On my NBC experience

     Last week, I told you I’d write about my experiences with NBC. This is a tough post to write for a couple of reasons. First, it still hasn’t really sunk in yet. I haven’t had a moment where I could sit back, breathe, and think, “Wow. I just helped make the Olympics happen!” I don’t know if that moment will ever really hit me. It’s amazing to think about, but it still in some ways feels like a dream. Second, it’s hard to figure out what to include! There was so much cool stuff that happened! I mean, it’s the freakin’ Olympics!! Even when things didn’t go right, it was still such a blessing and an incredible opportunity to be there that things were still good anyway. I’ll try to keep this post short, but if people want more stories/details, I can elaborate, either in the comments or in a separate post.

     The Olympic adventure began even before I got to the hotel. My flight out of Peoria airport was delayed first when they oversold the number of seats on the plane. A gentleman got off the plane so another man could have his seat (the airline compensated him quite well for doing so). Then, because it was snowing and not everyone on the ground crew had shown up, we had to wait to de-ice the plane. After sitting and waiting for about half an hour, we got in the air and landed in Chicago. I met my friend Tim at O’Hare. Tim and I, along with our friend Jesse, were all taking the same flight from Chicago to White Plains, NY. About an hour before our flight was supposed to take off, we get a text from Jesse saying his flight was delayed further, and he didn’t know if he was going to make the flight. Tim and I were hoping and cheering for a delay on our flight so Jesse could join us. And sure enough, there was! Apparently, the flight crew needed to change the seat covers (a reason I haven’t heard of for delaying a flight, but I’ll take it!). Meanwhile, we see on the screens that Jesse’s flight has landed, but they have not yet arrived at the gate. Long story short, Jesse was able to meet up with us and get on the plane. Other passengers looked at us like we were crazy when we celebrated the delay, but after explaining our situation and that we were interning with NBC, they were cheering for delays too. No medals were awarded that day, but Jesse won the sprints for sure! We took a shuttle to our hotel in Stamford, CT, where we would be working during the Games.

     After a few days of training, it was finally time for the Opening Ceremonies. Whether we were working or not, all of the interns went to the highlight factory (HLF), and watched the Ceremonies live on a 30 foot screen. It’s amazing to see how much work went into putting the show on, especially when it came to putting things together for the rest of the U.S. to watch it in Primetime. Without going into too much detail (again, for contract reasons), throughout the Games, I was cutting highlights and logging tapes. I covered mostly hockey, but I also put pieces together for curling, moguls, ski jumping, ski halfpipe, luge, bobsled, and nordic combined. Using Avid and OPIS technologies, my job was to cut clips which would then be sent to editors for rebroadcast, either on-air or on-demand at NBCOlympics.com. It’s hard to describe the feeling of being able to go to the website, look at a video and say to yourself, “I made this happen.” Even as I write this, I’m at a loss for words to describe the experience.

     One of the most powerful moments during the Games was during the Women’s Gold Medal hockey game between USA and Canada. The end of the game was everything you could want as a hockey fan. Canada came back from a 2-0 deficit in the last 3 minutes to force overtime. Canada scored on a powerplay in overtime to steal the Gold away from USA. Throughout the medal ceremony and for about the next half hour, HLF was silent. It was like there was no one in the room. For the rest of my shift, no one said anything. When the other interns and I were leaving, we didn’t say goodbye to each other. We just looked at each other, nodded, and went our separate ways for the day. That may have been the “worst” day and NBC, but even still, it was a good day, simply because we were there.

     The hardest thing to do was to get on the plane back to the real world at the end of the Olympics. For those three and a half weeks, I was living the dream. I don’t think I’ve had an experience in my life that was more edifying, encouraging, and that made me felt like I was on the right career path. I was so in my element there that I kind of suffered a bit of culture shock when I got back to Bradley. I even forgot what the room number was for my classroom on my first day back to classes! Had NBC offered me a position while I was in Connecticut, I would’ve accepted in a heartbeat (and if anyone from NBC is reading this, I still would!!). I am so blessed to have had the opportunity to go, and to be able to work with such an amazing group of people is an experience I will never forget.