The referee extends his hand palm up. In it is a 7.62 millimeter rifle bullet. D’Armato takes it and slips it into the breech of his rifle, a specially made, single shot pro-model Remington with a 12 x 50 day/nightlight scope mounted on it. It’s a superbly accurate sniping weapon. Hidden safeties throughout the league are pretty evenly split between it and a similar model manufactured by Winchester. D’Armato actually prefers the Winchester, but his Remington TV commercials double his yearly income and dictate his choice in the game.

Loaded and ready, his cameraman and referee tagging along behind, D’Armato trots down Pinckney, cuts right onto Louisburg Square and disappears. He’ll follow the action from a distance, responding according to secret signals he and T.K. arranged between them before the game. T.K. will either have him hide out in a tall building if the situation warrants the expenditure of his bullet, or will signal him to try and stalk the ball carrier and attempt to knife him on the ground.

T.K. has a good deal of latitude in hidden safety positioning since the hidden safety (as well as the mediman, although for more altruistic purposes) is not required to be on side at the start of a play. Because of this uninhibited spatial freedom, the hidden safety (again like the mediman) isn’t permitted to carry the football, something allowed every other member of the team, backs and linemen alike.

T.K. marshals his teammates, gives them a few last words of encouragement, joins them for a communal handshake, and leads them toward Myrtle Street, there to line up for the kickoff.

Monday, February 22, 2010

Pierce Spencer, president of the International Broadcasting Company, is nicely summarized by one word. Control. That’s what he does best, that’s what he most enjoys. Nothing in IBC escapes his domination. He selects camera angles, auditions actors, chooses costumes, rewrites scripts, everything. He influences every aspect of IBC programming, delegating as little of his authority as possible. Management experts, when confronted with his administrative possessiveness, have been known to throw up their clipboards in horror. It can’t work, they decide, but their theories unravel around them, because it does, and well.

Spencer is seated at his desk, surrounded by the yardsticks of his success, the golden statuettes, the framed certificates, the upward soaring graphs depicting advertising and replay revenues.