By Sarah Lahne
With the Dukes game against Virginia starting promptly at 7:30 pm on Tuesday October 16, I arrived 30 minutes prior to meet with Brian Hansen, athletic communications associate for volleyball. The media tables were set up on the side of the court. There was only one spare chair so the other student and I alternating standing and observing with sitting in the chair with the headphones listening to Hansen call the game. Hansen was responsible for the other staff member who was inputting the data into a program as well as calling the game. Calling the game included stating subs, errors, assists, kills, aces, blocks, and set number.
I observed as Hansen oversaw the overall communications activities such as inputting the data and the other employee had a twitter stream up on the laptop and was tweeting updates during breaks of the game. After each set, Hansen would print out the statistics for his team as well as the the communications representative sitting at the other end of the table for UVA. I asked if it was customary for the home team to provide materials for the away team. He responded that he usually had stat sheets for them as well as a roster. Along with the communications team, the score keepers and announcer also sat at the media tables and worked closely with the referee. Hansen was extremely accurate at game-calling and several times had to correct the score keeper to keep him up on play.
Shadowing Brian Hansen, I learned that there is always more than meets the eye with these positions. He was on top of everything about the game as well as updating accurate statistics and relevant online updates. Hansen made sure that his team had everything necessary to do their job as well as making the away team’s communication associate’s job easier. He had a good rapport with all coaches which he said made his job much easier. If I were to do the job shadowing again, I would ask a few follow up questions after the game to get some information about what his job entails on the off-season or on non-game days. Overall, I liked his job although I found it difficult to keep up with the stat database.
