If you were at Bearcat Stadium Friday night for any length of time before the kickoff you likely heard, and were hopefully entertained, if not altogether moved by a succession of audio highlights from the last couple decades of Bearcat football.
The piece was put together by Heath Chambers, who is the school district’s Student Resource Center at the elementary school.
What took you 15 minutes to listen to took Chambers about 80 hours to put together.
“Between research on how to do it and what app to use, and finding the clips, then putting it together,” said Chambers.
As far as where he acquired the clips, some were from recordings made by Hootens.com but most “were from YouTube,” Chambers said, “using Audacity to pull (the audio) from them.”
While some of the newer material was relatively easy to access, some of the older clips came from a Bearcat Classic Sports YouTube channel that is filled with classic games.
“And, me and Brad Schmitt had saved some of that stuff to an SD card a long time ago,” said Chambers.
His interest in that was Chambers was the starting center for the 2000 state champion Bearcats.
Facebook remarks after the game said the stream caused goosebumps. One former coach who was arriving about the time the piece started said he found himself lip syncing Coach Kenneth Rippy’s locker room speeches.
Count Athletic Director Josh Walker among those moved.
“Listening to that played over the loudspeakers gave me and every old Bearcat chills. It was a blast from the past, and I just appreciate Heath taking the time to do that for the community."
The time frame for the clip starts in 1998 because there was nothing to be had prior to that season.
Progressing chronologically, the final plays were runs by current Bearcats Dax Goff and Rylen Ray from the previous two seasons.
“To have everybody it would have been 40 minutes long,” said Chambers. “When I brought it up to Walker he wanted me to keep to about five minutes, 15 was the best I could do.”
“Booneville is built on great tradition. Anytime we can appreciate our traditions or reflect on the people that built this machine, I think we should,” said Walker. “Officer Chambers came to me with the idea and was willing to do the hours of work necessary to build the clip.
“Without hesitation, I told him I thought it would be great!”
Chambers also recalls being subjected to something similar as a senior.
“When we went and played De Queen in the playoffs, the whole pre-game was nothing but radio of that running back they had. Nothing but Bell, Bell, Bell for about 30 minutes,” said Chambers. “It wasn’t so much intimidating to us.”
Hardly, Brad West had scored four touchdowns by the end of the first quarter that night and it wound up being a 41-0 final.
Chambers said he was not really planning to be the architect of the clip but it became apparent that Schmidt was not going to be able to take on the project due to family matters, “so I tried to get it done in two weeks.”
Chambers didn’t even include himself, or Schmitt, though there is a spot in which an announcer is bragging about the work of an offensive line “whipping Nashville’s line” that included both of them, along with Walker, Aubrey Boersman, and Jared Goddard. Kind of if you know, you know.
“I wasn’t the greatest football player. I was an alright baseball player,” said Chambers.
That may be selling it short. As a first baseman, Chambers recorded the final out of the 2001 state championship season.
Chambers, who played some little league football through a state title here, now has a son, Brody, playing for the Bearcat junior high. Unlike dad, Brody Chambers is a fullback.