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The crowd erupted in cheers as Juneau’s high school football team made a tackle on the soggy turf field in Adair-Kennedy Memorial Park on Saturday afternoon.
The Crimson Bears were playing against last year’s state champions, Anchorage’s Dimond High School. Spectators in rain jackets packed the stands and others stood out in the weather, lining the track with umbrellas.
Cheerleaders got a break from the rain when they donned white cowboy hats between routines. It was a classic Crimson Bears game. But there were some unfamiliar faces.
A team of five reporters and cameramen from national TV network NBC were chasing the action on the field with big cameras covered in plastic bags.
The crew flew in to catch a very rainy game. It may end up part of a feature the network plans to air on the day of the most-watched sporting event in the United States – the Super Bowl.
Ken Brown is a middle school teacher and wrestling coach. He was standing with a few other teachers on the track in the rain. He said the turnout is about the same as it usually is, TV cameras or not.
“It’s just a big community atmosphere,” Brown said.
Brown comes to games because he likes to see his former wrestlers play, and he said it makes sense that NBC would choose Juneau as one of the games they plan to feature.
“Down here we’re in the middle of a rainforest,” he said. “It’s really wild.”
Longtime NFL sports reporter Peter King stood under a giant inflatable Crimson Bear at one end of the field. He had one eye on the game as he spoke.
He covered the NFL for four decades. He retired last year, but pitched a story to NBC that found him battling the driving rain in Juneau.
“I suggested the story, ‘Let’s go out and look at five or six high school football teams across the United States, and let’s take the temperature of why high school football matters,’” he said.
King’s team already visited the Winnebago reservation in Nebraska. He said he wanted to go to far-flung places: the team initially planned to go to Hawaii, to a school where the football field has a view of the Pacific Ocean.
“And I said, ‘How great. But it just felt a little bit too pretty,’” King said.
The weather in Juneau is a different story.
“There are some times when it stops raining, and you say, ‘Wow, it was just raining five minutes ago, and then it stopped raining, and now it’s pouring again,’” he said. “And I say, ‘This is some interesting weather you have here.’”
But he was pleased with it. He said the rainy day only makes the footage more real —and more reflective of what makes Juneau special.
“This whole thing is awesome, I love it,” King said. “I’m so happy we chose Juneau. And the kids — you know, we’re going to do some interviews with the players, and I was in their locker room before the game. They’re marvelous. They’re absolutely marvelous.”
King said he saw the Crimson Bears’ star player helping his teammates tape up their ankles.
Juneau’s sense of community and ruggedness is what King’s looking for in the football teams he visits, including a girls flag football game in Alabama.
Super Bowl LX will take place Feb. 8 in Santa Clara, California. As for Saturday’s game, the Crimson Bears narrowly beat Dimond High, 15-14.
