prep football: Televised gridiron

Station broadcasts high school games on day after they occur

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By KEVIN STOTT

VIEW STAFF WRITER

With ESPN networks airing 13 prep football games this year, Fox Sports Net showing eight games, MTV unveiling its reality series "Two-A-Days" about top-ranked Hoover (Ala.) High School, and NBC premiering its new show "Friday Night Lights" at 8 p.m. today, it seems there has never been more high school football on the tube and never more interest than right now.

Stepping up to meet the local demand for prep gridiron action is Vegas TV, KTUD, cable Channel 14 and television Channel 25. The station recently unveiled "Under the Desert Lights," its own program. It features the broadcast of a prep game at 6 p.m. every Saturday during the regular season and three playoff games in November, with the final broadcast of the Class 4A NIAA state championship game airing at 5 p.m. on Dec. 3.

Steve Carlston, the president and managing partner of Las Vegas Television Partners, which owns Vegas TV and Sun Media Productions, decided to create a show for the Las Vegas high school football fan.

"(The idea) actually came from me, but it's not an original thought," Carlston said. "A lot of stations down in Texas do things like this. Where it really started was when I ran the Fox television in Salt Lake (City). We invented a thing called 'Friday Night Lights,' which Channel 13 (KTNV) is doing now. The news director of Channel 13 here locally, Dick Tuninga, is my old news director, and he's doing the same thing we did up there. It's like the highlights. The title came from Salt Lake and then one of my employees who is my sales manager bought a small station in Park City and started a weekly football game (program) up there.

"When we became Vegas TV, the whole concept of Vegas TV is to be a local, hometown station. We're trying to be family friendly and kind of view ourselves as family night every night, and the first thing I thought we could do was to show the local high school football game of the week, which we hope will branch off into some other sports."

While Vegas TV has the potential to air prep games live, Carlston said, he said he thought it was best for now to preserve the relationships with the high schools that depend on fans attending games as a source of income.

"The other thing we decided to do instead of airing it Friday night when football fans are at the games is to move it over to Saturday night before everybody goes out so they get a chance to watch the game," Carlston said. "It allows us to put it in a time period where people can watch it.

"The other thing we didn't want to do is take audiences away from the high schools because that's how they generate revenue. What we are trying to do is enhance the product that currently exists and also serve the community. If we aired the game on a Friday night, it wouldn't serve the community."

The first three games broadcast by KTUD -- Desert Pines vs. Clark on Sept. 9, Rancho vs. Del Sol on Sept. 16 and Bonanza vs. Bishop Gorman on Sept. 23 -- had some expected glitches during the broadcasts, Carlston said.

"I saw the first week, but I didn't see the second," he said. "The people producing it for us do a great job, but they haven't done it for three years. And like any first broadcast, there's always going to be some bugs. And from what I heard, the second week was better."

Proof "Under the Desert Lights" still had some production kinks to work out was evident during its Sept. 16 broadcast of the Del Sol-Rancho game.

After Del Sol's Tim Johnson scored the game's first touchdown and the Dragons prepared for a two-point conversion, the back of a man's head appeared directly in front of the camera for a couple of seconds. The cameraman then missed the ball carrier actually running in for the two-point conversion, and then play-by-play announcer Chris Maathuis said heading to the commercial break, "It's 7-0 with 10:35 to play in the first," missing the reality that Del Sol's two-point conversion actually made the score 8-0.

Palo Verde High School coach Darwin Rost said he approves of the new program. "I have seen it and I like it," Rost said.

With a producer, a director, six cameras, Maathuis on play-by-play, and former UNLV and Clark High School standout Randy Black providing commentary, Carlston said it's a pretty significant production for a new program.

"It's a big commitment to a high school game," he said. "The one negative about high school football, you just have to deal with it, is that they're (prep stadiums), not lit like a college stadium."

Some features "Under the Desert Lights" has included to make the production more like a big-time telecast are pre-game interviews with the coaches, a halftime interview with the home team's principal -- Del Sol principal John Barlow explained how the 2-year-old school decided on its Dragons nickname during the Sept. 16 broadcast -- and a Player of the Game award, with each honoree receiving a plaque and T-shirt.

Carlston also said there are plans in the works next year -- he said there is "a long-term commitment" to the show -- for a Teacher of the Game, which would entail the home team's principal voting on an educator to be honored from his or her school.

"I wanted the schools to start to gain pride in the academic program, as well, because athletics is just a momentary thing in people's lives," Carlston said.

Vegas TV had at least 17 of the 29 Class 4A high schools on the schedule in its first year, and Carlston said KTUD would make it a point to include every school in the valley in the first two years.

"We're trying to show everybody," he said. "There's so many schools and just so many weeks. There's no favoritism. We tried to move it around. We're going to try and get every team on."

Besides serving as a scouting tool for opposing coaches and providing a possible video keepsake for the future -- copies of games can be bought for $20 from Sun Media Productions -- Carlston said the broadcasts give the high school football fan a chance to watch some of the other teams in the area.

"If you go to school at Green Valley but want to see one of the other schools like Bishop Gorman, you're not going to be able to see it on a Friday night, but you can watch it on the following night," Carlston said.

He also said that KTUD was considering the development of similar shows in other prep sports in the future.

"Basketball would be the next open hole for us," said Carlston, who once played on BYU's basketball team. "We've actually offered to UNLV to carry their games."

Trying to create a memorable image for the new program, Vegas TV came up with a picture of The Meadows School's quarterback Graham Hilts holding up two fingers in a victory sign toward the lights of an empty stadium at night.

"We wanted someone that represented the community," Carlston said. "The 'V' in victory he's holding up is obviously synonymous with the 'V' in Vegas TV."

The Green Valley resident said the station's philosophy is to cater totally to local families. "There's 35 million people that visit and 1.7 million that live here and what we're trying to do is service the people that work, go to school, feed their kids, ride their bikes in the mountains, swim in the lakes," Carlston said. "This is about the hometown Vegas marketplace, not about the Strip."