Qualifications necessary for a JumboTron operator

With the recent Red Wings game fresh in mind, this got me to thinking as to just what the qualifications are for the position of a JumboTron operator at sports stadiums.

For the uninitiated, at large sports arenas, there will be more than one video camera-person walking through the stands filming people in the crowd for live shots put up on the overhead JumboTron (large screen) between periods or when there are breaks in the game action. The live shots of people on the JumboTron will rotate from time to time and I am assuming that there is a technician "behind-the-scenes" who has a monitor in front of him/her of the various live shots taken by his camera-people and decides which shots get on the JumboTron and also then decides when to switch to another shot. Sounds kind of fun but the more you think about it, this is not as easy as it seems.

I notice that they seem to like to show a few pretty ladies smiling and waiving at the camera and in these cases, this scene will linger on the JumboTron for quite a while. People like this. Another popular scene is a kid or a group of kids dancing or cheering for their team. This scenario also gets quite a bit of time on the large screen. Most people like kids. What you will see less frequently is a group of men "guys" typically with beer cups in hand (sometimes stacked high into the empties) and all standing with one of them having his face very close to the camera and holding up his index finger screaming "WE ARE NUMBER ONE. YEAHHH!". The behind-the-scenes technician does not seem to have too much patience with this and the picture on the JumboTron is usually changed to something else once the ringleader of the group gets his face right up to the camera lens. I mean who wants to see tonsils , stubble and extreme inebriation; though the latter can be pretty funny. None the less, this is really somewhat harmless.

What seems most challenging for the technician is when he is confronted by what initially seems like an innocent scene (two ladies waiving) and a third party (or parties) "crashes the scene", maybe even with a sign or something, and mugs for the camera and appears to be ready to do something inappropriate. I notice that these scenes are switched immediately on the big screen as I am sure the technician was getting a bit nervous as to what could possibly happen next and again immediately switches the JumboTron picture to a "safer" scene (back to kids or something). Obviously this is kind of an old ritual which has gone on for years and I could be wrong, but I cannot ever recall something inappropriate ever make it to the JumboTron though I am sure that there have been some very close calls and all of this is due to the skill and judgement of the "behind-the-scenes" technician.

When an arena has an opening for this technician position, I have to believe that the necessary qualifications for this position would have to be something like the following:

1. Must have a clear understanding of what inappropriate behavior is.

2. Must know all of the obscene and inappropriate hand and other gestures.

3. Must understand the effects of alcohol on human behavior. Perhaps best learned through personal experience.

4. Must be able to anticipate inappropriate behavior before it happens. Don't ask how to do this. You should just know.

5. Must have a quick trigger finger. There is no room for error.

We don't care how impressive your other video technical skills are, if you do not possess even one of the five necessary attributes noted above, you are by definition not qualified for this job.

Sorry.