I had accepted long ago that the Internet is an everyday part of
my life, but the ways I’ve become reliant on it never cease
to amaze me.
A couple weeks ago, my editor informed me that I wouldn’t
be covering the men’s tennis team down in Texas for the NCAA
Tournament.
Returning to the Daily Bruin office Tuesday evening, I
couldn’t have been happier to have stayed in Los Angeles.
While die-hard UCLA tennis fans were trapped in College
Station’s blistering heat watching a Bruin team stumble early
against an undefeated Baylor squad, I was comfortably watching the
computer screen refresh every 30 seconds as the Bruins fell behind
3-1.
Television networks weren’t broadcasting the NCAA final,
so the gametracker from Texas A&M’s Web site was my only
option to keep tabs on the Bruins’ dramatic comeback. Blind
to the on-court action, I developed an on-screen eagle eye for
every tiebreak point scored and service break picked up. It
wasn’t the most attractive viewing option, but given that
College Sports TV had chosen to run some inane segment on a
Syracuse University women’s lacrosse player, I didn’t
have much of a choice.
The Texas A&M Web site staff was pretty on top of things,
but the scores seemed a little too frozen at times, warranting an
occasional call to the Daily Bruin’s David Regan, who was on
location.
Baylor fans, meanwhile, didn’t have Regan’s phone
number, and the uncertainty and agony they endured was definitely
apparent on their message boards.
During the course of the match, over 700 messages were posted on
baylorfans.com, which reinforced some of my assumptions about the
nightlife in Waco, Texas.
“My gametracker keeps cutting out,” tbear34
complained at 9:42 CT with the 642nd post. “This is a
revolting night.”
Less than one minute and nine posts later, Friscobear seemed
even more distressed as UCLA’s Kris Kwinta served for the
match against Baylor’s Lars Poerschke.
“5-4. No nails left. Starting to chew table,” he
posted.
Productive activity in the Daily Bruin’s sports office
pretty much came to a halt by this point, with editors and
reporters feverishly refreshing their computer screens to see
whether Kwinta had held serve for the championship. Ajaybir
Behniwal, a first-year contributor, was the first to officially
declare the Bruin victory, and it was hard to tell whether he was
more excited that the Bruins had won or that his computer had
narrowly beaten out Regan’s phone call a moment later with
the news.
I had initially thought the gametracker phenomenon was reserved
for sports offices and message board fanatics, but there seemed to
be quite a following within the more general UCLA community as
well. Shortly after the match, I received a few instant messages
from friends who had tuned into their computers for the end of the
match.
“You didn’t get to cover it did you?”
second-year Nick de Goede asked to open our conversation, and there
was a mutual understanding that he wasn’t referring to the
debate between the Bruin Democrats and Republicans.
“How the hell did we win today?” fourth-year Sarah
Pura asked right off the bat, not even bothering to check if I had
been keeping track.
I shared my disbelief with her, particularly because Polish
people (like Kwinta) don’t have such a good track record
against Germans (like Poerschke). Pura and I chatted a little bit
about the unlikelihood of the comeback, as though both of us had
been in College Station to see it unfold. The gametracker served as
our seeing-eye dog, taking us from Point A to Point B without
really knowing what came in between. Needless to say, it
couldn’t quite capture the match’s emotion, but it
still provided the drama. And never before had I expected the
Internet to supply me with that.
E-mail Finley at afinley@media.ucla.edu if your online life
is a soap opera. He promises not to make it the subject of a
message board.