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The view from the booth: A night with Doug Nintzel and the ASU football stat crew

A behind-the-scenes glance at a part of the crew that makes the Sun Devil Stadium press box tick​.

Members of the stat crew in the press box work during an ASU football game against Northern Arizona University on Saturday, Sept. 4, 2016. 

Members of the stat crew in the press box work during an ASU football game against Northern Arizona University on Saturday, Sept. 4, 2016. 


A college football press box on the first Saturday of September is a flurry of activity from dawn until dusk, like an accounting firm in mid-April or an admissions office in January.

I spent all but the last five minutes of ASU football’s season opener there, like I have for the previous 12 home games at Sun Devil Stadium.

But this time, I watched the first half of the action from a vantage point I hadn’t experienced before — a television monitor visible from the stat booth above the main press box, where the on-field action is logged and recorded for both the general public’s benefit, as well as for future athletic department and media reference.

ASU athletics SID Jeremy Hawkes is the ringleader of the stat crew — a maddeningly high-leverage, low-margin for error job. His day begins long before most media members arrive to the stadium, as he directs interns and other staffers who buzz in and out of rooms filled with computers and printers.

Seated at Hawkes’s right shoulder is Connor Smith, an ASU media relations intern and manual play logger.

If the StatCrew software crashes (Hawkes informed me it has before) Smith’s tedious work is a crucial fail-safe.

Next to Smith is Dale Goreham, a spotter who offered a friendly tease to Smith — there aren’t too many other students in the booth.

"Connor," Goreham said. "How do you like sitting at the big boy table now?" 

Then there’s Doug Nintzel — a spokesman for the Arizona Department of Transportation during the week who is the press box’s internal public address announcer, providing an audio service for the working media.

Ron Cosner, an ASU quarterback from 1959 to 1961, “remains vital,” as a spotter and a veteran presence, Nintzel said.

Cory Dunkirk, who logs offensive player participation, has worn several hats in 38 years of stat-keeping.

"I'm kind of a free agent," Dunkirk said. 

He also works ASU basketball, Arizona Cardinals home games and MMA fights.

As kickoff neared, seats were left vacant except for binoculars and note sheets. Crew members returned stocked with cookies and brownies for the long night ahead.

Hawkes offered instructions to colleagues who walked in and out of the booth working on last-minute pregame tasks.

80 seconds with Doug Nintzel from The State Press on Vimeo. Video by Carly Henry.

At 7:54 p.m., Nintzel picked up a phone in the booth.

“This is the press box," he said, checking for the official kickoff temperature report from the Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport’s National Weather Service station.

We learned at 7:58 that NAU would kick off and defend the south end zone.

Moments later, Nintzel began his first address of the 2016 season to anyone within earshot of the MidFirst Bank Press Box internal PA system.

"Under clear skies, 99 degrees, humidity level 10 percent,” Nintzel said over the intercom after reading a scripted introduction. “Winds are out of the west at 8 miles per hour.”

Goreham said “14 (NAU kicker Griffin Roehler) to kickoff, 12 (ASU receiver Tim White) back deep.”

This is where the magic happens, and right away, everyone watching the game is thrown for a loop.

The kick was short — apparently NAU read the scouting report on White.

Instead, junior running back Kalen Ballage, who changed his uniform number from 9 to 7 this offseason, fielded the kick and took it out to the Lumberjack 44 yard line for a return of 27 yards.

To identify players, spotters have their own shorthand jargon, similar to first responders or air traffic controllers.

"No huddle five shotgun"

"Four rush middle"

“Fifteen pass incomplete”

This can get complicated when there can be as many as three players (either on offense, defense, or special teams) that share the same uniform number. 

To avoid confusion in such cases, there’s also a StatCrew code used by Hawkes and his colleagues, though it doesn't always conform to the player's jersey number. Junior linebacker DJ Calhoun is “0-C,” and senior kicker Zane Gonzalez is “0-G.”

Seven plays later, redshirt sophomore quarterback Manny Wilkins rushed for a 13-yard touchdown with 12:58 in the first quarter.

"This goes without saying, but it's his first career touchdown," Hawkes said. "We are still the only team in the country that hasn't attempted a pass."

All the while, amongst this flurry of dialogue, Hawkes furiously punched in live stats to the ASU StatBroadcast feed.

At 8:05 p.m., an email recapping the first ASU scoring drive arrived in my inbox from ASU SID Doug Tammaro.

Some friendly commentary about the day's action occurred between plays: "Did you see the kid from Houston return the field goal 109 yards?" and "No scoring yet at University of Phoenix Stadium."

"I guess the possessive is of Cookus is Cookuses," Nintzel mused about NAU sophomore quarterback Case Cookus, whose name he said approximately 40 times over the intercom. 

On the first play of the next ASU drive, Wilkins competed his first career pass to Tim White, and two plays later, he threw his first career interception, also intended for White.

At one point, Nintzel got up from his seat and adjusted a dial on a wall behind him that controls the volume of the referee microphone feed to the press box.

"It's one of those things we have to check early in the season," he said. "It's good exercise as well.”

Cosner turned to me and said "When there's a penalty, Doug pounces like a panther —"

"Like a Coconino panther," Nintzel interjected, making a reference to the high school Coconino Panthers in Flagstaff.

When Wilkins bolted into the open field for a 28-yard gain and hurdled a defender, the reaction from the crowd was a mix of shock and awe, similar to the scene in the booth.

With 52 seconds in the half, Kanye West's "Power" blared from the PA, and was quickly muted by the same dial that Nintzel used to hear the referee.

"They changed the channel," he said.

Nintzel sat down with me at halftime to discuss how he got here about a decade ago.

Sun Devil Stadium PA announcer Jeff Scott alerted Nintzel that there was an opening in the booth, which was a prime opportunity for a NAU telecommunications alumnus and former KTAR radio reporter of 13 years with extensive broadcasting and production experience.

“This is really a moonlighting hobby job,” Nintzel said at halftime. “I really enjoy it a lot, the chance to be at ASU games and still have some involvement. I’ve been following Sun Devil football for more than 30 years.”

In the 1980’s, Nintzel was KTAR’s on-site broadcast director, traveling with the team.

On Sundays, Nintzel is a defensive play-spotter for Arizona Cardinals games. 

“I really enjoy the fact that we as a crew have a lot of fun,” Nintzel said. “But we also take it seriously, and we all have those different roles to play as part of the stat crew. The camaraderie is a lot of fun.”

The way schools track statistics and reporters follow games is markedly different now from the 1980’s, and even through the first eight years or so of the new millennium. Now, reporters can look at ESPN’s live trackers and tweet their own play-by-play — but the stat-keeping that Hawkes does is still vital, as the StatBroadcast feed used nearly universally by reporters is run by the crew.

“I really consider my job one of the minor things here,” Nintzel said. “I’m more of a reminder, a background voice in case you might have missed something. The important thing is, who made the tackle? How many yards are gained on the play?”

Nintzel said he listened to Marv Albert call New York Knicks and Rangers games as a boy.

When he moved to Arizona as a 15-year-old, he picked up on Tom Dillon, the long-time voice of the Sun Devils and Arizona Cardinals who passed away in 2008, and Al McCoy, the legendary play-by-play announcer for the Phoenix Suns. While Nintzel's job is to inform and not entertain, listening to those iconic broadcasters helped foster his love of sports. 

One of the perks of Nintzel's job is being among the first to publicly inform the media of milestones and records as players approach them.

This year, all eyes are on Zane Gonzalez as he closes in on the NCAA all-time made field goals leaderboard. 

“I just want to be a voice that is passing along the information,” Nintzel said. “It is fun to be able to say when a particular player is reaching a particular milestone.”

Pregame preparations with SIDs from both ASU and the visiting schools can be exhausting, but they are crucial for the entire stat crew to have a smooth evening.

Nintzel said Pac-12 programs will often have players from Samoan or Polynesian descent, or elsewhere in the Pacific Islands can have names that occasionally aren’t easy to pronounce on the first try.

“As a group, we have a lot of fun listening to me try pronounce some of those names,” Nintzel said. “I give it my best shot, and from there it’s an adventure.”

Editor's note: A previous version of this story listed linebacker DJ Calhoun as a senior. It has been corrected to reflect his status as a junior.


Reach the reporter at smodrich@asu.edu or follow @StefanJModrich on Twitter.

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