Steve Ingersoll is the game clock operator at Minnesota State Moorhead. Ingersoll has worked at the job for 15 years and has also operated the play clock and the scoreboard. Ingersoll also operates the clock for Moorhead High School football games. He talks about his day when the Dragons have a home football game.
Moorhead
Jim Sheldon - who does the play clock - and I, we are usually at Minnesota State Moorhead about two hours before the start of the game.
We just make sure that everything is running right and there are no problems. It starts, it stops. We set different times on it to make sure it runs down.
About an hour and a half before the game, I put 90 minutes up and start the clock. After that, I go down and talk to the officials. I know most of those guys who do (MSUM) games and we visit a little bit. Then we go back and sit, just waiting for the game to start.
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I'm involved with FM Athletics, too. If I'm doing FM and I've got a game, I'm at Centennial field before 7 o'clock in the morning and we set the fields up for that.
We get all that down hopefully by 8 o'clock. I usually go home or go out for breakfast. I come back to Centennial about 8:30 or 9 and I sit there until about 10 or so and then I go home to get ready for a 1 o'clock (MSUM) game.
If it's a pretty close score, and if they want the clock stopped and started, you've really got to start paying attention. You've got to pay attention to the white hat and to the guys calling the timeouts, and I don't like it. I like a blowout. I like a lot of scoring so I don't have to worry about it.
I don't like it when it gets tight because the finger always comes up to me because I didn't get the clock on or off fast enough.
I remember a Concordia game and I didn't have a chance to get there at my regular time. So somebody started the stuff before I got there and I didn't have a chance to check the clock out. Well, it got time for game time and we started the clock and the clock didn't start. And then we got it started, and the clock didn't stop so somebody hadn't checked it. They just hurried up and did it. So that was a problem and then we had to redo everything. Everybody of course was pointing fingers at me and it wasn't my fault, but of course it was my fault, because it was my responsibility.
You have to pay attention a lot to the officials. There are a lot of people who watch a football game who have no idea what all those signals mean. You can't be daydreaming. You have to know what's going on.
I just enjoy doing it. I have been involved with football. I've done FM Athletics for almost 20 years.
Al Gravalin, you know "Pebbles," from Moorhead High, Pebbles got me into it. He said "We need a time guy, do you want to do it?", and it was just my thing.
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Eric Peterson
