By 1996, more and more traditional sources were arriving online, pushing SAINTERNET toward obsolescence. I was unwilling to abandon the project, however; I still felt that I could do a superior job of reporting on the team's ultimate reason for being- the football games themselves.

Part of the puzzle was le Stat, which allowed me to generate a graphical play-by-play drive chart for each game (see this explanation to make sense of it). By encapsulating a number of game stats (including time-of-possession, field position, and play type) into one graphic, the goal was to reveal patterns that explained the team's success or failure.

technical notes on le Stat (skip if you're not a geek)

I used Visual Basic (in the form of macros running in Excel) to record the following game states for each play- game ID, team in possession, quarterback, game clock, line of scrimmage, yardline of 1st down marker, ball carrier / receiver, play type (run, pass, incompletion, sack, kick, penalty, return, INT), Saints' score, opponents' score. This produced a data file with 10 columns (the above quantities) and as many rows as there were plays. A perl script then converted the data file into a format that could be read by fly, which then generated the GIF-format drive chart.

The stat recording was usually done in real time; at times I did it by watching a replay of the game. Hopping from Visual Basic to perl to fly is rather inelegant, but it was a necessary consequence of my limited programming ability (and the computing resources I had access to). I would've liked to have put everything together in a neat package someday.

Of course, a drive chart is just one view of le Stat's database. My plan was to put together a CGI script that would allow users to generate custom stats (for example, runs by Ray Zellars in the fourth quarter of games played on artificial turf) via a webform. Unfortunately, I never completed that project.

Statistics are nice, but fail to deliver the spirit of the game. I decided that I needed to make game footage a part of my reportage. But how could I (legally) gain access to game footage, and how could I get it to the displaced Saints fans that constituted by audience? My answer was KVR-TV, the student-run television station of The University of Texas at Austin.

In 1995, KVR was a pioneer of web-based video, sending its signal out over the Internet 24 hours/day via CUseeMe. In addition, KVR was (and is) a low-power FCC-licensed broadcast television station, sending its signal out over-the-air to Austin residents' rabbit-ear antennas. Through KVR I hoped to keep the range-of-distribution advantage associated with the Internet while also getting around the problem of credentials, by positioning myself as a representative of "old media" (broadcast television). I assumed that my work on SAINTERNET was worthless, clout-wise.

Before I could legitimately claim status as a member of the traditional media, I needed to develop some skills. I started working at the station in January 1997 and became trained in video production. That fall, I shot footage of seven Texas Longhorns football games, which was good preparation for working an NFL sideline. In 1998, I made it to the big leagues; this post recaps my initial contact with the team.

Though the video version of SAINTERNET had come to life, the web distribution aspect had fallen through. As it turned out, the webcasting effort had largely been the pet project of a particular KVR staffmember, and it went away when he left the station (shortly before I arrived). The station had financial and other troubles, and reinstating webcasting was seen as a low-priority luxury.

I forged ahead anyway, making six 1000-mile round trips to Louisiana to shoot footage from the sideline (Cowboys scrimmage, Bucs preseason, 49ers, Bucs, Cowboys, Falcons regular season). To maximize the timeliness of the footage, I put together each half-hour episode by 9:30pm Monday (note that I didn't get back into Austin until around midnight Sunday; getting the show done on time was quite a logistical and production challenge). The broadcast version of SAINTERNET was full of exclusive game footage and team analysis, but it was mostly wasted on Austinites with little interest in the Saints.

After the '98 season, I considered calling it quits, but the team's drafting of Ricky Williams introduced a local angle that kept me going (plus, I still harbored some hope of reviving the station's webcast). I ended up being appointed to a one-year term as KVR's Station Manager- while learning to produce my show, I'd learned a lot about television and KVR, and felt uniquely qualified to take over for a spell.

Unfortunately, the webcasting didn't materialize, and Ricky's injury (plus the team's collapse) kept local interest low as well. In '99 I made four trips (Packers preseason, Panthers, Titans, Cowboys regular season). Over two years I produced 18 episodes of SAINTERNET, but they never reached my intended audience.

Webcasting is slated to return to KVR this fall- Texas Student Publications (the umbrella organization for KVR and the other on-campus student media) has signed a deal with CampusEngine.com which will (among other things) reinstate KVR's ability to stream. It comes too late, however. A confluence of events has led me to decide to wind down SAINTERNET. In May my term as Station Manager ended, and I graduated from UT (after having spent an unheard-of 7+ years to earn a Master's degree). Sometime in 2000, UT will close my computer account. Of course, I could simply continue SAINTERNET on a new ISP (that's what I'll do for my other big online project, SATURDAY NET), but, for a number of reasons, SAINTERNET will likely become a shadow of its former self.

Having a full-time job will cure me of being perpetually-broke, but it will cut down on the time I have to spend on SAINTERNET. Also, my grandfather, who made my weekend excursions possible by providing food, lodging, and transportation to and from the Dome (his parking space was only a few dozen feet from the media entrance), has sold his house in Metairie, and will soon (like me, my brother, and my parents) move from the New Orleans area to central Texas.

Finally, it's becoming increasingly difficult for amateur reporters to make innovative contributions to the field of reportage- the Times Picayune now puts all its Saints content online, WWL-TV broadcasts via the web, and neworleanssaints.com has first dibs on everything.