Norman — In four years, if Sam Craig is couch-bound for the 2014 installment of the Winter Olympics, the athletic spar between countries won’t be as heated, especially without a crowd of Canadians to wage hockey bets against.
After watching the alpine ski races from the finish line — even though it was through a window while working — anything less would be subpar.
“What you see on TV doesn’t come close,” said Craig, chief engineer for Film, Video and Broadcast Production Services at OU, who returned a few weeks ago from the 2010 Vancouver Winter Olympics, where he worked as venue engineer for the alpine skiing event. “There’s this insane amount of energy coming from the crowd as everyone goes crazy for their country that spectators at home never see.”
Craig was subcontracted by Big Screen Network, a production company based in North Carolina, for the winter games.
While there, Craig — dubbed the superman of engineers — oversaw and worked on construction of the control room, high definition video boards and sound equipment for video production at the alpine skiing event that played on the west side of the mountain.
“He leaps tall buildings and all to get things done,” said Brian Scott, producer for the Big Screen Network, who elevated him to superhuman status. Scott has worked with Craig at the Women’s College World Series in Oklahoma City, for which the network also does video production.
When Craig, who’s skied for five years and snowboarded for the last 12, heard the network was hiring last year for the Olympics, he jokingly offered to join the team. A few months later, Scott gave him a call.
“I was really nervous because of the scale of the event,” said Craig, who makes at least one trip to the mountains every year to snowboard.
Most of Craig’s work for big screen operations was completed before the races started, since he memorized the set-ups before departure and physically constructed everything upon arrival.
“I had to remind myself to eat and get water because I had so much to do,” Craig said of the week before the races when he constructed the small control room for his team’s venue, adding that of the 26 days there, he only had one day off. “But the pace changed dramatically after the first week. At that point, I just had to make sure everything worked.”
And as the physical agility of nations waged on the snow and ice, Craig’s team — comprising one Austrian, two Swiss and a Jamaican heading audio control — united, despite language hurdles, such as the blank stare from the Austrians when Craig asked for a screwdriver.
“At that point, you just throw stereotypes out the door,” said Craig of the multi-national team. “We were all there to work and do our job.”
Well … sometimes. When it came to hockey and the Canadians, it was a faceoff between North Americans.
“But it was never anything like my country is better than yours,” Craig said between laughs.
Nanette Light 366-3541 nlight@normantranscript.com
