MICHAEL HAWKINS JR. WENT AIRBORNE FOR THE TD ✈️ 📺 ACCN

People have asked me recently about the origin of these early-2000s WVU football recruiting videos. This is the 2005 video. Back in 2003, Rich Rodriguez had a vision: show recruits a video on their official visit that captured what Mountaineer Football was all about. Here’s the backstory of how these were made: It started in 2002. I was shooting practice for the team (did this for 6 seasons) and started making the Friday night hype videos for the team. In 2002, the Continental Tire Bowl needed a highlight video to show at events, so I cut a music video for the team. My wife Bethany gave me the idea to use “A Little Less Conversation” by Elvis. After 2003, Rich and Dusty Rutledge wanted something that told a deeper story of the program. They gave me total freedom, and in the years I made them, they never changed a shot. The music was the most important piece. That drove the emotion. Without streaming services, I’d go to Barnes & Noble and stand at the “preview” CD kiosks where you could listen to 30-second snippets. Bethany would also listen intently to songs on commercials or TV shows and we’d hunt them down. At the same time, I was producing “MSN Game,” a 1-hour recap of every game that aired on Fox Sports Pittsburgh. Games were still being played that weren't on live TV. I’d log every shot of a game and edit the show on Sundays using Tony Caridi’s radio call. I used MSN Game as a template to know when the big plays happened, but then I’d go through all of the other tapes to find the off-the-radar shots that felt different—angles and moments nobody had ever seen in traditional highlights. Those were the money shots. MSN had shooters at every game—guys like Greg Shock and Joe Webb captured so many shots that brought these videos alive. I wanted every shot to convey emotion to keep the videos constantly moving. I’d also barter with network TV producers to get their “melts” because they were gold: replays of big plays in real speed with zero scorebugs or graphics. Scott Bartlett made sure every game broadcast was recorded, and Tony Caridi and the TV announcers became the voice of the videos along with Rich’s pregame speeches. The physical workflow was a grind: everything had to be digitized in real time through tape machines. For a single game, you could easily have 20+ tapes to run through. I’d edit all season, and could have up to 50 iterations of the video as I continued to make changes. I’d burn the final version to VHS, and eventually DVD, and hand them off to Dusty for recruiting visits, and they would be shown at fundraising events as well. Three more football videos from the vault coming soon.