ATLANTA – Embarrassed ESPN officials admitted on Thursday morning that analyst Paul Maguire had been abandoned on his end-zone camera boom position at the Georgia Dome since Monday night’s Peach Bowl broadcast, but stressed that a rescue effort was currently underway.
For the past several seasons, Maguire has acted as a third analyst on national broadcasts on ESPN and ABC. While Brad Nessler and Bob Griese work in the press box, Maguire is positioned on a giant camera boom behind one end zone, giving him what ESPN officials called a "unique perspective" on the game.
"While we would love for all of our broadcasts to perfect, anyone in the industry knows that this just isn't possible," said ESPN Executive Senior Vice President of Studio and Event Production Norby Williamson. "Unfortunately, there were a serious of mistakes and situations that led to Paul remaining on his broadcast post for an extended period of time."
Williamson said that several factors were involved. The responsibility for removing Maguire from his camera crane position usually falls on production assistant Scott "Scooter" Jones, but he missed the Peach Bowl to attend to the birth of his first child. The replacement production assistant who put Maguire onto his post had been called away on other production duties, but had failed to re-assign the job of lowering Maguire from the 15-foot tall crane.
"The fact that it was New Year's Eve didn't help matters," Williamson said. "A lot of the crew wanted to get out of there as quickly as possible, especially since the game had run into overtime. There were apparently some pretty 'bumpin' parties down in the Buckethead District, and our crew wanted to enjoy their evening. Somehow in the rush, no one thought to get Paul down."
Further complicating matters was the fact that Griese, designated as Maguire's "travel buddy", was apparently in no condition to assist after the game.
"We usually assign Bob to help make sure that Paul gets to the airport OK and doesn't get confused in a new city and become hopelessly lost again," Williamson said. "But to tell you the truth, Bob's been hitting the bottle pretty good since the Patriots won their last game and matched Bob's 1972 Dolphin team for a perfect record. When we were packing up and ready to leave 45 minutes after sign-pff, Bob had already gotten into the rye, and you know him and the rye."
It is believed that Macguire, 69, fell asleep after the final play of the game, and did not wake up until the next morning. He was found by a crew late Wednesday night coming into the Georgia Dome to set up for an upcoming Miley Cyrus concert. Maguire was reported to be in fair condition, although he requested a Tab soda and some Cream of Wheat after not having eaten or drank for almost 48 hours.
Initial attempts to remove Maguire from the crane were unsuccessful, as workers' attempts to shout instructions to Maguire on how to work the crane controls located on an armrest right next to him were hampered my Maguire's poor hearing and his, in the words of one rescue worker, "complete inability to work anything electronic that is more complicated than a toaster."
"I sensed that something was wrong on the shuttle back to the hotel," said Nessler. "Something didn't smell right - and I'm not just talking about Griese and his rye. Some smell was missing. Looking back now, it was the Old Man smell that Paul has. It's overpowering - like burnt coffee, Vicks and mothballs. Frankly, that's the reason he's out in the end zone instead of in the booth with us."
This marks the worst incident of a broadcaster being left behind after an assignment since Jim McKay was stranded in Austria following a broadcast of a Formula 1 race on ABC's Wide World of Sports in 1975 and was forced to eat color commentator Jackie Stewart to survive.
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