Last week we arrived in Oxford at 8 a.m., three hours before kickoff.
There was no coffee in the press box, which was a surprise, but was told there was coffee one floor up, which happens to be where the high-dollar boxes and announcing booths are. The Keurig was empty of water and I asked a guy who was doing something at a table next to the coffee machine if he knew where there was water.
He gave me a brief, odd look and said no, but maybe the lady across the room did.
She did. She was a hostess on the floor and she filled the water vessel and handed it back to me.
I got it reattached and the heating process started, and then while the coffee was brewing I looked over and saw the guy was putting together charts to be used by the play-by-play announcer during the game.
“Looks like you’ve done that before,” I said.
“About 20 years,’ he said.
The guy looked familiar but it wasn’t until I was back in the press box sipping coffee that it hit me. He looked like one of the hosts on a silly show, “Holey Moley,” which is an amateur golf competition with traps and challenges.
It was him.
Joe Tessitore, who as it turned out was the play-by-play guy that day for Arkansas-Ole Miss.
He’s a well respected ESPN announcer but I’m guessing by the odd look I got no one has ever asked him where the water was to make coffee.
He did send me in the right direction.
Please understand I didn’t know who it was because I’m usually covering games, not watching them on ESPN.