Smooth Operator
Name: Nathalie Gebara
Age: 18
Major: Bio-Chemistry freshman
Occupation: Sports message board operator
Job description: Go to baseball and basketball games, manipulate the crowd by showing a series of slides on the message board.
Job perks: Gets into UA men's basketball games for free, gets to control the McKale message board at her whim.
Job disadvantages: Has to deal with pushy people, works late nights and days in a row.
Why did Michael Wright score 15 points against Louisiana State in a basketball game last Saturday? Sure, his rebounding and shooting skills had something to do with it, but that could only take him so far.
Whenever Wright made good Saturday, the McKale Center message board flashed "Wright is Right," eliciting a roar from the crowd and enticing Mikey to do it again.
It was Nathalie Gebara who thought of that sign in a creative flurry.
"I thought it was kind of cute," Gebara said.
Gebara has been a UA message board operator for basketball and baseball since the beginning of the semester. The ultimate test of her ability came Saturday, when four basketball staffers called in sick and Gebara had to run the show herself while training a new worker.
"Normally at men's basketball games, there's two people who know what they're doing," Gebara said. "But the other girl didn't know what she was doing, and I had to teach her. It was so hard."
And as if that weren't bad enough, "Then some TV guy came in at halftime with 19 ads and he told me that I had to get those on the board right now," Gebara said. "That's not in my job description. TV people are so demanding or whatever. It was the most stressful time in my life."
But Gebara pulled through. She hoisted the 18 ads onto the message board and lived to work another day, which was good because she had to get up the next morning and do a baseball game.
"Baseball is so much easier," Gebara said. "It's really, really slow."
All in a weekend's work for the message board operator.
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