T. Buckingham Thomas

My old college radio station is back on the air, as its fall broadcast season begins tomorrow. The Oberlin student newspaper reports: “WOBC Returns to FM Broadcast After Nine-Month Radio Silence.“

In my day, the door to WOBC-FM was at the opposite end of this recently-remodeled third-floor hallway. The photo is from the college's Around the Square newsletter, which notes, “Comprehensive renovations to Wilder Hall passed a major milestone this summer, as Phase 2 of the multiyear project concluded in time for the fall semester.

“The heart of campus life for generations of Oberlin students, historic Wilder Hall offers a host of newly reimagined gathering spaces as well as spacious new offices and meeting rooms for Student Affairs staff and student organizations.“

As Phase 2 draws to a close, the next seven projects include “completion of WOBC radio's fourth-floor studios and the Gear Co-op, as well as adjacent storage for WOBC. Phase 3 renovations will continue through the upcoming academic year, with completion scheduled for August 2027.“

In big-time TV, lowly graphics operators like me don't talk to the producers. Any communication runs in the opposite direction and takes place through intermediaries. But interaction is more informal with small crews. Here's some examples I think I recall.

• On one show, our analyst was a former player. She had no broadcast experience and was rather nervous. The producer was recording a pregame segment during which she would describe the home team and then the visiting team — in that order, for no particular reason. I prepared the graphics to illustrate his points. But it turned out that the analyst preferred to give the points in the opposite order, which would flow better. I began rearranging the stack of graphics, but the producer didn't want to wait; he wanted to tell the analyst to reorder her comments. “No, no,” said I, madly clicking away at my keyboard. “Changing what she's already memorized would confuse her. I'll be done in a moment.” The director commented, “He's a pro.”

• In each quarter, TV was allowed to call time out at one change of possession for a commercial break. I noticed that the third quarter was almost over and we hadn't gotten our break yet and here was an opportunity. I pointed this out to the producer, who'd forgotten about commercials.. Good thing that someone was paying attention.

• Another game was almost over and the outcome was no longer in doubt. We had been on the air for slightly longer than our allotted time slot. After what appeared to be the final play, the producer began counting down to the end of the telecast. But I had an eye on my graphics. “There's three seconds left on the clock!” I cried, thus avoiding the faux pas of leaving the air while the game was still in progress. Good thing that someone was paying attention.

It was only three months ago that Pittsburgh held a huge parade to honor the Penguins for winning hockey’s Stanley Cup. But our brief summer hockey respite is already at an end. It’s time to start making ice again. The Consol Energy Center hosted a couple of World Cup of Hockey pre-tournament exhibitions last night, and the Penguins’ first preseason game is in Detroit a week from Tuesday.

Long ago when I was in high school, snapping whippers, our vacation time between athletic seasons was longer than three months. It was nine months. We never wearied of a sport.

Consider my classmate Criss Somerlot (1947-2023), a four-sport man. In August, Richwood High School began practice for high school football, where he was a lineman and placekicker. In November, we put away the pads and Criss became a forward on the basketball team. In February, we put away the basketballs and he started tossing the shot and discus. And in May, the track and field season ended and Criss headed to the baseball diamond.

Criss went on to specialize in “the weights.” He set the Ohio University record in the hammer throw, a staple of the Olympics. (And of frustrated dads, according to Captain Obvious). Then Criss became a widely respected track and field coach. Next month he’ll be inducted into the OU Athletic Hall of Fame.

Right now, many are growing tired of Major League Baseball — especially those of us who follow the Pittsburgh Pirates, losers of 13 of their last 16 games. The season started with spring training seven months ago and isn't scheduled to end until Game 7 of the World Series on November 2.

Bad news: I asked the groundhog whether autumn is just around the corner. He glanced at his shadow and said no, we’re going to have six more weeks of baseball.

“Cheapatopia” is a utopian community proposed by Scott Adams in 2009, as I noted here. “Cheapatopia puts a big emphasis on social interaction. The only rides you would ever need would be to the nearest airport. There would be no cars within Cheapatopia. Most of your meals are eaten at the city-run all-you-can-eat buffets located in each neighborhood. Residents could get further discounts on their buffet meal plans by agreeing to work shifts at the cafeteria. You might find it fun to work with your neighbors for a few hours every week. Most people make their friends from their organized activities, past or present. They find their spouses and lovers the same way. Cheapatopia increases your social involvement and therefore your social life.

“Many of you believe Cheapatopia can't work because utopian communes have been tried and failed. And besides, you wouldn't want to live in such a socialist place. But Cheapatopia is designed with individual self-interest as the founding principle. Living in Cheapatopia is optional. Plain old capitalism will always surround it.

“The closest model is college dormitory living. In college, the meals are communal, the buildings are inexpensive, and the social life is organized and abundant.”

“The usual assumption,” writes Kimberlee Josephson for the Wall Street Journal (quoted in The Week), “is that professors are indoctrinating students. But college life itself may be the main factor.”

“This illusion shapes students' economic expectations. No wonder they believe that government should provide public transportation, medical care, and child care for free.

“It's a blinkered way of thinking, but in college, young people are shielded from how the real world works.”

In my local Tribune-Review, TribLive's Tom Fontaine notes that Gallup surveys occasionally ask whether Americans “are united and in agreement about the most important values.”

My Congressman, Chris Deluzio (D-PA), doesn't believe things are as bad as we might think. “Most people aren't sizing up whether a neighbor is a Democrat or Republican and then screaming at them if they're in a different party. People have hope for our country, and they want our country to succeed and do big things. I share that optimism.”

Hi, folks! I'm Tucksey Doe, the penguin. You might recall that “Brother Billy” interviewed me once. (It's this month's 100 Moons article.)

The good brother tried to tell me that because we penguins can't read the Bible, we can't know how to behave morally. I replied that we don't need the Ten Commandments to understand that it's wrong to steal.

Nor do we need the Holy Scriptures to teach us to help one another.

Recently my wife became entangled in some string on the beach, and I had to search for the assistance of a human. I found one and tugged on his pants leg, and together we undid the string. My wife and I set off arm in arm for the safety of the sea, but I knew to stop and turn and bow my thanks to the human. If you haven't seen the video, here it is.

Not having followed sports controversies as carefully as once I did, I'm having trouble identifying unfamiliar terms.

What's the difference between “betting on Kawhi” and “betting on Kalshi”?

And then there are Kasha and Karhi and Korma and Kikiam and Kaniwa and Kjötsúpa, but I guess all those are foodstuffs.

When I was an Oberlin College student broadcasting games on the radio, I was more familiar with the names. It wasn't hard. My alma mater typically has fewer than 40 players on the football roster. Today, with only four wins since 2018, the Division III Yeomen might be the NCAA's worst football team.

The Yeomen are not always held scoreless. A couple of points came in a 33-2 loss to Hiram at Oberlin on Saturday, when Kingston Askerneese ran back this blocked extra point.

Nevertheless, notes Alex Valdes for The Athletic, in November 2025 ESPN's Bill Connolly had Oberlin ranked last among the nation's college football programs at #766.

But their average GPA is 3.52, and coach John Pont is the grandson of the 1967 national coach of the year.

Natalie Winkelfoos, the athletic director since 2012, told Valdes that “it's a team that fights above their weight class. Oberlin is a high academic institution. The rigor is hard. Everything that they're doing is hard, but you would never know it because of the amount of joy that they're showing up with. Success belongs with the people that persist. That's Oberlin College football.”

On the other hand, Oberlin High School football will have no success this year. Only eight students showed up for the start of camp on August 3, and only seven the next day. The local school district noted, “Student participation has increased in other extracurricular activities, providing students with a wider variety of interests and opportunities. [But] despite extensive in-house recruiting efforts, participation has not reached a level necessary to safely sustain a varsity football program. The District has no choice other than to cancel the 2026 Oberlin High School football season.” Kimbap.

A century ago, the game of football was played by college and high school students on autumn Saturday afternoons. Then many high schools installed lights at their fields and began playing on Friday nights.

From the 1954 Tigrtrax, the Richwood High School Tigers kick an extra point.
The lights at Memorial Field weren’t very bright,
so the ball was white and the photographer used flash.

Meanwhile, professional teams claimed Sundays. They eventually competed most of the winter as well, into February. I grew up feeling this was the natural gridiron progression: high school on Friday night, college on Saturday, pro on Sunday.

That natural order began to break down with the debut of Monday Night Football in 1970, and a gradual relaxation of standards continues even today. This past Friday evening, there were five college games live on my cable TV — college games, not high school.

FS1

Kansas State

vs

8

Stanford

BIG TEN

Furman

vs

12

Michigan State

ESPN

Colorado State

vs

Colorado

ESPNU

Toledo

vs

Arkansas State

CBSSN

Army

vs

Temple

Next Friday, two such telecasts are scheduled. High schools managed to preserve their Friday monopoly for a long time, but fewer kids are playing football these days and their time slot exclusivity seems to have gone away.

UPDATE, SEPTEMBER 5, 2026

Last night I watched two simultaneous Friday-night high school games on local TV channels.

The somewhat more polished telecast was on WPKD-TV channel 19, which falsely claims its call letters are KDKA+ because it's co-owned by the CBS affiliate. Their cameras included a drone which gave us a beautiful overhead view of the Montour stadium with a fading sunset on the horizon. Later the drone turned to the east to show us the distant skyline of downtown Pittsburgh.

On my second TV (with the sound off), I tuned in “Friday Night Rivals” on WPNT channel 22. The Mars at Aliquippa game had just started, and I watched Mars score a pick-six touchdown. I looked down at the score bug at the bottom of the screen. Uh-oh. It was trying to tell me that the game was still scoreless, and the situation was first and ten with 15:00 remaining in the 12-minute first quarter.

This fake news remained for most of the period. Why did they keep lying to us? I knew there was another graphics machine available to identify people and Keys to the Game and such. They could have typed up a quick score using that machine. But the score bug included ads for a sponsor and the station, and those logos had to be aired.

They could have aimed a camera at the stadium scoreboard — you know, that big red panel with all the amber bulbs standing right there on the far sideline. Finally we did get that shot with ten seconds to go in the period.

And then as I watched, the score bug came to life. Aliquippa was threatening to score and its points scrolled upwards — no, wait, wrong team, take that down, Mars is the team that has six points. Then Aliquippa actually did score, so a 6 appeared for them. The extra point was good, so the score changed to 5. No, wait, we should have hit the up arrow; make that 7. Can we get someone in here who actually knows how to run this darn machine?

Apparently they did so, because beginning with the second quarter all was well. The time remaining seemed correct, presumably because electronic data was coming from that big red scoreboard. Even the closed captioning magically began to work.

As a retired former graphics operator for such telecasts, this drama fascinated me more than the actual game. The players seemed disorganized, knee pads were improperly worn, and in the second half (75° with 82% humidity) someone fell to the ground with cramps after almost every play. And I didn't like the light shows following touchdowns by the home team. Flicking the stadium lights off and on repeatedly may be safer and cheaper than fireworks, but I find it annoying. Hmph.

It's my understanding that an ordinary employee of a one-hour TV show can somehow obtain a title as one of the bosses. An actor, or even a gaffer or a dialogue coach, can be called an Executive Producer. That status is indicated by his on-screen credit and by the paycheck he receives.

At the end of Episode 4 of The Shards, I was astonished at the length of the credits. I had to rewind for a minute so I could count.

There were 13 Executive Producers,
           10 Co-Executive Producers,
                          one Produced By,
                                one Producer,
                  and five Co-Producers.

Then I searched for a stock picture depicting such an overgrown production staff — thirty highly-paid honchos in all!

No shortage of jobs here.