Looking around, I see all my friends excited and energized, but why? Didn’t we all just wake up during summer at 7 am to work for 5 hours at school? I don’t know why, but we were all very delighted to take a 3-hour bus ride through the flats of Texas to Dallas. Whatever it was, it must’ve been something fun.

And I’d have to say it was, what other high school organization can say that they went to a Cowboys football game for school-related purposes – and be telling the truth? But not just were we going to see the opening game of the newly renovated Cowboy’s stadium, we were going to be in a behind-the-scenes tour of the stadium – on their opening game day. Is that even supposed to be able to happen for a high school football video crew?

Riding the elevator, travelling through the levels (it was very helpful knowing the newly designed layout without the tens of thousands of fans), and walking through the very same field-level entrance the Dallas Cowboys themselves would use later that night to make their star appearance. Their locker room, the cheerleader’s locker room, million-dollar party suites and a ridiculously sized ‘God-Tron’ LED screen all boiled down to one thing for us – the control room for the Dallas Cowboy’s stadium.

“Wow.” “No way!” “Incredible.” All of us little high school students were chirping in glee not only because of the sheer size and sophistication of the technology of the room, but because we already recognized it. The switcher, robotic cameras, graphics, RCU’s – we all knew how to use nearly every piece of equipment in that massive headquarters.

Through the state-of-the-art Dallas Cowboy’s Stadium, we had realized the true extent of this group, of this video crew. We’ll have fun for the entire length of the football season, we’ll spend hours upon hours with friends, but really, be a part of something bigger than ourselves. We are getting the knowledge to go directly into the field years earlier than others could imagine, we could go film college football – during college – and we could say that we were a part of the Television Broadcast Crew at Westlake.

Even if we don’t go choose this path as a profession, who else could put on their resume, that they (truly) have the ability to work their high school football video crew job at the NFL Dallas Stadium?

--Robert Jameson
Video Engineer
TV Broadcast Crew 2009