug on camera, a couple re-takes, lots of hurry up and wait. I can't wait for my next assignment. Friends who watched were impressed, the crew seemed surprised I'd never done tv.

THURSDAY, AUGUST 31 - FRANKFORT, Ind-

Frankfort vs. Crawfordsville, Indiana High School football.

About this time tomorrow night I'll be wrapping up my first true television sports broadcast. Not bad for a guy just about three weeks ago had shaved his head on a whim. We'll its grown back and it should look okay. Give me a couple days and I could be challenging Sampson. It's really funny. I had no tape, and I never sent them a resume. I think I simply emailed. Well, should be fun. Have checked in with everyone from the executive produce to the director, to my color commentator, well both of them, one backed out Tuesday. Right now - one eye is on the tv, one eye is on the game notes and research that i've been studying all week.

The Mouse

Here's a sappy story about our inter-connectedness with our friends and the network of people around us. I got this from an email, hopefully it will mean something to you.

Mouse Story

Mouse Story

A mouse looked through the crack in the wall to see the farmer and his wife open a package.

"What food might this contain?" The mouse wondered - he was devastated to discover it was a mousetrap.

Retreating to the farmyard, the mouse proclaimed the warning. "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!"

The chicken clucked and scratched, raised her head and said, "Mr. Mouse, I can tell this is a grave concern to you but it is of no consequence to me. I cannot be bothered by it."

The mouse turned to the pig and told him, "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!"

The pig sympathized, but said, "I am so very sorry, Mr. Mouse, but there is nothing I can do about it but pray. Be assured you are in my prayers."
The mouse turned to the cow and said, "There is a mousetrap in the house! There is a mousetrap in the house!"
The cow said, "Wow, Mr. Mouse. I'm sorry for you, but it's no skin off my nose."
So, the mouse returned to the house, head down and dejected, to face the farmer's mousetrap-- alone.
That very night a sound was heard throughout the house -- like the sound of a mousetrap catching its prey.
The farmer's wife rushed to see what was caught. In the darkness, she did not see it was a venomous snake whose tail the trap had caught.
The snake bit the farmer's wife.

The farmer rushed her to the hospital and she returned home with a fever.

Everyone knows you treat a fever with fresh chicken soup, so the farmer took his hatchet to the farmyard for the soup's main ingredient.
But his wife's sickness continued, so friends and neighbors came to sit with her around the clock.

To feed them, the farmer butchered the pig.
The farmer's wife did not get well; she died.

So many people came for her funeral, the farmer had the cow slaughtered to provide enough meat for all of them.
The mouse looked upon it all from his crack in the wall with great sadness.
So, the next time you hear someone is facing a problem and think it doesn't concern you, remember -- when one of us is threatened, we are all at risk.

We are all involved in this journey called life.

We must keep an eye out for one another and make an extra effort to encourage one another.

REMEMBER: EACH OF US IS A VITAL THREAD IN ANOTHER PERSON'S TAPESTRY; OUR LIVES ARE WOVEN TOGETHER FOR A REASON. One of the best things to hold onto in this world is a friend.

GOODBYE SUMMER - repost

I originally posted this in 2006, just as true now as ever.

I am so not ready for high school football. I love the game. Football truly is the greatest thing to happen to the fall since the hayride. I just hate the first week of the season. It’s the mad dash to get everything finished. The commercials, the audio, everything. It’s like tax season for the tax evader. Okay maybe.

I think I know why it just bugs me. Every August 13, I am hit with a sobering fact. I am not 22 and this cocky, brash, goofy college student matriculating in Huntington County.. I am a brash, goofy, flippant, sometimes ingenious sportscaster. It’s the idea that my misspent youth is slipping further into the cobwebs of my mind. It is pretty dusty there.

August is the last gasp of summer defending its turf. Pack up the shorts and the lemonade, soon it will be hot chocolate and long johns. Can Geritol and Metamucil be that far behind. Speaking of behind, there’s that visit to the doctor in a few years for that one check up… Oh boy. Don’t remind me.

But, there is something great about football in the fall. It’s reminder that you can not only endure the cold and bitter, you can thrive on it. You can dig deep and wrap your arms around it and you can let it define you. It does define you it grabs you. It says with the help of my friends I can get through. It says I am not in it alone… with a little bit of work even the high-tech game of football is simple and understandable in the context of all its parts.

And those parts are like life. You have to have every one of them, you have to have each one in combination together or you’ll get crushed. You’ll lose out. My friend, look at your life, look at its component parts. Are you neglecting anything? Think about it and really answer what am I missing. What can I do to really re-tool and reinvest myself for the rest of my life?

There was a motto from the football coach at my high school, we’ll actually too. The opportunistic Woodlan Warriors operated under the rallying cry of “Make it Happen.” You had to take responsibility. You had to define the moment. You had to make life your own. And there was another saying that coach would say. “Don’t count the days, make the days count. Pretty simple. Fill your moments with hard work and effort and get after it.

So, bring on football. Bring on the fall. I don’t have to love it, but I can enjoy it.

...just did it

I did it. After a few days of pretty serious consideration, I trimmed it ALL off. I just wanted to do something different. I wanted to just do something for me. Something crazy, but not really out of line… I shaved my head. Yes, I literally did. Within minutes the clippers did the trick and move over Vin Diesel. I don’t know why so much, but other than I had to. I was compelled to. No, not to impress anyone, not some personal statement to voice, I just had to. I can’t explain it. So I did, I love it. Might never have hair again. Risky, nah, there’s always a ball cap. It will always grow back

By the way, I just want everyone to know that with Jim Shovlin, Bobby Petras and myself, we'll be the first all shaven head broadcast team in Fort Wayne sports history. Funny thing is, wasn't planned.

The Day Football died

HAMILTON, Ind., — Friday was a big day in the history of Hamilton High School. You wouldn’t know it.

August 11, 1986. The day football died in Hamilton. Two decades have passed since the Friday night lights of the football stadium ripped through the Steuben County sky.

One man still remembers.

John Dutton was a thirty-something young man when he got the news. It still feels like a punch to the gut every August. A program he was committed to didn’t have the same dedication from the people who we entrust our children’s education to.

Just days before the season was to start, a group of so-and-sos pulled the plug.

John didn’t put me up to this story. Those of you who know John know that’s not his style. He’s not one to desire controversy or ruffle feathers.

This is all my opinion. Be upset at me.

Though I can’t confirm it, I have been told that the program always paid for itself. Critics say there weren’t enough kids in the school who really wanted to play. But there were enough to field a team.

Funny, you know, that the lessons we teach aren’t really followed. We teach young people that sports build character. That it’s not how you win or lose, but how you play the game. That in the process of playing, something happens to you that makes you bigger and better.

But 20 years ago, a school board told about two dozen kids it wasn’t even worth trying anymore. Football wasn’t important enough to fight for. That there was a price tag connected to the high school experience and the school wasn’t going to pay it. It simply didn’t make sense.

Maybe they were lulled into the great insurance liability thinking. Whatever it was, Hamilton will never be the same.

When practically every other public school within 50 miles of Hamilton are playing pigskin, Hamilton kids went to movies, parties, shopping or just stayed home. Lots of educational opportunities in that, don’t you think?

John’s moved on. He’s not bitter. He’s got his football fix, either as a coach or broadcasting at any number of outlets around northeast Indiana. Or if he’s lucky, he’ll take a trip to see his Buckeyes in Columbus, Ohio.

But he still misses it. Like an old love, you never forget those memories, the anniversaries, the songs. The way you were.

I wonder if Hamilton misses it. I wonder if anyone just stops and dares to ask, or if the soldiers of September and October just don’t share their hurt and their memories.

Making friends with a rock

Sioux Falls, SD - I was just going out for a walk. A little distraction while waiting for a ride to the airport. If you do any type of exercise you need to go 30 or 40 minutes to get any benefit. I didn't really have a course, I just set out on foot and went to it. After about 20 minutes of treking across the parking lot and over to the mall I found them. Two rocks.

I kicked the black one away, (kinda symbolic of a situation I was dealing with. I wantetd to just get right of it for a while. It hurt. It wasn't something I was prepared to deal with.) I kept marching kicking the rock a little more, then finally i just let the stone fly. It felt good. It was like saying so long problems because I was walking away. About 10 minutes later I backtracked on the same route. I went over and looked at the rock, picked it up. Of course as you remember it had a white color to it and the gold on the sides. I put it in my pocket. Then I walked over to the other rock, you remember the black one. What happened next stunned me. The black rock was situated next to a little pebble, very close to the pebble. The pebble had its own unique texture and look, but it was the black stone that made me stop. I picked it up. I saw little specks of white on the black rock. Like they were woven into it.

Still curious, I pulled the white rock out of my pocket. I rubbed the black and white stone together. Wouldn't you know. Those same whitish marks came from the rubbing of the white and golden stone on the black rock. I kept rubbing more and more of the dark scuffed away. But something also happened to the lighter rock. It became smoother. The parts that rubbed off on the black rock were smoothed off. The Black rock also had its smooth parts.

I almost cried. I realized this was an object lesson about a friendship with a person who was struggling. A person who needed a friend, a confidant and I needed to be involved with them. That I couldn't check out or quit.

Here's the moral of the story. Our friends need us in their trials and struggles and when we get involved we leave a mark on them and we make their paths smoother. But, the other point, we need them. We need to help and be invested in helping in the lives of our friends. Its in the tough times, the rubbing of adversity that you connect in the lifes of others...and in the the connecting you are molded and your life is smoothed out as well.

Know your limits. Know what is safe for you. But, don't run from your friends in times of need. Stand your ground on what you know is right, but don't withhold yourself from your friends.

I can't wait to tell this story.

Football time

For those of us who’s world revolves around football, this is the greatest time of the year. It’s just like those days that build up to Christmas or a birthday or a vacation.

The term “two-day” conjures up all type of mystical things. When young men are honed over coals of the August sun and shaped into one team. It’s an object lesson where the sweat and tears of pain and exhaustion symbolize the weakness that is escaping the body.

It’s a man and whistle screaming out orders, as if he were building soliders, not just student-athletes who are playing for fun.

It’s this type of environment that has many a young men comparing military service to playing football. It’s this type of thinking that had General Douglas MacArthur,saying “On the field of friendly strife are sown the seeds that on other days and other fields will bear the fruits of victory.”

No other sport is so connected to the entire the team. No other sport is connected to hard work and being physical. No other sport its about the mental game. No other sport can you have finesse and power and strategy all wrapped up in one.

That’s why we love football so much. That’s why we have guys living the dream in semi-pro football leagues into their forties. That’s why we watch indoor and Arena football. There are now nearly 100 teams across that play inside of arena. Its why we have about two dozen bowl games, its why the NFL draft weekend is a party. We love football.

And that’s why, I am ready for some football.