Many people enjoy and look forward to Friday Night Lights, the smell of popcorn, the announcers booming with school spirit and the touchdown cheers. All of the elements of a football game combine to form a memorable night for students, parents, athletes and fans, but the preparation that goes into these Friday nights is immense.
Athletic director Joe Benoit says that “it’s easily 25 to 30 people a game” in regards to how many people they need in order to make sure the games run smoothly.
It all starts at the front gates where Cathleen Kruse runs the ticket booth. Kruse, Benoit and the North groundskeeper all work together to set up the gates every Friday.
“[We] set up all the gates and the lines here for the tickets, and we have our home gate, we have our visitor gate, we have our student gate, we have a gate for anyone with a booster pass,” said Kruse.
Running the gates takes a lot of work, too, as there is much to be done to make sure the game is safe for everyone. Kruse is the ticket manager, so she is in charge of assigning people different jobs at the front entrance.
“Some of them [the people working the entrances] are taking money, and we’re just making sure, along with our Dean’s, [that] backpacks are safe to be brought into the stadium, not allowing drinks in,” said Kruse.
Manning the gates is no easy feat, especially on “popular” game nights.
“On popular nights, like Homecoming, we have [3,000] or 4,000 people that flood through these gates,” said Benoit.
The security measures do not stop there, though. There are security people all over the stadium communicating via radio to make sure the game remains a safe place for everyone.
“If there is a concern, [like] a spectator who is not following expectations for sportsmanship and integrity from the stands after they’ve[a member of the security team] spoken with them, they may need an administrator to come over and intervene,” said Benoit.
Even with safety concerns handled, it is a whole different task to make sure the game is fun and enjoyed by all. A big part of this is the booth, where announcements about the game and activities surrounding the game are made. History teacher Micheal Zernone runs the booth.
If there are big announcements to be made he is given a script to read off of, but otherwise, everything he says is on the fly.
“It’s my job to kind of tell the fans what’s going on, like who the ball carrier is, or who made a good tackle, or if there’s a penalty,” said Zernone.
He does not do it all alone, though. There are five to six people up in the booth with him helping to make sure it runs smoothly.
“It’s a pretty well-oiled machine up there, and it needs to be because there’s a lot of fans out there, … so we do a really good job of kind of just working together and making sure that we make as few mistakes as possible,” said Zernone.
In addition to Zernone, the announcer, there are other people in the booth, as well, like spotters Tressa Macaluso, Charles Izzo and Grant Jacobsen, who alert him as to what is happening on the field. Justin Moriarty controls the clock and Jared Wyllys is in control of the scoreboard.
“I am very fortunate to have people in the booth with me that are helping me. They’ll give me the number of a player that made the pass or caught the pass, or made the tackle or kicked the ball, and then I’ll read the kid’s name on there. We have to work together,” said Zernone.
The actual football game being played is a whole other aspect of Friday Night Lights that the people working need to ensure occurs as easily and safely as possible. Benoit is in charge of making sure that the officials have what they need to officiate, making sure that football coach Rob Pomazak and his coaching staff have what they need from an on field setup.
The athletic team even has to make sure that they set up a good experience for people not in attendance of the game.
“There’s the live stream, making sure that that is [working] for our families and our community members that want to support the team but can’t come into the stadium or are watching from afar,” said Kruse.
The football games require lots of preparation and teamwork from the people in charge of making it a good time for everyone, and every week they try to get better and more efficient at their jobs. Even with all the preparation, sometimes the games do not go perfectly according to plan.
“Every time we have to react to things, we come back the next week and say, ‘How can we be better? Could we have avoided that?’ Those are really important aspects of it,” said Benoit.
