HTHS gets chance on the big stage

The honor of being selected to play a high school football game on national television is a bit of a double-edged sword.

On one hand, it means your program is highly regarded. On the other, so is the opponent.

The Hewitt-Trussville High School football team was showcased on ESPNU when the Huskies hosted Thompson on Sept. 18. It was the third time in three years Hewitt-Trussville has played on the ESPN family of networks and the first time it had the opportunity of being the host school.

“It’s a way to showcase our students, our faculty, stadium, really everything in the community,” Hewitt-Trussville athletics director Lance Walker said.

But with a 35-21 loss to Thompson, Hewitt-Trussville fell to 0-3 in those three high profile games. The Huskies’ other two appearances on national television came in 2018, a 34-30 loss to Cedar Grove (Georgia) in a game at the Hoover Met and a 63-49 loss to Thompson.

In the latest nationally televised game, Hewitt-Trussville gave up 28 points in a fateful second quarter and was unable to rally in the second half.

Despite the loss on the field, the city of Trussville was exposed to the nation in a positive manner. The only drawback in Walker’s and head coach Josh Floyd’s eyes was the limited crowd capacity due to COVID-19.

“Our community supports us so well and there’s been so many games in the past where it was standing room only, and it would’ve been great to showcase that on national TV,” Walker said.

The effort to coordinate all the logistics surrounding the game were more  complicated than in normal times. In previous years, ESPN plans its live programming schedule for the fall several months in advance. But with so much uncertainty during the pandemic, that wasn’t possible in 2020.

Walker said ESPN reached out to the school a few weeks before the game was scheduled to be played. That set into motion a sequence of events to get everything in place.

“The television window started at 7:30 [p.m.], so one of our first steps was contacting the AHSAA to move the game time,” Walker said. “There was a contract involved, so our board of education had to approve that.”

Once ESPN announced it was broadcasting the contest a week before the game, Hewitt-Trussville was then able to begin promoting the event to the community.

Walker said ESPN was great to work within the lead-up to the game being played, as the network began preparing for its broadcast with a site visit about 10 days before the game. Personnel from the network and from Hewitt-Trussville Stadium, the city of Trussville and many others had to formulate a plan to make sure everyone had what they needed to ensure the game went off without a hitch.

“It took a lot of people from our school system working with them and everybody working together to figure those things out,” Walker said.

Like many other live sporting events in 2020, the game was unique in the sense that it was broadcast remotely, with the game’s announcers back at ESPN in Connecticut. Making sure the production team had all of the school’s logos, team roster and other pertinent information was more critical since the announcers were not on location.

Even though the crowd was limited, the telecast still served as an opportunity for the Hewitt-Trussville band, auxiliary, cheerleaders, student section and others to be part of a prestigious environment.

“It’s still a great opportunity for our community to show what Trussville is all about,” Floyd said.

Hewitt-Trussville suffered a loss in the game, but Walker said an event like that makes him feel gratitude for those he works with at Trussville City Schools.

“Thankful to have great leadership in our school system, coaches, parents, kids on the team,” he said. “It takes all of those things coming together to have an opportunity like that. Hopefully down the road we’ll be able to welcome them again and pack it out when we do.”