Stories from days gone by...

There was a time, long ago, when I was the ripe old age of 22ish, when I was doing college basketball games on the radio with this guy, we'll call Phil. (Name changed to protect his current radio gig).

This would have been back in 1997, sometime in November, when we were supposed to go do a road game some 4 and a half hours away. At the time, being a low budget junior college radio station, we were forced to do any remote broadcasts from a "cell caster", which is essentially, a cell phone that hooked up to our broadcast gear. The deal we had with the provider was we'd give them free advertising in exchange for turning on the cell service on days of games, which we had arranged well ahead of time.

Fast forward to the day of the game, when Phil, his girlfriend (though he'd deny it all the time) Phyllis (again, name changed to protect... something), and myself driving to the game, listening to Creedence Clearwater Revival and having deep discussions about fried chicken (yes, really), when we decided to stop for lunch, some 2 hours from the Bay Area. While waiting for our Denny's lunch special, we decide to check the cell caster, and make sure service was active, something that would have been prudent to do, oh, say 3 hours ago, when we were loading up the stuff. We dial the station, and get a "no service" tone.

The three of us look at each other in disbelief, either in shock at the fact the waitress actually put our orders in, despite the language barriers between us (she was hispanxican), or the fact that the douchebag at the cell shop failed to turn on service. We try again, and are met again with the taunting no service tone.

We then decide to head back, since there would be no point in trying to broadcast the game without this vital piece of equiptment. As we cross back over the Altamont Pass (580 West), we try one more time to call the station, and the call went through. Turns out that the guy turned the thing on for Local Service Only, which defeated the point of having the damn thing turned on to begin with.

Dejected, we plotted a course to the studio, however, Phil got an idea. (This is where the dramatic DUN DUN DUHHHHHHHH would play). "There is a Warrior's game on tonight, isn't there?" asked Phil, to which I said "uh huh". Then I got where he was going... were we to violate the "This game is presented by the authority of the NBA and can not be rebroadcast..." rule that is mentioned so prominently during the 1st quarter (usually)?... No... Yes... No... "Why not, no one will be listening anyways, we need the tape." he says. "Besides, I got a case of Miller Lite and we can pick up a bucket of chicken...." and that's all he had to say. Chicken and beer, all the while rebroadcasting an NBA game and passing it off as our own? Who could resist?

So we got back to his modest home (and believe me, modest is a generous statement) after picking up our essentials for the evening. Sitting in his living room, 30 minutes before game time, we hook up the equiptment, dial into the studio, and get ready to perpetuate the biggest hoax the college has ever beared witness to... if anyone had been listening to it anyway.

We told the board op that we were high above the floor, in this vacuumed sealed booth, where all the sound from the arena was magically kept out, so there was not even the slightest of game related noises coming though (and incidently, there were quite a few meows from his cat that made the tape).

Now, tip off time, and we began to pass off others work as our own, the guilt being gently washed away with Miller Lite and greasy fried chicken. Long story short (too late), by the time the game ended, we were sloppy drunk, producing bodily gasses en masse, and passing off the final score as the final from our game.

Oddly enough, when we looked at the paper the next day, the score was nowhere near the score we broadcasted, but no one thought to ask us why... However the right team did lose (us and the Warriors from the night before), and as days went by, we knew we were in the clear...

That my friends, I have been holding in for 13 years, telling only the closest of my inner circle of friends... and now you know the story of Miller Lite, Fried Chicken, and Radio Plagurism. I think the statute of limitations is well past.